Verdant Tea (Special)

another sipdown for today (178) as i’ve been drinking this with focus this morning, running through a number of steepings to decide where i land on in terms of this one. Final verdict? While this is a lovely oolong, it’s still an oolong for me. So the rest of this will be going to a couple people whom i think would love to try this one.

It’s official. I’ve found my perfect chai. It’s the perfect flavor. The Yu Lu Yan Cha base is already fairly spicy and chocolately on its own, so it was a natural choice for a chai. :)

The flavor balance is just perfect. It’s spicy in the ways I really love, more of a cinnamon sweeter spice, but still with a good kick from the ginger, peppercorn and other ingredients. And with just as much potency as the spicy flavor, it’s also sweet like graham crackers, or granola, or like that golden graham cereal.

I need to stock up on this. Like, a lot.

No, just no. Even the first steep tastes meh and all consequent are simply empty.

Drinking this at work today – I don’t drink enough oolongs, need to work on that.
I hadn’t really explored aged oolongs until Sil was generous enough to include some in the last package she sent me. Thank you.
I really like this – it’s more on the black side than the oolong side, but still has some of the typical oolong taste to it. It’s just nice and balanced – not too sharp, not too metalic, a little spice at the end – really nice cup of tea. :))

This is great. I hot steeped it and am enjoying it warm. I love the mix of spices here. On some sips I can strongly taste the wonderful green oolong with its slightly tangy edge. On other sips the savory sensation of toasted rice and coriander is dominant. The cinnamon is barely present, but I seem to be less sensitive to cinnamon than others. I could easily drink large quantities of this, but I only have a small amount so I’ll enjoy it one cup at a time.

Okay, I normally love this stuff. Something’s wrong. It tastes soapy. Argh! It’s a sipdown too, which makes me even more sad.

I’m at a loss as to whether or not this is the Peppermint Bark or Yu Lu Wu Chai from Verdant. I left one of them out yesterday to re-steep, and this is that cup. Still yummy, still can’t tell which is which.

Backlogged from last night as I was unable to even load Steepster at one point, much less log a tea.

I found this eerily similar to the Yu Lu Chai (am I remembering that name correctly?) that I had right at NYE. So similar that I’d think it was the same tea if the actual bits and pieces looked different. I tasted little spearmint or mint of any kind unfortunately, however it was (and still is, cooled the next day) absolutely delicious.

EDIT: Gr. Seems I cannot log, comment, or even like tealogs again/now.

Gawd, I love this tea. Not as much as previous incarnations, but still better than 90% of the tea I’ve had.

Soooooo good. Thank you so much Dexter3657 for this surprise gift.

Thank you Dexter3547 for a surprise addition of this to my cupboard. It is, in my opinion, the best chai ever…. and it definitely made my night. Thank you, mucho gracias, merci beaucoup!

Fourth steep: The chai flavors are back, however there’s something granular in the mix now that I’m really finding icky. It’s tickling the back of my throat and saying, “Dump this, even though it’s delicious”. I think I like the chai flavor this time around the best – cardamom, cinnamon, honey, still the base tea peaking through – it’s just this darn granularity that’s ruining it for me. Perhaps the tea bag? This has been three days of keeping it off to the side to re-steep over and over.

1.5 tsp in 12oz.

Third steep: less flavorful this time, and less enjoyable. I also added cream to this one to make it more chai-like, so that may have affected it. Will try one more steep, with a much longer steep, to see if it makes any difference.

Soooo delicious. Rich, thick chai with notes of cocoa and spices. Really comforting on my first night ‘off’ in almost two months. Also saw three episodes in a row of Psych with different friends in each one… always fun!

Will re-steep the leaves in the morning , and hopefully it’ll be just as amazing then.

I think (?) this came from JustJames – so thank you! It’s lovely.

A sad sipdown from a stash that CelebriTEA shared with me. I oversteeped this (purposely) and still it’s amazing and delicious. Needed something with elderberry in it to help kick another cold, and this was the first, albeit the most delicious, that I could find.

This is amazing! Thank you so much CelebriTEA for sharing it with me. Just perfect.

My first impression of the dry leaf is that it is extremely smelly. Smells like traditional Xmas but I don’t actually like traditional Xmas smells so there’s that. Very smelly. If I liked it I might say aromatic, but I don’t.

Well now that it has cooled down a bit, I don’t hate it. It finishes with cinnamon which I am not a fan of but it is not overwhelming. The bergamot is strong enough to turn my mother off when she took a sip. It kind of tastes like stale crackers with an aftertaste of spice to me. Not very appealing since my last experience with stale crackers involved a meal worm in it. Yesterday. So this is 0 for 3 for this Verdant box for me. Hopefully January will be better.

Steeping a cup right now. I broke down and bought more. 16oz more

A very yummy chai that I’m having right now. I’m tempted to buy more, but I don’t have the cupboard space!

Mmmmm… good morning spicy tea

My Verdant Tea order just arrived! A good tea for December and a great one for cold days. I like it. But I can’t drag the silly bar on my tablet to show it. I used Boiling water and steeped for two minutes.

Trying this out since it came in my club. It smells very spicy and the back of my throat is already protesting the dry smell. It seems exactly like the teas that I hate very much. Waiting for the water to heat up.

Have to close this note to look at the ingredients to see what it is that I’m smelling besides ginger. The Verdant website doesn’t show it.

Edit: I don’t know where my previous edit went. Boo. I think the spice is sasparilla because I can’t recognize it and I’m not familiar with that one. It is very spicy. I’m hoping the sugar I put in wil gentle this blend.

First steep was 2ish minutes. The blend is sweet but the ginger and yabao itself put a shudder down my spine and there is an unpleasant pricking at the back of my throat from one of the spices. Warming sensation from more than just the warm water. Trying to drink this quickly because I do not like.

Thinking I won’t go for any more steeps due to the headache onset almost immediately after I started drinking. Not the tea for me.

And second sipdown of the day! This blend just wasn’t for me I think. I couldn’t get the cookie flavor anywhere, mostly just yabao and sweetness. Again I added some honey, and it doesn’t add much except a honey flavor lol. It’s foresty and tasty but I’d rather just drink straight Yabao if I want to have that flavor in a tea lol. Ah well, a good one to try, and it is warm and light this Saturday morning :) see previous notes!

So finally am having this tea back at my place with filtered water rather than at my parents without filters haha. It is a bit better, but still kind of an odd blend. I feel like I’m missing the main points of the tea lol, to me it still tastes like yabao with a bit of sweetness (probably from the honey I added) and maybe some spice, like ginger? I don’t know. I steeped for 4 minutes with lots of leaf, but still to no avail. It’s tasty, but yeah, not very exciting and I’m pretty sure I’m missing the cookie part. Oh well, I will finish off this bag no prob, and it was a good one to try! For a yabao blend, I will stick with Eight Treasures though, LOVE that tea (summer version). See previous notes on this one! Decreased rating a bit as well since it’s just, well, generic to me.