Tea Famille Green Forest Loose Leaf Tea Review
Before the COVID pandemic (which seems like a lifetime ago) I was sent a generous package of tea from an emerging tea brand called Tea Famille. Unfortunately, this tea brand hasn’t had the best time of late! With the pandemic and other problems, the brand hasn’t actually launched yet.
Furthermore, I can’t find this specific tea, Tea Famille Green Forest, on the brand’s sister website – Chinese Green Tea Co.
So, this is a blind review! I have no idea what to expect or even what tea type this is. Let’s find out in my full tea review together.
Tea Famille Green Forest at a Glance
Izzy's Rating
4.2/5
- Origin: China
- Flavour: Soft, sweet green tea with notes of peas and meadow grass
This is a delicious and delicate green tea. It’s very refreshing with sweet flavour notes. It reminds me more of a spring meadow in bloom than a green forest, but still – amazing!
Full Review – Chinese Loose Leaf Tea by Tea Famille
Izzy's Rating
4.2/5
- Type: Loose leaf
- Tea: Green tea
- Origin: China
- Flavour Notes: Peas, unripe melon, sweet grass, daisies, minerals
- Aroma: Grass in the rain, earth, damp bark, sweet grass, garden peas, sea salt
- Milk or Lemon: Neither
- Where to Buy: Check Tea Famille for Updates
This tea is delicious! From the moment I opened the packet for the first time, I was fairly certain that this was a green tea. I don’t know for certain, however, so there’s a slim chance it could be a lightly oxidised oolong instead.
Anyway. The aroma from the dry leaves is amazing. It’s so fresh and vibrant. Notes of earth and damp bark are accompanied by sweet grass flavours. Together, it smells like the garden when it’s raining.
Once it has brewed, the tea liquor is very very light. It’s a pale pea green colour that reflects the light flavour and aroma. Now the leaves have steeped, the aroma has sweetened ever further with notes of garden peas. There’s also a mineral note that reminds me of sea salt.
I really enjoyed sipping this tea – I actually brewed the leaves 3 or 4 times over the day to really appreciate the flavour. It’s not an overly complex flavour. All the notes I pulled out were sweet high notes. The tea has very little body and depth. It does have a slightly drying texture in the aftertaste, like many floral teas have.
Notes of peas and green unripe melon appear first, with sweet green grass, fragrant daisies, and a hint of mineral rock. It’s delicate and sweet without any hint of bitterness or astringency.
Overall, it reminds me of a meadow full of blooming daisies and grass still wet from the rain. There is a little darkness to it that could represent a green forest, but not enough to name the tea after it.
How to Brew Green Forest Tea
Tea Famille Green Forest tea is either a green tea or a lightly oxidised oolong. Either way, the best way to brew these tea types is with 80°C water, so you don’t scald the leaf and create bitterness.
I brewed 2g of leaf in 200ml of water for roughly 1 minute and 30 seconds. You could brew for up to 2 minutes. I found that the leaf is good enough for 3 or even 4 steeps, western style.
I also highly recommend brewing this tea with a gaiwan or using an Eastern method with lots of short steeps. That will really pull out the uniqueness of this green tea.
Why Tea Famille?
Tea Famille gifted me a few tea samples to try, with little information on what the tea was. This one is simply labelled as Green Forest. You can see that the tea is really high quality. The leaves are long and spindly but not fat like large leaf or fuzzy like new buds.
It may be Bi Luo Chun, also known as green snail tea. This Chinese green tea type is curled into a similar shape, but usually is made from slightly fuzzy new buds. It can also have slightly fruity and vegetal notes, which this tea is missing.
I’d love to know more about this tea type, where it comes from and what variety it is. But even without knowing that, I’m so happy to drink it. It’s delicious!
Summary
Tea Famille Green Forest is a delicious and very high-quality single origin green tea from China. If you can find it online or the brand releases it officially, I highly recommend you try it! Check the official Tea Famille website now to see if there has been an update.
Tea Recommendation
Discovering loose leaf tea and beautiful single origin teas like this one is a real pleasure. While I love a regular English Breakfast tea or delicate Earl Grey, there’s sometimes nothing better than enjoying a single origin like Tea Famille Green Forest. If you want to learn more about single origin teas from China, head to my Tea Review Index.