Verdant Tea (Special)

Feels like it should be nap time soon…

Just finished off a pot of this one; was really craving the toasty notes in the blend. Tried something a little different though; last time I wrote about this someone (sorry – can’t remember who) recommended crushing up the junipers to get the flavour out of them, since it’s not usually very present normally.

Definitely made a difference; in the first few cups especially there were some very lovely pine notes with a little bit of a sap like aftertaste along with a crisp vegetal flavour and a whole bunch of toasted brown rice. Last few cups were way too strong though; they had a bitter snap to them, and were more sap like than pine flavoured. Will have to experiment with crushing the junipers a little more – perhaps Western style where the tea isn’t sitting/steeping as long. Or perhaps making sure there are less of them used at a time.

Big thank you to MJ who offered to mule this for me more than once, and to Kittenna who added it into her Verdant order for me; I now have 3 oz. of this delicious take on Genmaicha at my disposal!

Like I believe I noted way back when I first had this one; this tastes surprisingly more traditional than you’d think it would with all the added stuff in it – and actually more vegetal than roasty. The green base reads to me as very crisp and clean in taste with some nuttier notes to it, softened by vanilla notes and a gentle roastiness from the brown rice. Now that I have lots of this one I may try a sweetened cup, to see if I can amp up the vanilla a touch more; but I love this one as is too.

Only thing that makes me sad is that the flavour the juniper berries add seems to be super, super subtle/hard to pick out. I thought that maybe I was registering some pine notes from the junipers in this mug, but that may have been wishful thinking projected onto the tea. Has anyone experienced the junipers? I swear every review I’ve read has hand an off hand comment about missing out on that aspect of the flavour.

But still; I happily wasn’t disappointed by my reunion with this blend!

Sad Sipdown (123)!

First off, this is tasting note 1900! Woot! That means the next really big number is going to be 2000 – I think I need to start planning now for what tea I’ll celebrate that landmark with…

Thank you Cameron B. for sharing a cup worth of this awesome limited edition blend. I had no idea I wanted to try it until you wrote about it, and then after I did some looking in to it I felt like I had to try it even though I was hoping so much that I’d hate it. Why was I hoping I’d hate it? ‘Cause the only thing worse than hating a tea blend is falling in love with a limited edition blend. And of course, that’s what happened.

Aesthetically, the tea blend is beautiful! The deep green leaves make the yellow marigold really pop, and the juniper berries are super fun to look at. Smell wise, I don’t get a lot from the dry leaf, but steeping it smells like a high quality traditional Genmaicha; a little greener than roasty.

Taste wise; this is really smooth and silky. It weighs only slightly more on the green side than the roasty, but both are present and really well executed. I’m gonna have to agree with Cameron B. and say that the primary flavour I’m getting from the green base is butternut squash. Yummy! The roasty brown rice has a nice nutty quality to it as well that I’m also noticing. But most importantly, this has the most divine vanilla flavour. It’s gentle, but man is it present and very, very raw/natural. The vanilla really makes the tea, and honestly I haven’t tasted a vanilla flavour as amazing as this since Butiki’s Creamy Eggnog; which is pretty close to the perfect green vanilla tea. The green base here even shares the same buttery aspect alongside the very gentle vegetal taste.

I honestly don’t taste much of the Juniper berries (you’re right Cam, Junipers do have a sorta pine like quality to them) but I think I ever so faintly get a peek at the very, very end of the sip. If there’s one thing I’d want more of in this blend, it’s the Junipers…

But even so, I’m in love. I want more of this, like now. At least 2 oz. of it would make me a very, very happy tea drinker – ‘cause guys, I’m like 99% sure this is my Japon. It’s so smooth and silky and creamy, and rich in the most calming and pacifying way. And very subtly flavoured.

And dammit, ‘cause it’s limited edition! GAH!

Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox Round #3 – Tea #7
Oh, happy to try this blend! It looks to be yabao which I don’t particularly love mixed with a black tea… I have no idea what else, but it seems like some spices. I used around two teaspoons, a few minutes after boiling for 3-4 minutes. The color of the cup is a very light brown. Really, I thought there would be more flavor than what there is. First, there is an odd flavor, I can’t tell from what… maybe the yabao. The black tea itself doesn’t give much flavor at all, certainly no smokiness. Otherwise, the flavor tastes faintly like a spice cake. I don’t hate the blend, but I wouldn’t care to keep it around. Maybe Verdant’s blends would get better reception if anyone actually knew what was in them. The blends are never on their website, the ingredients aren’t labeled on the bag, and really, the only hints are what Steepster accumulates on the tea pages for these Verdant blends.
Steep #1 // 2 tsps. // few min after boiling // 3-4 min
Steep #2 // just boiled // 5 min

I’m not sure why they claim this is the “best black tea” Mr. He has produced because in every measurable way the regular version is better. The aroma is far too vegetal/raw for a Chinese black tea, the mouthfeel is thin even when I brewed it with extra leaf, even close to boiling hot water doesn’t extract much taste (observes the color difference… this one never gets the rich copper color of the other), and if you steep it longer the “citrus of amarena cherries” just gets overbearingly sour. The only thing that is on par to the later picked tea is the aroma of the dry leaf which still smells like dark chocolate.

Queued post, written June 25th 2014

Turns out we’ve actually got a reasonably good local clothes shop with women’s fashion. And it’s the sort of shop that carries clothes that matches my age group and taste fairly well. As in normal clothes without too many wild details, mysterious patterns or eye-bleeding colours on it and at a reasonable price. I needed to replenish my closet in the t-shirt department after I had a good thorough clean out earlier this month. Took a whole big sack of clothes to the charity shop, most of which were things that I never really wore anyway. So I didn’t actually lose very much that I was sometimes using. It just illustrated to me quite plainly how little I actually had to use. Most of what I threw out that I was actually using sometimes were things that I had worn holes in here and there.

So it was time for new things. This particular shop is right next to our grocery shop, so I’ve walked past it loads of times, but never been inside. Rather than bother with a train trip to the city and back, I thought I’d look there first. My luck was in, they were having a sale. Came home with five short sleeved t-shirts, one long sleeved top and one nice cardigan, and they even had a sale so I paid half price or less on half of them. Ha! This is definitely worth knowing!

On my way home in even started raining. Really great big drops of rain. This + succesful shopping = celebratory me, because the lawn is a bit yellow and the rainwater barrel is empty.

I remembered I had a genmaicha that MissB shared with me in the yet to try box and I thought something toasty and green sounded just like a good celebration beverage. So I took it and made a cup. By the time I discovered what it actually was, it was too late to change my mind.

This is not what I understand by genmaicha at all. It’s not a green tea, but an oolong. It has no puffed rice, but toasted rice. It has chai spices in it.

This is an oolong chai with toasted rice. The inclusion of some sort of rice doesn’t automatically make something a genmaicha in my book.

Hm.

Oh well. I will try to keep an open mind.

I can easily detect the carob and cinnamon in the aroma, and there is a toasted note as well, which I believe must be the rice. Underneath all that, and perhaps enhanced by it as well, I can smell the oolong base. Floral and a bit woody. Thankfully I can’t smell the coriander. I find coriander is far too sharp and strong a flavour for me in raw form. Husband grows it in the window sill for cooking use, and it stinks whenever he’s trimmed flower stalks and withered leaves off it.

The flavour is very cinnamon-y and sweet. I think it’s the carob in combination with the cinnamon that is making it sweet. I can taste the base tea when swallowing, but there is so much of the cinnamon and carob that I can only really tell that it’s there. I couldn’t say much about it. There might be a faint hint of coriander in the aftertaste, but it’s not so much that I’m certain I’m not imagining it there because I know it’s in here. There is an overall faint hint of toasted rice, but again it’s not very much.

It’s quite a pleasant tea, if a bit heavy on the spices. Not a genmaicha, though.

Cameron – while i agree with your comment that this was the best of the three…this is yet another one that i’m underwhelmed with, and finding no vanilla just a baguely sort of orange like tea that’s an oolong. another not really a fan of sort of thing for me…especially this type. Terri….i hope you enjoy! lol

barf. whatup non vanilla, gross jasmine tea. yeah….and that concludes my re-entry to the blends club. Give me back the first couple months please :( So disappointed by the “vanilla” themed month. I pretty much bought a month for my tea sister terri ‘cause she’s getting all of these lol

i don’t get vanilla…i get flowers and jasmine. my least favourite things…i’d rather have blergamot.

Absolutely delightful. Smooth. Chocolatey. No need for anything else. Like love.

Unfortunately that does it for my sample – I hope there is more of this in stock soon!

First, the aroma. The leaves smell like lovely dark chocolate brownies. They are small, black, curly leaves that looked delightful.

Then, the taste. Like a light (watery) cocoa, with a fuller body of flavor. I definitely can taste the malt flavor people meant, as well as the roasted rice flavor. The tea is bright tasting, and smooth. It reminds me of cocoa puffs, or cocoa rice Krispy treats.

I never tasted any tea like it. I received it in the 5 for 5 from verdant and am so glad I did! I would love to order it and am now curious about original LB and the green tea version.

I sipped down this one as well, by cold brewing the last bits of it. It was a little intense as a cold brew, but drinkable. It didn’t make it any more whiskey-like, but I didn’t really expect it to. Overall a decent blend but kind of boring (like I am finding many oolong-sarsaparilla blends). Next!

Whiskey in the morning? Sure, why not, as long as it is actually tea and not whiskey at all. Maybe this will help the horrible pain in my chest from coughing; whiskey does usually get that nickname “grandma’s cough syrup” (or some such old relative).

Of course, this tea doesn’t really taste all that much like whiskey, so tangential benefits are likely to be low. Still, it’s soothing and has that distinct herbal flavor that makes you think you might be drinking something good for you. :)

A blends club blend that I haven’t tired, but it’s still on my list to sipdown! I love bourbon, but I’m not huge on wuyi oolong, and I’m not necessarily a fan of hot bourbon either, so I approach this blend with a bit of trepidation.

It smells a fair amount like the Sarsaparilla Tieguanyin blend, which isn’t too surprising since it also has sarsaparilla in it, but with roasty charcoal notes from the Wuyi. Flavor-wise, it is similar. The tea has a good texture, thick and creamy. I don’t know that this really reminds me of whiskey and/or bourbon, but there might be hints. At first I was lukewarm about the flavor combo, but it’s grown on me a bit. I’m still not a big fan of charcoal roasted oolongs like this one, but I don’t mind them too much. I’ll be able to drink this one up; maybe I will cold brew it too. :)

This tea is excellent. It is malty and slightly sweet. I vaguely detect some chocolate notes underneath the malt. There is very little bitterness. The overriding characteristic is the malt flavor, by this I do not mean chocolate malt flavor but that strong tea flavor often referred to as malt.

I brewed this western style with 2 tsp of leaf with 200 degree water in an 18 oz teapot for 3 min.

So I’ll preface this with the good news. My Indian (as in from India) cube neighbour shares most of my workday teas these days and he liked this one a lot. He’ll probably be getting the balance of this once I finish this pot, if I can’t foist the rest of the pot off on him also.

For me, well, I haven’t even tasted it yet but it’s brewed too hot to drink and when I smell the tea liquor, it makes my too-spicy senses tingle without even touching my tongue. Like the back of my throat is on fire. So I don’t have high expectations of this myself.

I did add some sugar because I find that sometimes that makes the cinnamon a bit more palatable for me. I can occasionally eat cinnamon rolls after all. (Not sure anything makes ginger palatable for me).

This is…sweeter than I expected, even with the added sugar. And the licorice…well. I can never really tell with licorice because I don’t hate the flavour itself but every time I drink a tea with a strong licorice flavour, I can’t suppress the shudder that goes down my spine. I’m really not sure what causes it. The ginger and cinnamon aren’t too strong but they’re definitely there, making this tea experience one to be endured rather than enjoyed. If there’s vanilla in here, I can’t tell. I can’t even really taste the lemon. It’s spicy licorice all the way.

Bleh.

…and another one bites the dust. I think i’m finally calling it quits permanently on the verdant blends club. I resubscribed at the promise of vanilla and the box has disappointed. I still have 2 to try, but neither one is peaking my interest and this one is awful. While i don’t mind licorice – there is too much of that in here and it makes for a sickeningly sweet lemon like brew that has a terrible after taste. I tried really hard to drink this but i just can’t.

Thanks Cameron B for the sample!

I actually quite like this. The TGY is of course, really delicious. The additions to it are subtle, but welcome and seem to pair very nicely. I would not have know there was orange just by the taste, but the subtle spices are very nice! Yummo.

Another from the Marco Polo TTB, and another thanks for Verdant for the sample.

I tried this in tandem with the regular LB, and I think the regular version was a little more flavorful for me. I liked them both though. Again, I have a hard time identifying what exactly this tea tastes like (and that’s a failing in me, not the tea). But I liked it very much!

Unlike the only other commenter here, I steeped this…closer to the directions. I steeped it for a minute rather than 30 seconds at 205 degrees and I have to say that I’m not getting much other than the tea itself. The additional ingredients aren’t making much of an impact with that short of a steeping time, though the tieguanyin itself is quite nice. A bit roasty and sweet. Next time (next steep?) I’ll try to remember to steep this for a bit longer. Right now it’s giving me a headache because I haven’t eaten anything yet today (darn you oolong effect!)

Second steep (the next day) – done at boiling (thanks Dinosara) and 4 minutes. I can taste more now, a tiny bit of citrus and what I think is the sarsaparilla. Which I apparently have been pronouncing wrong forever. The vanilla is very faint, if it’s there at all, it’s hard for me to tell. And I don’t know what birch is supposed to taste like.

Overall, I think I like the plain tieguanyin better.

The first time I tried this, I went with the Verdant steeping guidelines, but I found the cup a bit underwhelming. One and a half teaspoons at three minutes at 175 worked a lot better for me!

I really like floral teas, so I enjoyed this quite a bit. However, if you don’t like floral, you’ll probably want to back away slowly; the aroma and taste are extremely flower-powered. Jasmine and rose flavors play pretty nicely together, and the end of the sip is free from that astringency that you sometimes get with jasmine teas. I didn’t get any vanilla from this, but I did like it quite a bit!

Another sample from Stephanie. Laoshan Black is one of the most beloved teas around these parts, so I’ve been wanting to try it for a while now. I think most people who have tried this tea have said that they like the original better, but I’m just happy to get the chance to try either of them. The leaves are smaller than I expected, and jet black. They’re thin and curly. Dry, this tea basically smells like straight cocoa powder with a little bit of malt. I did my usual 3 minute steep at 200 degrees.

The brewed aroma has that elusive herb/spice note that I often find in Fujian blacks but can never seen to identify. Whatever it is, it’s very present in this tea. There are also strong malt and grain scents. That mystery herb/spice is also quite present in the taste. This tea has a lovely, strong cocoa flavor with some sweetness to it. It’s also very grainy, which I love, with an ample malty taste. And the overall flavor is very roasty and comforting.

Overall, I find this tea to be very good but not necessarily mind-blowing compared to other similar teas I’ve tried. I would very much like to try the original Laoshan Black, I’m hoping there will be some left in the Lewis & Clarke TTB when it gets to me! :)

This is the final tea from Verdant’s blends club for the month of August. This was really the only one out of the three that I was any kind of excited to try… I don’t really have any experience with tieguanyin itself, but at least there’s no licorice or flowers in this one. :P The leaves are a dark brown-green color, and they’re somewhat loosely rolled. The dry scent is mostly roasted oolong, but I do get a little bit of citrus and vanilla. I steeped about a teaspoon and a half for 4 minutes at 190 degrees.

Brewed, the aroma is still mostly roasty and oolongish with maybe a little bit of vanilla? However, the other elements are there in the taste, thank goodness! The oolong itself is very light and sweet, with just enough of a roasty punch. There’s a nice orange flavor, especially near the end of the sip and in the aftertaste. It kind of builds as I continue to drink. The vanilla, well… it’s not there as much as I would like it to be. I can taste a teeny bit. There’s also just the slightest suggestion of spice at the end, I guess it must be coming from the sarsaparilla. I have no idea what birch bark tastes like, so I couldn’t tell you whether or not it’s here. Overall, this is a lovely light and slightly creamy citrusy tea, it kind of reminds me of Fauchon’s Sweet Almond & Orange tea. Thank goodness, I at least liked one tea from this box… glares at Verdant.

So… Another “vanilla” tea from this month’s Verdant blends club. Now, I am not a lover of floral teas in general, but jasmine is okay sometimes. Looking into the pouch, this tea looks like potpourri – it’s basically a bag full of flower petals with a couple of silver needles thrown in. It smells very strongly of rose… ick. I looked up silver needle steeping instructions because for some reason Verdant’s steeping parameters are always for super short steeps with a lot of tea. Honestly I think I overleafed a bit, but it didn’t seem to have much effect.

Brewed aroma is mostly sweet jasmine, and thank goodness the floral is less intense than the dry scent. The rose is still there, but weaker than the jasmine now. Overall it smells quite sweet, and there’s a little bit of cucumber along with a faint hay aroma. The first thing I taste is the lemongrass, which is a nice surprise. The overall taste is mostly jasmine, however, but it’s not terribly strong. The rose is mostly present as an aftertaste, and honestly I don’t really taste white tea at all.

I have to say, there is absolutely no vanilla flavor at all in this tea! I feel like I’ve been duped… Verdant, you have broken my fragile little heart! This one will go into the rehoming box, there’s no way I’ll drink this with the amount of floral in it. Not going to rate.

Sigh… So I’m feeling pretty cheated by the Blends club this month… I was so excited for the premise of vanilla-centric blends. They reeled me in! And then they gave me a licorice tea and a floral tea. The third tea sounds like it’ll be good, but vanilla is not the main flavor there either. Ugh!

So I figured I’d get this one out of the way already, since I hate licorice root. Honestly, the dry scent isn’t horrible, but there’s quite a bit of ginger and I can definitely smell the licorice. And it actually smells really nice when brewed – like apple cinnamon oatmeal! Yum.

Unfortunately, it’s very licorice. I can’t stand that weird sweet aftertaste that licorice gives, it makes me want to gag. The other flavors in this tea aren’t bad, and I might actually enjoy it if it hadn’t been ruined by the evil emperor himself. I’m not going to rate this considering there is a large amount of bias in play here.

So, straight into the rehoming box it goes. If anyone is interested in trying this, just let me know, I have an ounce of it.

Daily Summary: 4 sipdowns, 155 teas remaining in cupboard