Chroma Tea

Just picked up my last tea order of 2022. Almost feels like cheating to get new tea in a new year that doesn’t go on my totals for the year!

I’m not a huge fan of oolongs, but this sounded interesting. It smells very anisey and that is the dominating flavor in this cup. The coriander comes out in the finish a little where it turns a little more savory. The oolong seems to blend well with the anise, to the point that it’s hard for me to separate the two in my mind. This is very well balanced while being complex and is interesting, but it’s not jumping out at me right now either. I’m hoping this one grows on me.

I honestly can’t describe the flavor but I love it. All the ingredients meld into one cozy flavor.

This tea is a prime example of why you shouldn’t mess with a good thing. The base of this blend is Laoshan black which is naturally very chocolately. The cacao nibs slightly accent the chocolate but don’t really enhance the base tea.

The coconut and toasted rice lend a delicious aroma that’s reminiscent of chocolate coconut date balls but I can hardly discern either in the tea. For a tea that’s billed as black chocolate genmaicha, I wish the toasted rice was more prominent.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a very good dessert tea. It just doesn’t differ enough from Laoshan black tea to be compelling. I think I would have been more impressed if I hadn’t tried Laoshan black on its own first.

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Time to get back into sipping these Chroma teas!

This one is quite nice, it’s so very light and airy and perfect for a little bit of afternoon serenity. The white base is delicious – light and crisp with a grassy tinge and lovely refreshing cucumbery notes. The spearmint and coriander up the refreshment factor a bit, though neither is terribly strong. And the mint also adds sweetness which contrasts nicely with the slight fruity tartness that the goji and hibiscus bring. I’m not getting any cardamom in this cup, but it does tend to meld in with the spearmint.

I’m not sure I’d reorder this one, just because it’s a bit situational for me and not a tea I would drink often. Plus I feel like the white tea itself is mostly what makes it for me, so maybe it would make more sense to just order that. But still, I enjoyed this pouch!

I guess it’s a good day for Chroma blends, as this one is quite nice too.

It has an interesting interplay of sweet-savory-tart, with the white tea giving a light and sweet but slightly vegetal base, with an airy flavor and texture. I get little pops of tartness here and there, mostly at the sides of my mouth. It does taste a bit goji-like, but it’s probably mostly the hibiscus giving it that tart red fruit note. The spearmint is obvious but not overpowering, and it leaves a lovely fresh and crisp finish. I’m not sure if I’m tasting cardamom, even though I was sure to get a couple of pods in the steeper. Maybe it’s melding in with the spearmint? As for the coriander, I’m not sure I know what whole seeds taste like anyway. The licorice manifests as a very slight coating sweetness that becomes more apparent as the hibiscus tartness fades.

Overall it’s light and delicate, and reminds me of a better version of all of those strawberry champagne white teas companies tend to sell. We’ll see if I end up liking it enough to reorder by the time I’ve finished the pouch. :)

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So I did really enjoy this one. That being said, I’m not sure how much of that is from the added ingredients, and not just the Laoshan black base. Also I was always left wanting more toasty rice. The coconut didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would, mostly because I couldn’t really taste it. I think it added more of a rich mouthfeel than a flavor.

It’s been ages since I’ve tried Laoshan black plain, and I noticed Verdant sells the toasted Laoshan rice as well. So I’m thinking I may order those two at some point and try them mixed together. And then I’ll reevaluate whether this is worth reordering.

Okay, now this one is tasty.

At first I was concerned by the coconut – there’s quite a bit of it. And there wasn’t coconut in the original blend. But I actually can’t taste much of it, so that’s interesting. What I do taste is yummy malty, cocoa-y, slightly savory black tea with a sweet and creamy milk chocolate note swirled in. Maybe it’s the coconut giving it that creaminess? The rice is actually a bit subtle, I would like more of it. But I suppose that’s also down to the mix of ingredients in my scoop.

I agree with Kelly, it does remind me a bit of haystack cookies, although I think those usually have peanut butter. It reminds me more of a Japanese chocolate-coated cornflake treat I had recently. Either way, very lovely.

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This one didn’t really grow on me. It’s a tasty tea, but I’m not convinced the combination of all these different teas really improves on any of them. Mostly it ends up tasting like a lighter Laoshan Black to me, and the depth and richness of that tea is kind of one of its strengths.

I did find it interesting though, how it tasted somewhat different each time. Some cups were almost all Laoshan Black, some had more honeyed notes from the oolong, some were a bit earthier. Now, I don’t think it being inconsistent would necessarily be a good thing if it were a tea I drank regularly, but it was fun to experience for this small pouch.

Okay, back to Chroma teas!

Sipping on this one as my first cuppa this morning. This tea is a blend of Laoshan black, Yunnan black, roasted oolong, white tea, and shou puerh. On paper, that sounds a bit busy to me.

In practice, it doesn’t taste busy. But at the same time, I’m not sure I’m really tasting all of the components. The Laoshan black and roasted oolong are sort of melding together, and I don’t think I taste the Yunnan black? Although according to the description, they added it for texture and body, so maybe I’m not meant to. The white tea mostly shows itself at the end of the sip for me, adding a light and airy oat-y finish. I don’t get a lot of the puerh either, there is a gentle earthiness though.

It’s pleasant but I feel like I would rather just have each component individually rather than mixed together? But we’ll see if it grows on me as I sip through the packet.

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So this isn’t a “wow” sort of tea, but I feel like it’s grown on me as I’ve sipped through the pouch. It has such a cozy, mellow spiced flavor to it, and the fact that it’s on such a nice black tea base makes it so much more enjoyable for me. It gives it such a rich mouthfeel and a lovely bready base.

I’m not running out to buy more or anything, but I’ll definitely get another pouch if I order from Chroma in the future. One thing though, I noticed my pouch had a batch date of June 2020, which seems a bit old to be sending out in January 2023? I dunno, maybe that’s normal and companies just don’t usually tell you when the tea was blended…

Next up from Chroma! I was feeling a black tea, and this one sounded nice enough. I used a bit of extra leaf since there are a lot of added ingredients here and I wanted to taste the black tea as well. The steeped tea smells a bit like gingerbread.

It’s quite lovely actually. They don’t mention anything about the black tea itself, but it tastes Fujian to me, with those slightly savory caraway and bread notes. The spices are nicely balanced – the clove is in the forefront, but I can still discern the cinnamon, ginger, and coriander as well. I don’t think I’m getting saffron, but I’m not sure I would taste it with so much else going on. The orange sort of melds together with the clove for me, and is a bit more subtle than I would prefer. As for vanilla… ehhh maybe a teeny tiny hint?

It’s sort of like a fancier interpretation of Constant Comment, on a much nicer base. I do wish I tasted a bit more of the more unique ingredients, like the dandelion root and the saffron. Maybe if the clove were toned down a smidge, I could taste those other components more. Also, a bit more orange please. But despite those shortcomings, I think this is a really nice, higher quality version of an orange spice tea and I could see myself sipping it in the autumn and winter months.

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I enjoyed this one. It was definitely a bit inconsistent on how much of the Laoshan green tea I tasted with each cup. This last one doesn’t taste much like green tea at all, which doesn’t surprise me since I’m sure there was a lot of mint dust at the bottom of the bag. So mostly I’m tasting the mint and a bit of earthy burdock root.

I’m not sure if I would reorder this. I did really enjoy the cups where I got more of the nutty, beany green tea flavor. I wish I tasted more fennel as well, I don’t even notice it’s there. Maybe it would be worth mixing this tea with a bit more Laoshan green to bump up the green tea notes. We’ll see, I still have the herbal and shou puerh versions of this blend to try!

I was so excited to get my haul from Chroma Tea! I blame Ali, as known as LuckyMe, for pointing out that it’s an extension of Verdant… I ended up getting one of everything, except for the three blends that were out of stock (sadly, some of the ones I was most interested in). I didn’t have a strong feeling of what to start with, so I chose this one partially because I was in the mood for a green tea, and partially because they seem have this same blend in three different variations – green, shou, and herbal. So I figured I would start with one of them to make it easier to spread them out and not be drinking multiple in a row.

Anyway, too much rambling! This is a Laoshan green base with peppermint, spearmint, tulsi, burdock, and fennel. I like all of those things, so sounds right up my alley. To be honest though, I don’t really taste the green tea here? I guess there’s a nutty undertone. I get the somewhat musty, earthy burdock at the beginning of the sip, and then it transitions to mint. I guess the tulsi is probably in there too, but it’s a bit difficult to extricate that flavor from the strong mint. The fennel is extremely subtle, I catch a hint of it at the end of some sips but not others.

I will say, for my first Chroma blend, I’m a little disappointed in this one. To me, the mint is too strong and it’s overpowering the other flavors. And this is extremely subjective, but to me this doesn’t fit the color choice of mauve. The other two similar blends are very close shades of pastel minty green, which makes a lot more sense to me.

Drank this over the weekend since I found myself while a strong craving for this tea specifically. Really what I think I was craving was the sweet spearmint flavour mixed with the gentle but still slightly tart red berry notes. So unique! Especially combined with this smooth, floral and mineral tasting white tea base and the fresh cardamom finish. It was pretty sophisticated, with so many unique flavour sensations coming together in a very elevated and balanced way.

Made this last week. Truthfully, I kind of forgot the mug so I ended up drinking it at a weird near-luke warm temperature. It was still pretty good – the spearmint was by far the dominant note but it was very fresh and just sweet enough. The cup had an overall lush, cooling sort of feeling to it. It was the first time I felt like the name “coral” made sense for the tea and I truly can’t put my finger on exactly why that was.

Very smooth and round feeling liquor that encompasses the entire palate – this quality makes a lot of sense given the presence of licorice root in the blend, which is a demulcent. The taste is surprisingly more “lush” to me than I expected it to be, with the sweet and cooling taste of spearmint leading the sip followed by much, much softer fruity notes from a mix of the hibiscus and berries in the blend. This is a flavouring free blend and the berries add very little flavour, but there’s enough of them you get a faint hint of that taste.

It was surprisingly complex, and I enjoyed it more than expected. This isn’t the first spearmint white tea I’ve come across that I’ve enjoyed a lot, so maybe there’s something about that combo of ingredients in particular that speaks to me.

Just discovered Verdant has spun off a sister company called Chroma devoted to blends. What’s exciting is many of the retired Verdant blends are now available again under the Chroma label. I picked this up along with their famous Chocolate Laoshan Genmaicha as this blend, which includes amongst other things rose, cardamom, strawberry, goji berry, peppermint, and coriander, sounded very intriguing.

The tea brews up a nice faint pink, thanks to the hibiscus in the blend, and later deepens to crimson-amber as it continues steeping. First sip tastes medicinal and woodsy. The white tea base and peppermint are the dominant flavors and the latter eventually overwhelms as is often the case when peppermint is involved. A punch of cilantro hits you in the finish. I didn’t taste the strawberry, rose, and other tea ingredients as the mint made everything taste like tea tree/eucalyptus.

Had this one on Tuesday because I woke up with such an extremely strong craving. It’s like liquid Haystack cookies, which is weirdly just a bit nostalgic for me. That black tea base is just so naturally chocolate tasting! I’m nearly out of this one now. It’s one of the best Chroma blends, IMO.

Mmmm!

I had this one over the weekend and it was just so rich and toasty. Really heavily reminded me of the Haystack cookies that my mom used to make occasionally for things like school bake sales, and boy that was a nostalgic trip down memory lane. I haven’t thought about those haystack cookies in years! It was so spot on to my memory of them though…

(Short tasting notes today because I have a killer migraine.)

Stylistically this is so, so very different than any other Chroma blend – but I loved it. Reminds me a lot of haystack cookies but with more of a “raw” cacao note to them. Plenty chocolate-y still though. The jasmine comes out more than expected and desired, but still good.

This was a bad cup of tea.

It’s not the tea’s fault though. I made this at work today using one of the pre-set heated water taps in our kitchen (perk of working for a tea company). It’s supposed to be 95c but I guess the water heater was malfunctioning or something because it basically poured just over lukewarm water into my mug and I didn’t notice until the tea had been “steeping” for three or four minutes already. Soooo very thin, watery tasting cuppa. Just the slightest hint of lemon/yuzu. I drank it to not be wasteful, but what a disappointment…

I always say I dislike bergamot and that’s true but, at the same time, I feel so drawn to basically any kind of Earl Grey variant that plays with the traditional ingredients. This one isn’t the most twisted I’ve seen, but the addition of yuzu really intrigued me!

Steeped up it’s not as big a flavour shift as I’d expected – and to be honest I wasn’t expecting a drastic one in the first place. A little more aromatic and a bit more pithy with citrus top notes and undertones. Lighter handed bergamot overall, but definitely not absent. The biggest curveball was actually probably that I was getting an earthiness out of the cup that I can’t really pin point down to any one ingredient. I feel like that’s not a selling point for most when it comes to EG, but I kinda liked it!? Earl Grey blends tend to be so polished in taste to the point where sometimes they’re boring and the rougher edges here actually added a charming character – at least to me.

Gongfu!

When I first tasted this tea steeped Western style I was somewhat underwhelmed by how light the notes of cypress were, but this session really changed my mind about this tea! It was still more on the gentle side with a medium body, but the taste of semi-sweet, fresh cypress was much more distinct and it complimented the notes of wood, apricot, and camphor – very fresh forest and mountain air kind of vibes in the coziest sorta way! Though, it does brew out very quickly.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CnzqtYmugPj/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRhxeNZB0XY

This seemed so promising to me.

It’s basically just a sheng mixed with cypress oil, which is just a brilliant combination. On the dry leaf, the rich woody aroma of the cypress is also really apparent – I’ve been sneaking little whiffs of the sample bag every time I’ve gone to make a tea from Chroma.

I made it as a Western cup of tea yesterday and I honestly thought I had overdone it with the amount of leaf I’d measured out – but steeped up the flavour of this was so, so weak. It did have a really nice almost effervescent mouthfeel with this light, plucky astringency. However, as pleasant as the mouthfeel might have been, none of that really means anything to me without taste to back it up. I’m not writing it off entirely yet, but it’s just shockingly mild without any real presence of the cypress oil.