Verdant Tea (Special)

Unusual tea, this one. I get mostly chamomile with hints of cocoa, something floral, and a sweet berry-ish flavor – I’m thinking this is the huge pieces of goji in the mix. I doubt I’d ever go out of my way to buy this, however it’s pleasant enough this afternoon as I prepare to go grocery shopping.

Surprise Tea!

(And sorry if the name of this gives away the surprise to those with subscriptions, but I’m not sure how to handle these things. Before I just added them in and never tagged it Amoda but someone has, and I DO see how that could be a useful thing especially when there are exclusive blends…)

Anyway, I was surprised by this tea, but I am enjoying it! I didn’t care for Silver Buds Yabao as I couldn’t get more than slightly sweetish water from it, but I did like Eight Treasures more, and I can see that this is similarly flavoured. The rose petals are not overpowering, thankfully and I do get sweet nectar and spices with the gentle rose flavours. I probably WILL resteep this at least once since I was careful to only steep 8 oz, and I have the variable kettle keeping my water warm for the next hour.

I guess I’m happy I didn’t cancel my subscription. This isn’t a tea I would have purchased but I do like it and am glad to have been reminded that I did like the other Eight Treasures blend too!

I’m pretty excited about the other two – especially because one is a Sheng (which I’ve never had? I don’t think?)

Also, this tea is foresty. Why isn’t forest a flavour?

Spoiler Alert on February’s Amoda Box!

I was so, so, so excited when this showed up in the mail today because yay — Valentine’s Blends!

I’m so incredibly less cynical about the holiday than I was when I was a teenager, but still don’t do anything special for it. I don’t really go out of the way to make myself miserable anymore either though, so there’s that. I pretty much like all holidays now because gifts are so much fun to give!

Amoda said this tea has a ‘surprising similarity with a Valentine’s Day tradition — candy hearts’ and I’m not sure I’m quite getting there with this.

I really like the yabao in this, because Verdant’s yabao has always tastes like wet cedar planks, with a bit of pepper and glimmering bursts of marshmallow sweetness.

The jasmine adds a delicate floral note and another element of sweetness, while the vanilla makes it thicker on the tongue (more noticeable on consequent steepings). I think the Tulsi and burdock also ramp up the savory-esque cedar/wood notes a bit more as well. It all kind of blurs together and it’s a bit hard to pick out individual components, but I think this blend actually works.

Subsequent steepings yielded a slightly altering wood-tasting profile that emphasized pine instead of cedar.

So well I guess in a way, this does kind of remind me of deconstructed candy hearts — a little woodsy, with a slightly drying mouthfeel, and a good amount of sweetness. I still really I think it’s more like a canoe ride alone on a lake surrounded by only pines and cedars at the break of dawn. It’s beautiful.

Happy Heart Day, Steepsterites!

Second steep, and this is a bit more enjoyable — although I fail to get anything even remotely close to candy hearts. I get cocoa first, jasmine strongly, then a touch of rose and honey. There’s still some granularity to the brew that puzzles me and a few other flavors that I’m finding hard to place. I doubt I’ll steep this again – it’s just a weird tea, and one that falls outside my “must try” interest.

Spoiler Alert! :) Happy Valentine’s Day, and The Day of Zero Sleep for MissB. I’ve been up all night, and will likely need to stay up a few more hours at least to deal with straggler media outlets for the day, and then, finally, I can sleep. Woot!

As for the spoiler: this is part of Amoda’s February box, and I just had to drink it today (it seemed fitting). If I forget to review this now, I likely will just forget altogether, as I have a good handful of teas I’ve had the past few days. It’s a bit of a blur…

Interesting brewing instructions for this one: 40-50 second steeps, 208F, 1 tbsp per 8 oz cup. Well, I deviated somewhat, because of how much was allotted for the most part: 1 tbsp for 12 oz. and a 50 second steep. It brews up surprisingly fast and with a yellowish-green tinge, and with a wonderful green tea jasmine scent.

It tastes differently than I expected. Something floral (jasmine?), something with depth (cocoa?), I almost want to say uncooked pu-er too, and then doubt myself. There’s also something granular about the tea, something that stays in my mouth after the sip. It’s a weird tea, in a good way though – I need to play with this a bit and see how it evolves over the re-steeps.

First of all, a big thanks to Naylynn for sharing some of this with me even though I see she really liked it. Always hard to let go of something you really like. :) Lovely tasty black tea base, bergamot nicely balanced with some clove and cinnamon spice. Very enjoyable. Definitely enjoyable tea. For me it works well to throw in a mug and go! Some teas need a more delicate approach.

I purchased this from BrewTEAlly. She had suggested this based of my love for Earl Grey. I decided to go for it even though I had previously looked it up and was not interested at all in trying this tea based off of the ingredients.

I’m having a hard time describing this tea and the best I can do is say It smells like a Christmas candle but taste like bread with cinnamon and a little orange.

It took me a while to figure out what it was about this tea that made it so unique from other teas with similar ingredients: orange peel, cinnamon and clove. It’s the tea base, Laoshan Black and Zhu Rong. This is one of the first black teas I have tried that was not a normal “candy” tea base. I had no idea I was missing out and I look forward to trying other teas with these teas as the base.

I’m in love with this tea and I hope they make it again or I can find a pouch to hide because I only have enough for about half a cup.

This came as a sample from Terri Harplady, called Qilan Wuyi Oolong but that page on Steepster will not let you click on it to review. So after reading reviews, I found others were having trouble with the name and that it might have been entered incorrectly.
I was also confused by the flavor of this one, it is not available anymore anyway but it had flavors I wasn’t expecting.
I followed instructions from the Verdant website, did a rinse then steeped for 1 minute.
The flavor had a touch of floral and some astringency and scents of bamboo. A little hint of fennel.
Shows you how many flavors and scents can be achieved with one Camellia Sinensis!!!!! I would love to watch them roll, roast, etc. to learn how they do it all!!!!!

The Tulsi is an interesting taste with this oolong. I like it! It’s nice spicey and warming for the -30C day out. I have to say out of the box so far this and the rooibos are my favourite. Then again I still have a few to try :D

totally ok with the tulsi in this one…not a fan of the oolong :)sadly my tasting note on this is lacking because work distracted me with testing. both the teas i was drinking ended up cooling off a bunch, so i didn’t get to drink them when i really wanted to. I’m sending the rest of this to terri because she likes oolongs and’cause she likes to try out the blends boxes as well.

This is wonderful. It’s cozy and perfect as a hot cup of tea. I brewed for only a minute as suggested and the flavor is great with no bitterness. It’s a soft flavor. I can tell there is cinnamon and citrus (not obviously bergamot or orange, just light citrus) along with a chocolatey black tea, but nothing dominates. Everything blends together so well. I could drink this every day.

Thanks to Dexter3657, I now have a VAST collection of chai to choose from!!

Hey, I know a good morning in a cup when I see one. This screams «good morning, you can’t ignore me so wake up sleepy head!!»

Although there are no chocolate in this blend, it sure feels like a chocolate chai to me. The base must be spectacular on its own.
I really like the depth that peppercorn adds in this tea, in makes all the other flavours pop and tingle like Pop Rock candies!

Once you swallow, you get a warming heat feeling from the ginger. I like that it is not overly spicy, cinnamon, cardamom, fennel, they don’t fight with one another, it’s pure harmony in Yu Lu Yan Wonderland :-)

I could definitely see myself ordering this…but I wont, cause it would mean I have to place an order with Verdant, and if I’d place an order with them, it would also mean increasing my stash significantly which I’m suppose to bring down instead!!

Thanks you Dexter for another hit! Love!!

I love genmaicha, and was talking about it with someone, so I went digging in my sample box and pulled this out.
Hmmm ok this isn’t “normal” genmaicha – Tieguanyin, toasted wild rice, toasted brown rice, carob, coriander, dandelion root, cinnamon. I don’t always do well with green oolong, and not sure I want cinnamon in my genmaicha but if Stephanie is kind enough to send this to me – thank you very much!!! – then I’m going to at least try it.

Honestly I didn’t think I was going to like this – I am pleasantly surprised. The oolong isn’t too floral for me, the spices are really subtle way in the back – it’s a little green, it’s a little roasty/toasty the with just a hint of something (spices). I couldn’t pick out the individual spice it’s more just an impression take them out and they would be missing, but not quite identifiable.
This is an unusual genmaicha, but very pleasant and well balance for my taste.

Thanks Stephanie – I would never have tried this, and I’m really glad that I did. :))

Sipdown #48
Another one from Sil. It’s an interesting take on Genmaicha, although I do think I prefer it with green tea, & Even moreso without a doubt my favorite Genmaicha now is Laoshan Black! But this is nice too.

Jumping into the January’s Tea of the Month box from Verdant Tea I decided to try this one first. It’s very yummy but not something I think I would keep in my permanent collection. I am really enjoying it though.