Yunnan White Jasmine

Backlog – my boyfriend finished off our bag of this, haha about time too, this one was from about last year at this time, my first ever Verdant tea! A darn good one I might add, I’m sure this will end up back in my cupboard again, after I finish off the other Verdant white teas that I have. And this one is a favorite of the boyfriend’s, so yes, it will be back :) See previous notes on this lovely tea!

So given the still-unhappy state of my stomach, and queasiness that comes with thoughts of any sort of flavoured tea (by that I mean confectionary-flavoured; fruity or jasmine is fine), I opted for a few light options tonight. Straight greens sounded particularly appealing, but whites and an oolong won out since I’ve had a few greens over the last couple nights.

So, finishing up the second 1/3 of my generous sample of this sent along with my first order. It’s not like I don’t have another 0.5 oz. coming… hahaha. As usual, absolutely delicious. Definitely will be my go-to jasmine for a while. I love that when I smell it I instantly think of my favourite chinese restaurant, but then when I sip it it’s the same flavour, only lighter, more delicate, and with no scratchy astringency that always happens near the end of the meal, when the tea has been steeping far too long.

(Uh oh. Exhaustion definitely just hit. Hopefully I will get through all these teas!)

Today this tastes… floral, creamy, and banana like.

I haven’t been using enough leaves. I need to buy a gaiwan and don’t have my gongfu pot here, but maybe I can try short steeping the rest of my sample in a measuring glass.

I like this a lot but I need to try my other samples from Verdant Tea and work on my steeping skills before I pick up more!

Edit: So far I’ve gotten four good solid steeps out of my meager serving of leaves, after reducing the water. The fourth is the creamiest and sweetest yet, with even a hint of pepper. This tea has held up well to my unintentional abuse.

2nd Edit: Made it to fifth steep and I bet there would be a sixth if I left it for around 10min. This one tastes like pines- which remind me how much I love that spruce pop (Christmas trees in a cup). Still a good dose of Jasmine left and lots of silk.

I do enjoy a good jasmine from time to time, & this one is really wonderful, IMO. I don’t have any revelatory tasting notes to reveal about it, I think I’ve written a few reviews by now. But I really enjoyed a couple of steeps this morning before heading out into the garden. I returned to the house with a couple baskets filled with produce: Turnips, Leeks, Arugula, & fresh dill, which became a soup for my lunch; Lemon cucumbers & dill seed heads, which will be brined with garlic (I ate a couple of pickles from the batch I started last week, & they are so tasty!); a regular cuke, broccoli, beets, a watermelon radish, tomatoes (sungold, cherokee purple, & san marzano), parsley, scallions, a nice big pile of shallots, & an even larger pile of Basil. Time to make some Pesto!! The most surprising thing I found: There were some volunteer purple potatoes from a few years ago, & I’ve sort of ignored them all summer for the most part, occasional offering a drink of water, but mostly just leaving them to do their thing. I decided to take a closer look, as they were starting to die back, & ended up with the front of my t-shirt as a sling, loaded to the max with purple potatoes!

While I fixed my lunch, I enjoyed several more steepings of this tea, breathing in the perfume of the Jasmine, so relaxing. I am not a perfume person, perfumes make me sneeze & effect my breathing, but the natural scent of jasmine flowers doesn’t have that effect on me, & I’m really grateful for that.

I absolutely love this tea. If I could choose only one tea to drink for the rest of my life it would be this one. Jasmine tea is what started me on this wonderful tea journey. While my tea base preference may have changed a few times, it’s still my favorite tea.

I came home today wanting tea (what’s new) but I had a headache and I wanted something different. This one called to me, but I said no. So, I went sniffing through my teas trying to find one that would pop out at me. It never happened. I opened my canister of this and it was instant bliss.

I brewed it up in my yixing with my little teacup…which I just realized match without me ever having intended to do so. I drank my first little cup and instantly felt better. My husband came home, he’s coming down with a cold, I offered him some and he drank a few cups…more for the warmth than the taste, but hey I’ll take what I can.

For a jasmine, this is soft and sweet with a creamy mouthfeel. Sometimes I can taste the pepper bite in the aftertaste, today I’m getting something closer to cinnamon. Even though this is a bud tea, which should contain more caffeine, I always feel more calm and relaxed. I try to save this tea for something, but it’s more of my go-to tea than anything else, not that I mind.

Here’s another picture of my yixing and teacup matching each other! I really do love them, and this tea, they go so well together!

http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/s410/feralanima/100MEDIA_IMAG0114.jpg

Silky smooth jasmine with those creamy, white tea, hay notes. I am still enjoying this tea more than a year after ordering it.

When I made my order for the Golden Fleece I threw in an ounce of this as well since it was labeled as “low stock” and I always wanted to try it. Western brewing as instructed on the Verdant site. Unfortunately I don’t have time to wax poetic about this tea today but safe to say I would if I could! It is a really delicious tea.

The dry leaf smells jasminey in a sweet, fresh, honeysuckle-y way, and the steeped tea smells a little more pungently jasmine. The flavor on this one is so sweet and fresh. It’s almost juicy, which is mind blowing from a jasmine tea. That’s really the most prominent thing I take away from this tea, that lovely juiciness. There is definitely a good amount of natural sweetness to this, which really brings out those honeysuckle notes. It is super smooth and silky in the mouth, and altogether a real pleasure to drink. Yum.

OMG!! SOOOO much tea!! I received a giant swap package from Kittenna today! Just by opening the box, my whole kitchen now smells like a hodge-podge of tea aromas. :) Thank you so much, Kittenna!!

It was really hard to pick out the tea I’d try first, but I have yoga in a little while; so I wanted something quiet and calming that wouldn’t slosh uncomfortably in my stomach while I’m in downward dog for practically an hour and a half. This was the tea that fit the bill!

On first inspection of the dry leaf, I’m even more excited! They’re long, beautiful, fuzzy silver needle leaves. The jasmine scent is overwhelmed by the hodge-podge scent of teas from the swap box, but I’m hoping it will emerge upon steeping. I also forgot to set the timer on my thermometer, so I caught the water at 172 degrees instead of 175. I can’t imagine that will make much of a difference though.

Two minutes later, I pulled the brewing basket out of the cup and was assailed by a lovely, strong jasmine aroma! Yay! Hmm, the flavor is very interesting. There’s an odd bit of pungency to the aroma and flavor that I wasn’t expecting and can’t quite find the words to describe. As the cup cools, that oddness dissipates. So, maybe it was just the other teas lingering around.

Fast forward 12 hours, and I’m enjoying a second infusion at 175 degrees for 2.5 minutes. Again, that odd pungency is also in this cup. This leads me to believe it’s the jasmine and not the influence of any other teas. It’s not bad, just different. I’m sure the Yunnan white base is also contributing to the unique flavor. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a Yunnan white before. I love Yunnan blacks!

So, the verdict? I’m definitely enjoying it, but I prefer Teavivre’s jasmine greens. Those are the epitome of jasmine teas in my opinion and much more affordable. This was my first Verdant tea experience, and I can tell that it’s not all hype. These teas have something special in them. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to try something new, Kittenna!!

Yay for jasmine! When I saw others posting their tasting notes about this tea, I knew I had to try it. I absolutely love jasmine, and I have been so very impressed with all that I’ve tasted from Verdant thus far, I knew that this would be an amazing tea experience.

And, indeed, it is.

The jasmine is a strong flavor, but, it does not taste perfume-y in any way. For those of you who have tried bad jasmine teas in the past, this is an example of a GOOD jasmine… not just good, but GREAT jasmine. The flowery flavor is fresh, sweet, and when brought together with the creamy notes from the white tea, tastes incredibly indulgent. The White Yunnan has some of the qualities one would expect from a black Yunnan, specifically, the peppery spice tones… but of course, with a delicate white tea, they are more delicate. The warmth of the spice flavor is a pleasant contrast to the sweet jasmine.

An absolutely wonderful jasmine. Definitely one of my favorites that I’ve tried thus far.

Oh dear gods, this jasmine, I don’t know where to begin! I used to think I liked jasmine when I first started working at Teavana, I didn’t like the silly blend they sampled, but the green pearls, scented oolong and Body & Mind (white, green pearl and tieguanyin blend) were some of my favorite indulgences, that is until I started having issues that first month or two with coughing due to tickles in my throat that I think I pinpointed to the jasmine teas, but then again it could have been severe nerves. So I gave up drinking jasmine at work, though I had to taste test the blend every morning I opened as it was a very temperamental tea.

So ever since then I have been hesitant about jasmine. I got an earlier harvest of this in my first or second order from Verdant, it was in the Budset Tasting Kit. I brought it into work as one of the girls loves jasmine and silver needle and was interested in trying teas from other companies. Now this was a day I was feeling really dizzy, I believe I actually had my brother in law pick me up because no one wanted me to drive. But I had our barista brew this up for Diane and I (and yes I let him have some too) then gifted her the rest of the leaves. She loved it, I remember it was really lovely despite not ideal brewing conditions (the water at work isn’t really that good and the teamakers get cruddy, go figure!).

Since that time I have ordered and fell in love with Verdant’s Eight Treasures Yabao, which also has jasmine in it, in fact it tastes to me like the same jasmine in this, so airy and fresh and cool and like lilies and so not perfumey, soapy or astringent. Can anyone at Verdant confirm that this is the same jasmine? Either way, the Yunnan silver needle it is with is amazing, sooo silky and sweet and with just a touch of cinnamon and pine, absolutely top notch.

So I used to think I liked jasmine, but this jasmine, this jasmine I adore! I’m going to do some tests to make sure I don’t have a reaction, which means drinking lots of this and talking to the husband who is on his way home. But if I don’t then I am definitely stocking up on this, it is the jasmine I want to have in my cupboard. I’m so glad I requested a sample of this and highly recommend everyone try this, as you can see for yourself from other’s tasting notes, many who are not jasmine fans love this, including the sourcing agent for this! It is giving me one of those rare spiritual tea experiences, well part spiritual, part sensual (you know when you sip a tea and your eyes roll back? Teasgasm!) and a little bit of tea drunkeness as well (similar to the effect of Yabao for me which is also at the top of my to stock up on list). Swoon