Verdant Tea (Special)

This tea has aged ridiculously well, considering how old it is. The cocoa and goji berries look so good in the dry leaf and the flavour comes through really well, especially with a bit of sweetener added. This just tastes so good, even with the emerging cold I have going.

taste like nothing while you drink it but it will be sweet and bitter.

This tea has a sweet smell, but still has a familiar scent of black tea. It taste a little bitter and sweet, but mainlt regular black tea.

This is a belated review of the 2016 harvest of this tea.

I’m having trouble formulating a thoughtful review of this tea because I adore it so much. It’s very reminiscent of Verdant’s Golden Fleece, but it’s a bit more approachable and comforting. If I wanted to treat myself or have an especially contemplative session I’d still reach for Golden Fleece, but this Jin Jun Mei is something I could see being closer to a daily drinker.

Every time I take a sniff of the aroma of this tea I catch something different: lemon, mushroom, wood, moss, jasmine, cinnamon, nutmeg, yeast, bread. The mouthfeel is slick and smooth with a medium body. Not nearly as thick and textured as Golden Fleece.

This is a tea where the scent very much matches the taste. Some infusions taste so strong of honey and lemon I’d swear I’d put some in after brewing the tea if I didn’t know better. The savory flavors of mushroom and bread are present in this tea, but less prominent than in Golden Fleece — they’re a nice counterbalance to the sweetness rather than trying to steal the show. The cinnamon and jasmine hints in the flavor are fleeting and accompanied by an even more fleeting hint of mint. Towards the end of the session a note minerality and creaminess arises to compliment and mellow the other flavors. I’ve had sessions where I leafed a bit heavier and got a chocolate note, but I’m actually preferring this lighter session that lets the other flavors sing.

I will note that the flavor of this tea needs to be appreciated when warm. I let the end of one cup go cold and it was very bland and unremarkable compared to the warm sips.

This tea also has a shocking staying power. I only used 3.8 grams in 4 oz of water for a gongfu session starting with a 6 second infusion and adding 3 seconds every time. Right now I’m on round 8 and haven’t needed to start pushing the increment beyond 3 seconds. (I’m curious to see how it holds up further, but I’m trapped under a sleeping cat I can’t bear to wake)

This is not a tea that I feel evolves much over a session. Given more sips I find more notes I hadn’t noticed before, but it feels less like the character of the tea has changed than my own perception has changed, given more time to explore what the tea is offering. I think in some ways this is a positive and why I could see it as a daily drinker — there’s a lot available in this tea, but I know what I’m getting from steep to steep.

I’ve been rekindling my tea love and unearthing some of the long owned teas I have in the back of my cabinet. I started with some solid favorite genres of mine like roasted oolong and shu puerhs, but I want to see if maybe I can appreciate sheng in a way I couldn’t before. Finishing off this reserve club sample seems like as good a way to do it as any.

5 sec wash

1st steep, 5 sec: The wet leaf smells like what I tend to not like in sheng flavors — bitter vegetables, but there’s a smoky smell hiding behind it. The liquor smells much more promising. A bit doughy, sweet, and a hint of the hay in the back. The flavor is a surprisingly pleasant combination of baking spices and hay. The mouthfeel is delightfully thick and mouthwatering without being too astringent.

2nd, 7 sec: The smell is smokey and the flavor is quite bitter and vegetal. Very astringent. Maybe I overcooked this round? This is what I think of sheng tasting like and why I’ve never been able to get into it. I dumped this cup.

3rd, 7 sec: Still vegetal but a bit more mellow and with a little bit of sweet dough flavor hiding in there.

4th, 7 sec: Mildly vegetal, but not getting much depth beyond that. Perhaps my tastebuds are just not calibrated to appreciate sheng.

5th, 9sec: I’m getting something a little fruity here like wine grapes, but it gets quickly overwhelmed by the vegetal flavors again.

Well, I think I’m going to admit defeat with this tea. I had hoped that many years after my last sheng experience I’d have gotten to a point where I could appreciate them, but at least with this particular tea there was still not a lot there for me to enjoy.

This is another one from my stash. I’m trying to break up the stash teas that I have at work a bit so you don’t constantly get the same ones in a row. I can taste a bit of the peppercorn and some kind of berry. I can also taste a bit of tulsi but it mixes well with the peppercorn taste so I almost missed it. Some sips have the chamomile taste on the finish but it’s light enough that I don’t mind.

Another sampler from Verdant. Their tasting notes are on point here. It has a rather savory flavor profile. It smells and tastes of steamed buns and sausage which sounds worse than it actually is. The malt is light and there’s a bit of cocoa. It’s more of a savory flavor than sweet. The taste wasn’t bad, but just not my style of black tea.

So this time I’m doing it without the leftover matcha in the cup. I’m working the night shift and the coolest thing was watching the owl and a tiny (baby?) skunk face off right in front of the door. Now for the tea I get a nice warm feeling from drinking it. I definitely taste oolong. I would probably taste more if I hadn’t burned my tongue in my impatience to drink it…

To be honest I made this in the same cup as my vanilla matcha from earlier. Some of the Madagascar Vanilla was still in there. I only had time to fill a bag and add some hot water before my break was over. With that in mind I’m not sure how long I acutally steeped it… Tastes yummy though.

The appearance of this tea’s leaves is really nice. Small, twisted black and furry golden leaves with a sweet malty scent. In a warm gaiwan, the scent leans more towards savory malt with some spices.

The liquor is floral, sweet, and heavy in the mouth. There’s some honey/sweet potato sweetness and it’s surprisingly full-bodied and moderately thick. It’s bitter in a way that reminds me of good coffee. It’s there but it rounds out the flavor really well. There’s also some light astringency on the tip of the tongue but it doesn’t detract from the overall flavor too much.

After 5 or so steeps, the sweet flavors begin to fade and the malt takes over. It’s still nice, but I wish the sweet notes had stuck around a bit longer. The thickness has continued to improve, however.

Another steep or two (now with boiling water to wring out whatever flavor’s left) and I think that’s it for these leaves. This is a good tea but I think you can do better for the price elsewhere.

I don’t really feel like writing, but I need to put these notes down before I forget.

I’m always a little skeptical of Verdant’s descriptions because they are sometimes so out there. However, when comparing my notes to what they have described, there is usually one or two things that they have in common.

My notes for this tea included roast, grapefruit, wild funky flavor, and dark chocolate. Does that sound gross? It does to me, and that’s pretty much how the tea tasted. I think I need to stay away from fruity oolongs. I haven’t seemed to like them.

When I read Verdant’s descriptor “yuzu,” it hit me. I have never had a straight yuzu (the fruit) before, but I have had a yuzu honey tea. It tasted grapefruity and wild funky to me, so there you go. I was surprised to find chocolate as a descriptor because I thought I was crazy when I tasted it.

Anyway, not the tea for me.

2016 harvest. When I first read their description about this tea having notes reminiscent of steamed buns I was like, “Yeah, ok.” But actually, I can easily see that comparison now that I’m drinking it.

Very light bready flavor with some possible vanilla notes in there. This is not a “knock your socks off” type of tea. It is subtle and meant to be slowly savored.

I looked this tea up and apparently it translates to Beautiful Golden Eyebrows so that is pretty neat and I can see how that name came about. I mean, thin eyebrows, but I get it.

Overall this isn’t my favorite black tea but I;m glad to have tried this style and I think it makes for a good tea when you get to sit and savor the subtle flavors. I’m interested in tasting more teas in this style to see how they compare.

My favourite perfume in the world utilizes sandalwood and vanilla. Burberry Classic, in case you were wondering.

Jumped on the opportunity to buy a 15 Year Aged Tieguanyin because it listed sandalwood and vanilla as prominent notes. Also, being new to aged teas, it fascinates me that people are so patient as to store a bunch of leaves for as long as this.

I can’t imagine putting anything aside for fifteen years and thinking so far ahead for something in the physical realm. And I know there are teas and wines people keep for decades and decades.

Anyway, brewed this in my roasted TGY yixing and I’m really enjoying it. Part of the enjoyment is knowing how old it is, haha.

I always feel like I have to overbrew roasted TGY to bring out that fruity tang unique to this varietal. Does anyone else know what I mean? Otherwise, it can taste a bit like water-logged wood to me.

The raisin note is quite enjoyable here, even though I don’t like raisins, the sweetness level is perfect with everything else going on. Also lists a marzipan note, but I haven’t tried marzipan.

I found this to be a worthwhile purchase.

Okay so I have very little experience with Dancong, and this was the first one I drank from the august 2016 club box, which I tried to do at like 90 degrees, which.. really went pretty bad, but then I did a whole bunch of reading about brewing dancongs and now I’m trying again and this went much better.

At first, I get a lot of apple and pear, mixed with woody earthy cocoa, honey, lychee, there’s a hint of a sort of rainforesty-wet earthy taste .. I think the Chinese have a word for that taste but I don’t know what it is.

It’s interesting because the tea’s aroma is very different from its taste, like it smells like a da hong pao with the toasty dark roasty rock oolong flavour, but the taste is sweet and fruity with honey. I can’t really detect much other than honey and lychee now, with the toasty roasty aroma, maybe a bit of milky chocolate, hints of some other fruit I can’t quite place.. kinda like pear plus orange.. plus uh.. cranberry or raspberry or .. blackberry.. uh well anyways,

It has a really satisfying body, full but not too thick, with a slight bitterness and slight astringency, even a slight acidity. I think I could get really into dancongs. This is great.
It’s not reasonable for me to rate this, cause I have no expectations or baselines. Really tasty though :)

As those of you who read my reviews know, I am a huge fan of Verdant Tea’s He Family Collection of teas. These teas originate from Laoshan in Shandong Province, and at least in my opinion, comprise an astoundingly consistent and tasty collection of green, black, and oolong teas. While the oolongs tend to be my favorites, the black teas are not far behind. This particular black tea is is actually the first picking of the He family’s regular Laoshan Black from 2015. I picked up a 5 g sample of this tea as part of a recent Verdant order. I wanted to see how it compared to the 2015 Autumn Laoshan Black I enjoyed so much.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. For this session, I followed Verdant’s suggested brewing method to the letter. I initially steeped 5 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 208 F water for 10 seconds. I followed this infusion up with 10 additional infusions, with an increase of 8 seconds per infusion. The steep times for them were as follows: 10 seconds, 18 seconds, 26 seconds, 34 seconds, 42 seconds, 50 seconds, 58 seconds, 66 seconds, 74 seconds, 82 seconds, and 90 seconds.

After the initial infusion, the liquor showed a clear, dark amber in the cup. I easily detected a rich aroma of cocoa underscored by cream, toasted almond, and black cherry. In the mouth, delicate notes of cocoa, cream, malt, caramel, toasted almond, and black cherry washed across the palate. Subsequent infusions saw the malt, cream, and almond notes increase in strength, as well as hints of minerality begin to emerge. The last 3 infusions heavily emphasized mineral, caramel, and cream flavors, though the tea never fully lost its nutty, chocolaty character.

Honestly, I am a little perplexed by some of the ridiculously high ratings for this tea. I just can’t seem to muster as much enthusiasm for it as a number of previous reviewers. It’s not that this is a bad tea or anything, it just seems a little bland to me. Understand that this is coming from not only a huge fan of Verdant’s Laoshan teas, but also someone who adored the regular 2015 Autumn Laoshan Black. While this tea is smoother than the regular Laoshan Black, it is neither as deep nor as complex. Again, it’s not bad, though I was expecting so much more from it.

I decided to brew this western style, as I didn’t feel like running up and down the stairs all day refilling my tiny gaiwan.

The first steeping of this tea tasted predominantly of corn. As a matter of fact, my husband said that it tasted like the water you have at the bottom of a corn on the cob container at a buffet. While it WAS very similar to drinking corn water, for me, it was a pleasant corn water. There were also some hints of beans and hay in there. It kind of reminded me of a very light gyokuro at times.

The second steeping was completely different. So much so that I wondered if I didn’t accidentally brew another tea. The corn was almost completely gone, and it was replaced with a roasted barley sort of flavor. Then as the brew cooled, that toastiness started coming back.

The third steeping was a completely different color from the first two, and I am starting to wonder if this tea has multiple personality disorder. It’s all hay with a little bit of mushroom. As it cools, it tastes oddly like cucumbers.

Old sample from Tea Sipper. Thank You!

I think this has lost most of it’s flavor, since it pretty much tastes like a smooth woody rooibos to be. Kind of a shame since it sounds like it was one a very interesting tea. Every reviewer seems to have had a different experience with this tea, which is interesting. I’d try it again if I had the chance.

This was from a swap with Zennen. Thank you!

I picked this up before I discovered that I don’t like Tulsi, but figured I should still give it a try. The dry leaf smells strongly of Tulsi and Pepper. It’s a little intimidating smelling. The first sip is savory and spicy with a hint of sour fruitiness. It’s not nearly as intense as the smell of the leaf would lead you to expect, which is actually a relief. I’ve never had Chartreuse so I can’t tell how accurate the flavor is, but it’s interesting. I don’t know that I’ll want more than this cup of it, but it’s definitely interesting to try!

Finally broke into this tea which I’ve had for quite a few months and haven’t even tried. Unfortunately , I was busy when I drank it and can’t leave a detailed review. I know it was really chocolatey and it went down pretty fast. :-) I’ll try to leave a more detailed review for next time but I do know I loved it!