Five Peaks Green Dew ~ Arbor Teas

I admit it: i had almost forgotten Arbor Teas existed it had been so long since I had sampled anything from them. Sixteen or so ish months ago i reviewed their Ti Kuan Yin, though i honestly don’t remember how i got my hands on it. Arbor Teas doesn’t have a brick and mortar storefront, though they do sell to a few local coffee shops and occasionally vend at A2 events. As such, Arbor Teas is one of the few tea companies in Michigan I’ve never really had the opportunity to meet and greet with (ironically, since we both work out of Ann Arbor, and it’s not exactly a metropolis ^^;;). Last week i was doing some research on Steepster and Ratetea.com and ran across a couple unique things Arbor Teas had put out in the past. After spending a short while getting reacquainted with their website, i immediately placed an order for some of their premium teas (Tea Incursion writeup to follow this weekend hopefully!). I decided to review Five Peaks Green Dew first since it’s in a style i’m very familiar with (Jade Cloud from Hubei, not to be confused with Five Peaks Mountain in Shandong).

Five Peaks Green Dew has the lush, damp aroma of any number of higher elevation, lower-astringency Chinese Greens: “lilypad vegetal” i’ve sometimes called them. Five Peaks Green Dew has likely been pan-fried to give it that extra umph of chlorophyll. However, the taste and texture of Five Peaks Green Dew is unlike most Chinese Greens I’ve reviewed recently. In flavor, Five Peaks Green Dew is bitter and flatter/broader, similar to an Liu An Gua Pian or a Tai Ping Hou Kui. However, unlike those two, Five Peaks Green Dew has a choppy inconsistent texture, mineral content and organic processing endowing the leaves with a more raw quality. Neat!

1. Aroma – 92
2. Taste – 93
3. Texture – 93
4. Spunk – 91
5. Price – 89
6. Availability – 91
7. Appearance – 90

Mean score – 91%

Given Arbor Tea’s commitment to all organic processing, Five Peaks Green Dew really stands up to a competition that can’t make that claim. ;) For the organic lover who wants to buy local, Arbor Teas does a stellar job.

Please bare with me as I’m testing out my new Olloclip 4-in-1 lens attachment for iPhone 6 Plus. It has three different Macro modes. I’m hoping eventually to be able to use one of the three modes for upcoming loose leaf tea review photos, but naturally there’s a bit of a learning curve… ;P