Verdant Tea (Special)

From the Reddit traveling tea box.

A really pretty dry leaf with big flower buds and petals. THIS IS FLORAL. Mega floral! Sweet licorice, floral, lemony, mint fresh with a background of juicy white peony. However, the white tea is pretty drowned out. Little bit of a tart bite end of sip. If you love floral, you’ll dig this, but there’s a lot going on.

In the spirit of trying everything once, I cold brewed this. Don’t.

(It still makes a very lovely regular cup of tea, though!)

Finally done logging everything that came in the order!

This tea is similar to regular Laoshan Black, with less obvious chocolate notes, but still quite rich and mellow. It’s slightly smoky, subtly sweet, and has a malty, grainy fragrance that makes it quite a refulgent experience. If I remember correctly, it’s more complex than regular LB, because the chocolate being less insistent helps everything else come through. There’s also a freshness that’s almost reminiscent of Laoshan Green.

I had been having some trouble making an enjoyable cup out of this tea, and today I finally stopped overthinking it. I used the old tiny kettle, stopped before full boil, and brewed up a mug without really being particular about proportions or temperature, instead just going with what I was habitually used to. And it was perfect. I think there’s something to be learned here…

Very similar to the laoshan green in flavor. The green is a spinach and mushroom salad, while the black is more of a spinach and mushroom crepe with sort if an aged cheese flavor added on. I’m enjoying my first steep so far

Fancy LB! I ordered an ounce of this. I think a comparison is definitely needed. Which reminds me I want to do a comparison between LB and Fujian. Perhaps all three at once!

This one has all the delicious qualities of LB, and they could be more enhanced, but without a side-by-side I can’t say for sure. However, this is certainly an enjoyable cup.

I received this today in my verdant tea of the month box. It’s my first nice green tea ever! First off, the bag opens to the smell of mushrooms and spinach.
I’m thinking that, once again, I have not used enough leaves. The tea was very watery… I have no reliable way to measure in grams, so today I ordered a scale on amazon.
On second steeping, I used less water and tasted a smooth mushroom flavor.

From the reddit travelling teabox

I’m trying this despite it sounding like a blend I would not like as me and red rooibos don’t get along. Actually, not bad – the spice, all big chunks of cinnamon, is a great level that keeps me sipping. Kind of sweet and vanilla smooth, bit of rooibosy. Not watery. I don’t really get much orange flavor though.

I enjoyed this sheng today, thank you TerriHarpLady for the sample!

I found the first steep lightly smoky, and all of the steeps sweet and woodsy. Makes me wish I could spend time outside even more! It is so cool and nice outside today for July. Stuck inside in front of the computer for another hour, meh.

I was skeptical of this one, because Cask Strength was supposed to be bourbon-inspired as well, and I found that one super icky. But this one didn’t have any suspicious ingredients in it, so I allowed myself to hope. I’ve only barely tried it so far (I’m steeping it in my tiny 2 oz teacups), but it’s definitely not icky and actually pretty good!

Update: as predicted, it goes great with chocolate. (72% with cacao nibs. :)

I’m not usually a huge fan of white teas (although maybe that’s changing recently?) but I love this one. I like the cedar tips and the juniper, and everything else kinda blurs together pleasantly in the background. I think I got through about four steeps before I switched to something else, but I maybe could have gone for a couple more. I’ll have to see how far I can stretch it out, and what more interesting flavors might emerge. :)

I’ve been drinking a lot of oolong the last couple of days, and I wanted to do something different. I found this in my pantry. I’d forgotten I had it!

I should have looked at the clock because I have plans this evening that come with a good length car trip to start. Well, hopefully I can find a place to stop when I have to, because I can’t stop drinking this tea.

I dumped the first two quick rinses, as I’ve seen that suggested recently. Then I really started into this tea.

oh emm gee

Deliciousness.

sweet but almost floral. Barely earthy, but it’s there. Creamy. Incredibly creamy.

Each infusion is a little different than the previous one.

I can’t believe how beautiful this tea is. And that I didn’t try it until now.

What was I thinking?!?

Even on the 6th infusion, I’m still getting such sweet notes to this, but it’s getting a little woody-ish. Sort of.

It’s hard to describe the beautiful party happening in my mouth with each sip.

I want more. I need more. I have to stop drinking because we have to leave very soon.

I’m going to hold the leaves and hope they’re still good when we get back.

Okay, tea friends, since I love this tea, what other sheng pu-erhs do you recommend???

Wow! This is amazing!

I was very hesitant about this month’s Verdant Blends Box because I had read that the blends were going to be whiskey inspired, and I am not a huge fan of whiskey or nearly any other alcoholic drink. With this reservation, I opened the box and read the descriptions of this month’s blends when the box arrived today. I was intrigued with the descriptions and decided to make a cup of this blend first. And, I love it! This is my favorite blend so far from this subscription.

The aftertaste is really fantastic. It is so rich and creamy and long lasting. All the flavors blend together so well that I have no idea how to describe the taste of this tea.

Aw, I wrote a ton of things for this one and I lost it. Thank you Dinosara for this one! I had no idea how to steep this one, so it was a little bitter from the birch bark, which seems like that happen anyway. I’m not sure what it’s for anyway. I don’t taste much rooibos or yerba mate but there is a lot of mint, spearmint and lavender. It seems like I had this combination before but I have no idea where. It’s an odd mix of ingredients. Not bad but not Verdant’s best blend.

Tea review + story time.

So I wake up this morning happy to finally have some time to do my own thing after a weekend of socializing. I make this tea and go out to water the garden so it has time to cool. Unfortunately, husband suckered me into helping him wax his car. Then I spent some time watching 5 swallowtail butterfly caterpillars demolish my small (3" tall) bronze fennel plants. I’m actually more concerned that they’ll run out of food than that my plants are being eaten down to nothing. I purposely got the fennel in order to attract these butterflies, but they haven’t grown enough to support the appetite of even 1 caterpillar, let alone 5. I should run by the store and pick up a parsley plant or something for them. I wasn’t planning on planting carrots until later in the season. hmmm…

Anyway, by the time I got in to drink this tea, it was only lukewarm. And I was so hot from working outside I didn’t even want it anymore. I wanted iced tea!! I drank it anyway. Can’t let tea go to waste. :D

This was one of those teas I purchased when I made a big order from Verdant a while back. First time opening the bag. I’ve decided that I’m not really such a huge fan of qimen. Sometimes I like them, but sometimes not. This one seemed like a really good quality one for someone that appreciated this type of tea. Smokey and fruity and autumn leaves. Nice.

Now on to the cold brewed tea in my fridge. yay!

Spring 2014 version

Dear Mr. He:

Thank you so much for picking this tea. Like the dearly beloved “regular” LB, this smells and tastes like like roasty chocloate malto meal. It is a sweet, malty cocoay cup of comfort and I’m very glad that I get to have some.

Having said that, I believe I love my regular LB just a little bit more. There is a little more depth and body to the later pickings I think. I really and truly appreciate having both and the opportunity to compare the nuances and subtleties. I love that Verdant finds and supports the tea farmers to bring us these sips of lusciousness.

This is a perfect cup of tea to have pretty much any time and I’m really enjoying it (much too early) on this Sunday morning.

Method: 1 tbsp, 8 oz, 205 degrees, 3 minutes, Forlife brew-in-mug strainer

Dry Leaf Aroma: Cinnamon and licorice

Flavor: Cinnamon and spices. Licorice. I don’t taste the fruitiness I was expecting. I thought this might have some sweetness from the elderberries, but I didn’t find that either. I don’t think this one is for me, as I’m not a big fan of cinnamon. Im a little sad because I really wanted to taste the elderberries.

I tried this warm and found it be ‘nice’ but nothing special, so this morning I decided to cold brew some to have with dinner. It’s amazing! The cold steep has brought out the lemongrass but also some floral and cream tones. It’s refreshing, light and crisp. Everything I was hoping it would be in warm form.

I have another steep or two worth of leaves left and I will definitely be cold steeping it.

I’ve had this on two occasions including at tonight’s craft club yet I’ve held out on reviewing it. I can’t say that’s for any specific reason, just to make sure it was the same throughout. My reason being that as this is Dragonwell ie a green tea it is hard to taste it, and as I’ve had this specific Dragonwell on it’s own I know it’s delicious, in that sense it seems a shame that I cannot taste it. What I can taste is lemongrass and it’s sweet, strong and crisp which dominates everything else. Undeniably it is very nice as I happen to love lemongrass but it is disappointing not to be able to taste anything besides that. In retrospect it’s a fancy blend that tastes like your bog standard lemongrass, again it’s nice and I want to enforce that but it doesn’t live up to it’s ingredients list. For that reason I will not rate this tea as it’s hard for me to define but it is a sample I can happily finish and am thankful to have tried.

While I appreciate OMGsrsly sending me a sample of this tea with the intriguing name, I kind of had an idea of what to expect…that is, likely nothing good.

Definitely not a snicker doodle tea.

Tastes like ginger and things that grow in the ground. Not in a good way.

I enjoy snicker doodles as far as cookies go.
Not so much, this.

Thanks anyway…I know I was warned! :)

Although I was initially disappointed with this one, I’ve grown increasingly more impressed with this one as I’ve had time to experiment with it. My new favourite oolong steeping strategy is to “rinse” the leaves until they begin to unfurl, and then do a first steep of about 2min 30sec.

The aroma of the dry leaves is equally buttery and floral, with a touch of something sweet and lemony, and that is much how it tastes once it has been steeped. It’s a fine and delicate flavour that layers itself on the tongue, like silk, over time. The finish leaves behind a melted butter texture and taste, which make this tea feel heavier than it is.

This has some of my favourite aspects about oolong, but my all-time favourite component is actually the heady floral aroma of that first rinse. I wish I could make my whole room smell that floral, green, and fresh. This oolong is real pleasure to work with! I’ll often get to around six steeps without realizing how much of it I’ve drunk.

Thanks so much Dinosara! The dry blend smells like a coffee cake —or some sort of spicy cake. The flavor is the same! This one is so good. I love the ripened pu-erh in this blend. Plenty of orange peels, but somehow the orange flavor isn’t there as much you’d think. This is almost like a chai with a pu-erh base but somehow the flavor is much sweeter. Maybe because pu-erh has less of a bite than black tea. I used two teaspoons with increasing temps on each steep. Even by the third cup the pu-erh in the basket barely looks unraveled so I went with a fourth… a hint of a bit less flavor but still tasty. This is your spicy cake pu-erh and it is glorious. If anyone doesn’t like theirs, I’d buy it.
Steep times: 2-3 min, 4 min, 8 min, 10 min

From the Here’s Hoping Teabox 3.

Whole Lotta “nope nope nope” for this tea for my tastes. It’s chicory, stevia like sweet, dirt floor, medicinal herby, rooibos chippy blarrgg! Reminds me of those tiny glass bottle ginseng bottle concoctions my mom would make me drink before exams

However, I could see a coffee drinker liking this for that thick chicory flavor. Maybe. Something my dad would drink. On the good side, this is pretty flavor packed for a rooibos tea.

From The Here’s Hoping Teabox 3.

I was expecting not to like this, but in the end I slot this one as okay. I haven’t been enjoying Verdant’s yabao, but I thought the concept of this tea too interesting to pass up. I went light on the dry leaf here.

Pretty fun tasting – spruce, honey, ginger, light cinnamon. A very warm tea. Very wild, untamed forest kinda feels to it. It’s about as natural as you are gonna get to a snickerdoodle tea without adding any flavoring oils. But yeah, it’s not like actual snickerdoodle tea – it’s got that lightness of a snickerdoodle but not that tartness I associate with cream of tartar use in the cookie. Maybe if I made a snickerdoodle cookie while camping..
I’m still not digging the yabao, but glad to of tried this one. thanx HHTB!

From the Here’s Hoping Teabox3.

Hmmm, I like this one. It seems to have some mixed reviews, but I am partial to Verdant’s jasmine and I do like chrysanthemum. Its really floral, delicate and lots of hay notes. Tastes like dandelions too. With that said, I can see why it has mixed reviews, but I might squirrel this one away for myself!