VERDANT TEA NUMERO DOS!
I actually have no idea if that’s how you say the second because I take French not Spanish :P. I was going to try and make the Spring Tieguanyin but I don’t have enough patience or the right environment to do that in right now, so I figured I’d make this one! I’m realllllly hoping that this ends up tasting like the reviews say it does because they make this sound like heaven in a cup.
I’ve never seen a tea like this before. I am familiar with pu-erh bricks and I’ve seen those before, and I’ve seen loose pu-erh, but I’ve never before seen a nugget…. They’re actually kind of cute in a way! I’m brewing this one western style as I still have not gotten my hands on a gaiwan or a yixing teapot, but I do know that Teavana has yixings (alright, well not true ones, more like mass produced ones, but a yixing is a yixing right?!?) and I’ll be near one when I go to Pennsylvania next weekend, so I plan to pick one up while I’m there! Anyways, back to the point at hand, I put two full sized and then one little baby nugget in the infuser basket and did a double rinse with 208 degree water, both for ~15 seconds.
First Infusion-205 degrees for 3 minutes. This is interesting because it didn’t brew up to that dark color that every other shu I’ve had (not that I’m experienced, because I’m not by a long shot!) has done. It looks more like a regular black tea, with a deep amber color, almost like maple syrup. It smells somewhat earthy, maybe a little hay-like. Oh my goodness (on a side note, I can’t handle how many times I’ve said the phrases “OMG,” “oh my god,” and “oh my goodness” in these past few reviews, it’s actually getting kind of ridiculous). This tea is so amazing. There’s nothing added to my cup and yet it tastes so naturally sweet. I can see why this would be compared to angel food cake! There’s a nice graininess that lends itself to the actual cake, and then there’s a nice sugary note that sweetness the entire thing. I am not disappointed at all. This is so incredibly interesting and delicious. I could easily see myself drinking this all day but unfortunately until I have a method of gongfu brewing, I can only really make 4-5 infusions with one set of leaves :(. le sob that’s actually so upsetting because if I used a gaiwan I suspect that I could easily make this tea all day without the leaves ever running out of steam. But, regardless, there’s no use crying over spilled milk (or in this case, there’s no use crying over milk that you don’t have), so I will have to live with my (more than functional) current brewing vessels.
Second Infusion-208 degrees for 3 minutes and 30 seconds. I just noticed how much I rambled on the first infusion notes and I would like to apologize for making you read my incoherent babbling :P. This infusion has a lot more of an earthy feel to it, though there is still a nice sweetness. I don’t know if anyone else has gotten this, but I get a wine-like flavor as an aftertaste…. Maybe it’s the elderberry that David mentions on the website? I’m not familiar with elderberry so I have no idea, but there is definitely a dark, fruity flavor. This is also really nice. It’s pretty late and I’m beat so it looks like this session will only get two infusions, but this was SUPER good, and I’m so glad I asked for this! Thanks again David and the folks at Verdant Tea!
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Very good and passionate review! Oh my goodness Ian! I have this yet to taste in my cupboard!
Thanks Bonnie! I’d like to say it came from the heart but it would probably be more accurate to say that it came from my sleep deprivation :P. I was so excited to try this one! And it lived up to my expectations which is even better!
Oh man. Now I want to try this one rightnow . But I’ve already done the multi-infusion thing tonight, and am tired. Sigh. Perhaps tomorrow night…
Actually… not all yixing are created equal. Personally, I think you’d be better off purchasing a cheap gaiwan. There are several online sources, or if you come across an Asian Tea Shop you can probably find one quite inexpensively there. I use my gaiwan daily, but the Yixing that I have I use only when I brew the tea that I have dedicated to that yixing. (I have one for jasmine tea, one for yellow tea and one for Ali Shan Oolong).
My sister-in-law has a Teavana yixing that she got for Christmas. Now, she’s pretty much ignorant about a lot of tea things, so I’m not sure how mint tea would actually go well with a yixing, but that’s what she decided to use it with.
The things I liked about hers, when we used it the first time, was that it did stay very warm and kept the tea hot. The downside was we had yixing cups with it too and I didn’t like the graininess of the texture. I thought that overall that it was pretty, but I’m pretty sure that if purchased they should be more than that.
I don’t know if that’ll help!
Sigh I had to place another Verdant order today for this and the Twin Elephant Shu as it said it was getting low in stock. I had to remove the Corn Shu when I realized I had hit $40 (my last order was $60 and that was less than a month ago, so I told myself the Corn could wait till the summer). But I’m looking forward to this!
Hey Ian! If you are looking for an easy gongfu brewing method, I would get the small perfect cup tea maker from teavanna, or something like it from adagio or davidsteas. I have the teavanna version and it works well. The thing I like the most about these types of brewing vessels is the ease and quickness of the pour. Just put it on your cup(or if the cup is too big, you can manually press the release “valve”) and you get a nice consistent pour. For me, this really helps with steep times. I have 3 “yixing” pots from teavanna(2 of the small mouse pots and 1 12ish oz lizard pot. My problem with the is if you get any leaf stuck in the spout it can take 10+ seconds to drain your pot. Now that is ok if you are doing a western steep, but gets annoying if you are trying to do a 5 or 6 second steep of something like a dancong….
As for the shu nuggets, I received some as a sample when I made a puer order, and so far it is the only shu I like. Nicely sweet, and lacking the moldy/musty smell and taste of some other shu’s I have tried.
Here is why I will always continue to buy tea from verdant… I was at work one day and sent David an email regarding puer teas, and my aversion to the moldy/mustiness. Within a few hours(probably 1 or 2, not 100% sure) David sent me a response to my questions. I ended up getting the yiwu sheng, farmers co-op sheng, and star of bulang sheng. With the order was the sample of the nuggets, and hand written on the bag was “our least musty shu.” David could have sent any kind of sample he wanted to, but took the effort to send something he thought best fit my preferences! Needless to say I was, and am very impressed with Verdant.
Lol my only problem is right now I have soooo much tea that I am going to have to hold off a bit on my orders until I can catch up!
Sorry for the long post, hopefully it may be helpful :)
Very good and passionate review! Oh my goodness Ian! I have this yet to taste in my cupboard!
Thanks Bonnie! I’d like to say it came from the heart but it would probably be more accurate to say that it came from my sleep deprivation :P. I was so excited to try this one! And it lived up to my expectations which is even better!
Oh man. Now I want to try this one rightnow . But I’ve already done the multi-infusion thing tonight, and am tired. Sigh. Perhaps tomorrow night…
Actually… not all yixing are created equal. Personally, I think you’d be better off purchasing a cheap gaiwan. There are several online sources, or if you come across an Asian Tea Shop you can probably find one quite inexpensively there. I use my gaiwan daily, but the Yixing that I have I use only when I brew the tea that I have dedicated to that yixing. (I have one for jasmine tea, one for yellow tea and one for Ali Shan Oolong).
My sister-in-law has a Teavana yixing that she got for Christmas. Now, she’s pretty much ignorant about a lot of tea things, so I’m not sure how mint tea would actually go well with a yixing, but that’s what she decided to use it with.
The things I liked about hers, when we used it the first time, was that it did stay very warm and kept the tea hot. The downside was we had yixing cups with it too and I didn’t like the graininess of the texture. I thought that overall that it was pretty, but I’m pretty sure that if purchased they should be more than that.
I don’t know if that’ll help!
Sigh I had to place another Verdant order today for this and the Twin Elephant Shu as it said it was getting low in stock. I had to remove the Corn Shu when I realized I had hit $40 (my last order was $60 and that was less than a month ago, so I told myself the Corn could wait till the summer). But I’m looking forward to this!
Hey Ian! If you are looking for an easy gongfu brewing method, I would get the small perfect cup tea maker from teavanna, or something like it from adagio or davidsteas. I have the teavanna version and it works well. The thing I like the most about these types of brewing vessels is the ease and quickness of the pour. Just put it on your cup(or if the cup is too big, you can manually press the release “valve”) and you get a nice consistent pour. For me, this really helps with steep times. I have 3 “yixing” pots from teavanna(2 of the small mouse pots and 1 12ish oz lizard pot. My problem with the is if you get any leaf stuck in the spout it can take 10+ seconds to drain your pot. Now that is ok if you are doing a western steep, but gets annoying if you are trying to do a 5 or 6 second steep of something like a dancong….
As for the shu nuggets, I received some as a sample when I made a puer order, and so far it is the only shu I like. Nicely sweet, and lacking the moldy/musty smell and taste of some other shu’s I have tried.
Here is why I will always continue to buy tea from verdant… I was at work one day and sent David an email regarding puer teas, and my aversion to the moldy/mustiness. Within a few hours(probably 1 or 2, not 100% sure) David sent me a response to my questions. I ended up getting the yiwu sheng, farmers co-op sheng, and star of bulang sheng. With the order was the sample of the nuggets, and hand written on the bag was “our least musty shu.” David could have sent any kind of sample he wanted to, but took the effort to send something he thought best fit my preferences! Needless to say I was, and am very impressed with Verdant.
Lol my only problem is right now I have soooo much tea that I am going to have to hold off a bit on my orders until I can catch up!
Sorry for the long post, hopefully it may be helpful :)