Since the topic is pretty much dead. Here is the full low down (with permission from Leo_Blue) for anyone interested. So, a while ago, this vendor chineseteaart carrying a similar range of offerings as teaspring appeared on my radar screen. So I decided to give their 2012 Lion Xihu LJ a try, the left-LJ, and I did not like what I saw and tasted. Leo had his Lion Xihu LJ from teaspring lined up on his blog, so I pm-ed him and we tried to compare our two Lion Xihu LJ's. I found pretty much the same thing leaf and tasting wise as what he noted on his blog. (Maybe same tea, can't be absolutely sure.)
The right LJ is....*drum roll.....2011 'AAA Grade Long Jing' from AmazingGreenTea. A more appropriate comparison to the Lion LJ would have been their A grade version, but I already ran out of that at the time. In the right pics, imagine slightly longer leaves (+/- 1 to 3mm), slightly more firing but still even, and still all one bud and one-two leaves. Granted 2011's harvest might have been better than 2012, but I'm suspecting there are more problems with this Lion LJ than just a bad year?
(My two cents here
is about tea not about either vendors. Though I must say, chineseteaart provided me excellent customer service, considering I was just about grilling them for info about the tea.)
