Verdant Tea

Rare teas are better used in a more immediate way than ice tea.

I would agree, given my experience with this one.

Hi Gillyflower,
The fifth steeping in a Gaiwan should just be peaking towards the strongest flavor. This one fades around steeping 12 towards lighter sweet notes. The directions with the tea do assume a pretty small Gaiwan, and water draws different amounts of flavor out of a tea depending on the water chemistry. Kind of mysterious though since this is pretty durable as far as teas go. Here are a few tips for your next tries: 1. This one won’t go bitter, so don’t be afraid to steep up to even 45 seconds in later steepings. You might try increasing the time to 30 sec after four steepings to see what happens. 2. Try pouring hot water on the saucer of the gaiwan to insulate it and keep constant temperature. 3. If you suspect too hot of water, boil it and let it cool for about 20 seconds, or pour into a pitcher and then a gaiwan. 4. If it is still light in flavor, try to flip the leaves, so that the ones that were on the bottom are on the top. You can do this with a spoon, or by turning the gaiwan over, balancing the leaves on the lid and putting them back.

I am glad that you had some great first steepings, and hope that playing around a bit yields you something wonderful through 15 or more steepings. This oneshold linger in your mouth even after you are finishes drinking it.

Have fun!

Thanks Davis—I’m definitely having fun! I will try your tips next time. My gaiwan is small-sized, at least, so it’s good to know that I got that right…!

I know exactly what you’re talking about when you say you’ve smelled this before, in the evening.

Earlier this year, towards the end of spring, I stepped out the back of my apartment. It’s was cool but the air was thick. Down the street, there are some huge lilac bushes, and they were blooming. The grass had just been cut, and it had rained a few hours earlier (water still on the ground).
I inhaled, and the smell was this Tieguanyin. It didn’t remind me of the tea; it actually was the smell of the tea.
This experience probably happened to me four more times. Were there lilac bushes near summer camp or college?

As for the gaiwan: I have really small hands (seriously.. my pinky nail looks like it belongs to a toddler with thin fingers), so I also often have trouble pouring. I practiced with just plain cool water until I was confident with tilting the lid in just the right way and mastering the pouring motion without dropping the gaiwan. I also used a much thicker one to start off with than I use now.
Then I burned my fingers a few times… which helps, actually. Generally, I’ve found that the faster I pour, the easier it is. If I let the water sit in the gaiwan too long, it’s actually heating the ceramic of the gaiwan towards 201degrees! Definitely not fun to handle.

Hope you keep having fun with your gaiwan!

Thanks Spoonvonstup, I just found your comment. It’s entirely possible there were lilacs at college (it was a small campus in a residential neighborhood, and I was still there in early June every year) but not at camp, as I was only there after the lilacs had bloomed and gone!

Thanks also for your ideas of how to get more used to the gaiwan. I haven’t done any substantial gaiwan activity since the first time I tried this tea. Sounds to me like if you can do it, I can too! I will take your advice and practice with cool water until I’m more confident with pouring. My gaiwan is glass, which may even heat up quicker than your ceramic one, so I don’t know if the fast pour will help, but it’s worth a try.

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if you like this one consider also ‘Strong Fire Oolong – Tieguanyin’ from the Tao of Tea…rich almost chocolate meets kombu flavors, dark knotted leaves, complex carob, caramel notes…

Thanks! I have not yet ordered from Tao of Tea, and this might give me a good excuse (as if I need one). Your description sounds fascinating. :)

send me an address and I could send you a sample of this

let me know if you want a sample of this I might have one…just send me an address

I am glad that you enjoy the 10-Year Aged Tieguanyin. The farmer who sold this to me was very proud to pull it out. He wanted me to notice how the creamy and floral notes of greener tieguanyin still come through, even with the aging and firing. So many of the samples I tried of the darker Tieguanyin felt burnt, they just tasted like caramel and brown sugar, which is a bit simple. Definitely be sure to steep this one out multiple times, as the flavor gets more rich in later infusions.

Yeah, it is a really, really amazing tea…and that is why it is the top ranked tea on Steepster!

A three minute steep time! That is something that I’ve never tried with this particular tea, and now that you’ve mentioned it I am going to have to try that out.

Nathaniel, you will have to let me know how your three minute steep goes. The Xingyang family workshop recommended 2 minutes, even in a small Gaiwan or Yixing for their pu’er, so why not this one? It is a good test of quality.

When I got this in, the woman who provides it in China told me that she took some liberties with my order. I had ordered an incredible stone-pressed brick, and was skeptical of any other, but when I tried this, I felt like I must have been in trouble, because it was too good. It took my wife to stop me from putting this on in private pu’er storage. I very glad that she did! More bricks of this one are on their way right now from southern Yunnan to exotic Minnesota where we are based.

I totally agree that the aroma can be overwhelming at first. I think it is amazing that the flavor and aroma of corn is coming simply from a tea leaf! Such a unique tea…one which took me a very long time to really appreciate, and I’m still learning to appreciate it more all of the time.

This tea was too weird to resist! The first batch that I tried was so corny that I couldn’t bring it in, but this one seemed to be a great balance, and definitely a good illustration of how the flavor of a tea changes over multiple steepings. Tea is just THE coolest thing ever…

This IS one wild and crazy Tea! And it is done without mixing the tea with any novelty items or flavors. I had fun with this one, and will continue to have fun off the rest of my mini tuos. Thanks for keeping me smiling!

There is an herb in the southern Yunnan called Nuo Mi Xiang, or Nuo Mi Xiang Nen Ye, which is apparently used by the Dai people to cool down during the hot humid days. I think it is used in some puerh teas to give it a “glutinous rice” aroma — which to me smells more like popcorn. I wonder if it is used in this tea? There do appear to be more than two types of leaf in these — and they are still truly fascinating an delicious!

Very interesting. I will ask about it next time I talk to the grower. I know “nuomixiang” as “sticky rice aroma,” a common profile used to describe certain pu’ers. I didn’t know that there is a plant by its name as well. It does look like there is a lighter leaf involved. Whether it is a mix of two cultivars, or two different species, I will have to double check. I have seen actual rice in tuocha before, and rose petals. Thanks for the lead on this. I am glad you are enjoying it!

Alright, what I found out so far is that the leaves of the rice plant are picked and used for tea scenting. Sometimes a few leaves are left in after the scenting process. Scenting can also occur while the tea is still on the plant and growing, in the case of this pu’er, which absorbs the aroma of the corn that the farmers use to fertilize it, or Laoshan green which absorbs soybeans. It is possible that some rice leaf was added to bring out the natural corn aroma by giving it an earthy-grainy base.

Good to know- Thanks! I love playing around with blends, as you might notice from the growing Alchemy line on the site, and love encouraging people to blend. I will have to pick up some osmanthus. Exploring the floral possibilities hadn’t occurred to me yet for this tea. I have been loving it with dried burdock. (In China they have something like burdock called Niubang, but it is much better. Do you know what we call it here?), and with a mix of peppermint and spearmint. Saffron also presents interesting possibilities…

I wonder if the Niubang you mention is the same as the Burdock known as Gobo in Japanese. The Wikipedia page just lists it as Arctium lappa : Greater Burdock.
Looks like you have been having fun with your blends! I had not seen your new additions and have to kick myself for checking in more regularly. Your site is really informative, entertaining, and tempting!
I usually reserve my osmanthus for oolong and white needle teas, but a friend in Suzhou mentioned that he drinks red tea with osmanthus during the summer, and it sounded good to me! I usually limit my additions to things that grow on my balcony or at my mother’s house like lemongrass, dried mango, mint or other herbs. I use a light touch since I really like the tea to shine through. I guess I could grow tea plants pretty easily here, and have seen that it grows well in some yards, but we have pretty poor soil, and no real change of seasons to speak of. It is something I would at least like to try at some point in my life!

oops meant to say “for NOT checking in more regularly” but couldn’t edit my comment …

Yes- I think the Arctium Lappa is closest. The Chinese listed was correct “niubang.” It tastes like graham crackers when brewed as a tea, and my memory of it is having it brewed with a bit of rosehips and goji berry whenever I was sick. If I even so much as coughed, my tea friends in China would dig out the niubang to steep for me. Good stuff!

I wish I knew about the rinsing process for this one, seeing as how I only did it once and got quite a bite out of it with my first sip. I’ll definitely try it again tomorrow!

yes, this one can give quite the bite if not rinsed. it has a lot to offer though. great tea :)

I too love this tea! The beautiful thing about this tea is that it is almost impossible to brew it incorrectly. It is so forgiving. Good description of it, too!

Yay! Thanks Nathaniel! I especially love teas that I don’t have to “baby”. This one is practially perfect in that way.

Ditto Nate’s comment. This tea is so ridiculously forgiving! I’ve definitely just thrown leaves (buds?) into a cup at work, and let them sit in water all day as I refilled with hot water.

The only way I wouldn’t recommend this tea is putting it into a fill-yourself tea bag. The ones I tried, at least, were made of a linen-y paper, and they ended up absorbing and masking a lot of the sugar-crystal sweetness and replacing it with..paper. Also, since the buds are so big, you don’t fit as much into a bag as you probably really need.

Glad you enjoyed this one! This kind of pu’er was the very first sheng I fell in love with, and my gateway drug into pu’ers. It’s so pleasant and forgiving; there’s no way to do it wrong, and everyone who tries it invariably enjoys themselves.

I’ve heard that Verdant is trying to bring in some Yabao pressed into bricks and much older than what they have already. If they ever do (fingers crossed!), I’d recommend you try some of that, too.

Hi Spoonvonstup (such a great name…how come I never thought of it??) I agree with you about forgiving teas! I think puerhs are forgiving in general, since they’ve had so much time to “mellow out”.

I don’t have much time for temperamental teas nowadays. So, to a tea, I say: “Just let me throw you in my tea mug and let’s see how you hold up!” ;).

I loooooooove Ya Bao. Lemoniness and sheng pu-erh. What better combination.

Your first sheng- how exciting! You’re definitely starting at the very top here. I remember my very first sheng.. it was like sucking on a penny and an extreme lemon-flavored drying warhead at the same time- very bitter and hard to swallow. Wish I’d started with something like this!

As for “western-style brewing”? You’re right- a big teapot single steeping won’t give you all that this tea can offer. But don’t worry; you don’t need to run out and buy gaiwans or yixing clay teapots. If you can find a brewing basket Isomething like this: http://www.rishi-tea.com/store/finum-tea-brewing-basket.html), you’ll be able to conveniently recreate the gong-fu experience.
Just fill the brew basket with 3 or 4 grams of tea (1/3 or half way with leaves..about as much as you’d do for a big pot), and then set the brew basket in a personal-sized mug.
Pour in boiling water for a few seconds, take out the brew basket (you can set it on it’s cap!), and throw out this first steeping. It’s a wash to “wake up” the leaves, and it’s also like a little sacrifice for the sake of greater deliciousness.
Replace the brew basket, pour in boiling water, wait a few more seconds (5-10ish), and pull out the basket. Drink and enjoy in small sips, smacking your lips! The extra air will help you to savor more of the flavor. Plus, making the “yummy” sounds always makes things more yummy.
Continue re-steeping like this, adding 5 or so seconds each time you do it. Steep and drink until you just can’t have any more liquid! Feel free to adjust steep times, too. If it’s seeming too light, leave the basket in a few seconds longer. If it’s seeming too heavy, then steep for less time or pull out some of the leaves. Just aim for something that tastes great to you.

If you’re up for trying more sheng’s, I’d suggest going for Verdant’s Wild Arbor Single-Mountain Yiwu sheng. It’s a great representation of what more traditional shengs can taste like. It’s still really complex and lovely, but it’s a little more on the juicy/fruity/grape/apple side of things, with fun pine/cedar notes.

Thanks Spoonvonstrup!! Yeah, I’ve been eyeing those type of brewing baskets. But there’s even an instant “gong-fu” mugs offered by some companies—like Adagio’s mug. I also have a sample of the Wild Arbor—I’m looking forward to try all my sheng samples!!

Ah- those instant gong-fu style mugs from Adagio do work well. They’re especially good for green or white teas or display teas, since the clear sides show off how lovely the leaves are. I find them a little bit harder to clean than the brew basket, but that’s probably just because they’re a larger contraption (and I don’t have a dish washer).

Did you do the sheng sampler pack, then? Hope you enjoy them all as much as this one.

Yep, I ordered to sheng sampler. Such a good deal with the inclusive shipping and free sample (had to ask for the DIYI Cornfields since I love corn)!

I’m curious to learn more about how you use Steepster’s raiting system. Your tasting note describes all positive things, yet the rating is quite low. Could you describe more about this tea that you didn’t like? What do you look for in a green tea that would get it a rating in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s? Which teas are these?

This is a better version of a tea that I don’t normally like…green tea isn’t my style, so to speak. So on the grand scheme of things, all teas included, this is a 68. If I were rating only green teas, this would probably be an 80 or 85.

Basically this rating number means “Something I drink voluntarily and happily, but don’t own or have more than once or twice a week.”