Sun Dried Jingshan Green

Thanks Mercuryhime for the sample!

After reading the reviews and finding that this is one of the ‘fancier’ teas, I whipped out my little gongfu pot for serious tea brewing business!

It was worth it. I steeped it three times, and I really enjoyed the buttery green flavours. I tastes a little sweet and a little citrusy as some of the reviewers have mentioned. Maybe I should have steeped it for longer but this feels like a delicate green, suitable for quiet reflection (as opposed to some of my flavoured blacks that are good when I’m juggling 5 things at once and want tea that comes to me, instead of me sitting down to enjoy it!)

Flat out! I LOVE THIS!
I’m backlogging a cuppa, too, but now I have a little more time to state my claims here…

This is incredibly CLEAN. It’s sweet and makes your mouth water. There are Sun-Dried flavors that pop out much like they would in a Sun-Dried Tomato for example. Very sweet and slightly tangy in a lovely way!

The aroma is comparable to sweet grass and sweet corn and I think it’s tremendous! WOW!

YUMMY YUMMY!!!!!

This is quite different than the green I started out with this morning. Where my morning tea had a strong vegetal flavor, this one has a bright, almost citrusy flavor to it, with just a little bit of sweetness thrown in to keep things interesting. It was much more mild than I was expecting, but that made it perfect for an end of the day drink before I switch over to herbals and try to get some sleep.

Back logging in from my notes. I made this for me and my mom Western style. I will do a proper Gonfu one later. She thinks it’s ok, but she really isn’t a green tea person. Neither am I, but I am learning to appreciate it.

1st Steep
Cinnamony tasted with savory undertones and sweet grass flavor and crisp coolness of apples in the aftertaste.
cooled: more creamy and sweet.

2nd Steep
More nutty warm tones. A bit more savory with citrus tang zing. More crisp dry after taste then before. SIP: Wow I really taste lime in the after taste.

3rd Steep
Very light body, and BASIL. LOTS OF BASIL. It is a lot more Vegetal too. It seems to have a light citrus after taste. I really want to eat some Italian food with this. hmmmmm, garlic bread.
Fridge Cold: Nothing special, much better warm.

Overall: The first steep is ok, but the 2ond one is the best. Personally I would combine the 2ond and 3rd steep for the best experience.
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Specifics
Water: 2 cups per steep
Sweetner: none or just a few drops of light Agave
Brew Style: Western
Leaf: 2 tsp
Pot: Glass, with open top

I just used up the last of my stock of this tea. Not to worry I ordered more as it is currently on sale! (Bad influence I know) I’m not usually a fan of green teas, but I am slowly finding out which ones I like and which I don’t. This is one I really enjoy a lot. It does have a bit of a veggie flavor to it, but in a good way. This is a really crisp cup of green tea. It also (at least for me) never gets bitter – which is a green tea turn off for me.

I also have to say the description here is pretty accurate the tea almost sparkles in the cup and it is very refreshing. I’ve also enjoyed it iced too. I scored three infusions of what little tea i had left…I sure hope my new order arrives this week! I highly suggest picking some up.

I was very impressed with this surprising new green offered by Verdant Tea when I had my initial chance to try it at Verdant’s last tasting. I’ve now brewed it at home twice. The first time was last Saturday night around 9:00pm when I needed a tea fix with special and very specific parameters: something light and enlivening, but also calming and cleansing.

I had slept for most of the day due to sleeplessness the previous night and a brief illness that washed over me in the late afternoon and broke in the evening. My body was feeling pretty good after I ate something and then arranged to attend a social dance, as my body was indicating a need to move. The Jing Shan struck me as the most suitable tea I had for the circumstances.

I brewed it in the traditional Jingshan style indicated by the steeping notes that came with my purchase. Heated water to 175F, poured 6-7oz into my small glass serving pitcher, and sprinkled just under 1 tablespoon of leaves on top. Really fun and beautiful to watch these leaves dance! Many of them float vertically. I waited a minute or so and took in the very fine fragrance of this tea. Then I started pouring off the tea by stages into one of my 2oz drinking cups, holding back the leaves with a spoon. First cup was very light, crisp, and refreshing. Where the first cup was a suggestion of what the flavor would become, the second cup was its perfect assertion. It called for my full attention without any sharpness, but rather with a certain equanimity that compels one to listen closely. Sinking into this flavor there’s a pleasant sensation that the tea is offering some kind of compliment you can’t help but smile at. The best comparison I can draw to it is eating a ripe sugarsnap pea pod that you’ve pulled fresh off the plant. There is also a subtle quality of the ocean in this, which strikes me as giving it more kinship to a good gyokuro than to other Chinese green teas. I took my sweet time enjoying those first two cups, and by the time I came to the dregs with my third cup the strength of the tea (about 2oz of water steeping a tablespoon of leaves for 5+ minutes) was nearing the edge of my preferred intensity. Still plenty good, but not the ideal of that second cup. The Jingshan style steeping would have you just drink the tea straight out of the glass that the leaves are in, letting it grow stronger as you drink it. For my part, I found that I would’ve rather liked this tea to maintain the state of that second cup from beginning to end.

Which leads me to describe the second brewing of Jing Shan I made this afternoon, and enjoyed moments ago. This time I decided to follow the Jingshan style steeping method to a point, but try to capture a full 8 ounces of the tea in the ideal state I described above. So I poured the hot water in a glass tumbler and added the outlined tablespoon of Jing Shan on top, timing it to steep for two minutes. Then I poured the tea through a strainer into my serving pitcher. The results were indeed excellent, and quite close to what I desired to achieve. In this brewing I tasted more clearly the note of asparagus mentioned by others, and found it delectable. I think for future brewing I will experiment with steep time until I land directly on the quality of that perfect cup I had in the first brewing, trying 1.5 and 2.5 minutes to gain some perspective. On another note, I steeped the leaves from this brewing a second time in the same way that I’ve just described, and am happy to report that the result remained very good. The flavor didn’t diminish much. I’m sure this tea could deliver a nice third steeping as well, but I’ve yet to try. At some point I will need to try preparing this tea Gongfu style through multiple infusions in a gaiwan, just to get a more comprehensive sense of it’s profile. Perhaps I will post results of these future experiments at a later time.

I guess I’m in a green tea mood (it seems to go well with creative projects. Good green tea that is!)
First infusion:
This has a nice umami kind of nature to the scent of the liquor. The flavor is pretty light and bright with a little bit of astringency. I can see where other people would get a citrus flavor – to me there is an element of orange or lemon rind or zest that I think makes the astringency seem more forward than it is.
There’s an interesting sweet fruit-like aftertaste.
Second infusion: Went to a bonfire, got completely distracted, so I can’t comment. I’ll have to brew this again to see if the flavor changes!

I never thought I’d find a green tea that would shake my obsession with senchas at large. What. A. Tea. Bravo, Verdant!

I had this tea tonight on a whim. The sample was sitting in my tea box, waiting to be tried, but I was pretty sure I was going to end up making another batch of my much-beloved SA matcha before bed. For whatever reason, I decided to dig through the tea box instead. This was the first little bag I pulled out after a blind rummage.

On opening the bag, I took a deep whiff and instantly picked out the citrus the description talks about. Wet, they smell distinctly green. A bit toasty, maybe? Or at least what I tend to attribute to senchas as toasty.

It brews up light, definitely, but not as light as the yabao. A clear, light yellow-green. Very pretty to watch the colour seep out from the Breville basket. (Don’t judge! I’m waiting on some new tea ware I just ordered! Including a gaiwan that will get some HEAVY use, I promise.) The liquor itself is indeed vegetal in scent, reminiscent, again, of sencha. At any rate, the scent seems intensely interesting to my pet rats, who keep trying to shove their heads into the mug whenever I put it down.

Hot, it tastes beautifully vegetal, but sweet. At the same time, there’s a distinct note of effervescence that only grows as the tea cools. And then, after you sip, the notes turn into a beautiful citrus flavour that lingers pretty much indefinitely.

I had a hard time placing the citrus. The description says lime, but that’s not quite it to me. Lemon isn’t it either, as the note isn’t quite as sharp as all that. I kept thinking of having breakfast on weekends when I was growing up, and I could not figure why. Then I remembered our grapefruit tree. It wasn’t much, but the grapefruits had a distinct sweetness and character that I have yet to find in any commercial offering. Sweet, but not overpoweringly. Tart and sour, but only perfectly so. THAT is what the tea’s aftertaste is to me – grapefruits from my youth. I miss that little tree – it was battered by hurricane Georges and finally succumbed in the ensuing tornados it caused.

As the tea cools, the grapefruit note starts to make itself known DURING the sip. It’s even more sparkly, just gorgeous. I could drink this forever. I’m getting more after my sample runs out.

I’ve been waiting for the right time to try this tea and this evening seems just right. I had a long day at work and I’m still breaking in my new work shoes so my feet are killing me. On the way home I noticed how the leaves on all the trees are starting to change colors. Every year I try to notice the exact day that the leaves start changing, but fall always creeps up on me. It seems like one day it’s summer then the next day all the leaves have already started changing. Does it happen overnight? It feels like it…

The one thing that always gets me about fall is the dampness in the air – even if it hasn’t rained it’s got a damp quality about it. It sort of smells like green tea outside – damp and grassy, leaves everywhere. Refreshing. I don’t know if that makes sense or not, but refreshing is what I need tonight.

This cup of tea smells perfectly refreshing. It smells like buttery string beans. Mmmm the vegetal notes are so amazing here – not at all bitter or overpowering. I’m really enjoying the buttery smoothness and the sweet aftertaste. It’s sweet in a way that is so right. Totally unwinding right now. I’m so happy that I was able to snatch some of this because it’s sold out now. I only wish I’d gotten more…

I have been awake since 3:00 AM. My grandmother used to tell me she couldn’t sleep. I told her to quit taking naps which she swore she wasn’t napping. I now understand. You would think I would want a big bold in your face mug-o-black tea, but I am already awake. So, I chose this one to start my day and I’m really glad I did. After one cup (it should go three) I really like this. When I inhaled the aroma of the wet leaf I immediately thought citrus. That is something new. The taste is different from the scent, at least for me. It is clean with no bitterness. Very creamy, almost buttery. The taste is vegetal but not grassy, though Verdant calls it sweetgrass. It is very fresh tasting. The aftertaste is sweet. There is a feeling of dryness but that doesn’t describe it well. I see others called it savory. That works. However you choose to describe this it is mouthwateringly good. Thanks Terri for another excellent tea.