Verdant Tea (Special)

I purchased this from BrewTEAlly. She had suggested this based of my love for Earl Grey. I decided to go for it even though I had previously looked it up and was not interested at all in trying this tea based off of the ingredients.

I’m having a hard time describing this tea and the best I can do is say It smells like a Christmas candle but taste like bread with cinnamon and a little orange.

It took me a while to figure out what it was about this tea that made it so unique from other teas with similar ingredients: orange peel, cinnamon and clove. It’s the tea base, Laoshan Black and Zhu Rong. This is one of the first black teas I have tried that was not a normal “candy” tea base. I had no idea I was missing out and I look forward to trying other teas with these teas as the base.

I’m in love with this tea and I hope they make it again or I can find a pouch to hide because I only have enough for about half a cup.

This came as a sample from Terri Harplady, called Qilan Wuyi Oolong but that page on Steepster will not let you click on it to review. So after reading reviews, I found others were having trouble with the name and that it might have been entered incorrectly.
I was also confused by the flavor of this one, it is not available anymore anyway but it had flavors I wasn’t expecting.
I followed instructions from the Verdant website, did a rinse then steeped for 1 minute.
The flavor had a touch of floral and some astringency and scents of bamboo. A little hint of fennel.
Shows you how many flavors and scents can be achieved with one Camellia Sinensis!!!!! I would love to watch them roll, roast, etc. to learn how they do it all!!!!!

The Tulsi is an interesting taste with this oolong. I like it! It’s nice spicey and warming for the -30C day out. I have to say out of the box so far this and the rooibos are my favourite. Then again I still have a few to try :D

totally ok with the tulsi in this one…not a fan of the oolong :)sadly my tasting note on this is lacking because work distracted me with testing. both the teas i was drinking ended up cooling off a bunch, so i didn’t get to drink them when i really wanted to. I’m sending the rest of this to terri because she likes oolongs and’cause she likes to try out the blends boxes as well.

This is wonderful. It’s cozy and perfect as a hot cup of tea. I brewed for only a minute as suggested and the flavor is great with no bitterness. It’s a soft flavor. I can tell there is cinnamon and citrus (not obviously bergamot or orange, just light citrus) along with a chocolatey black tea, but nothing dominates. Everything blends together so well. I could drink this every day.

Thanks to Dexter3657, I now have a VAST collection of chai to choose from!!

Hey, I know a good morning in a cup when I see one. This screams «good morning, you can’t ignore me so wake up sleepy head!!»

Although there are no chocolate in this blend, it sure feels like a chocolate chai to me. The base must be spectacular on its own.
I really like the depth that peppercorn adds in this tea, in makes all the other flavours pop and tingle like Pop Rock candies!

Once you swallow, you get a warming heat feeling from the ginger. I like that it is not overly spicy, cinnamon, cardamom, fennel, they don’t fight with one another, it’s pure harmony in Yu Lu Yan Wonderland :-)

I could definitely see myself ordering this…but I wont, cause it would mean I have to place an order with Verdant, and if I’d place an order with them, it would also mean increasing my stash significantly which I’m suppose to bring down instead!!

Thanks you Dexter for another hit! Love!!

I love genmaicha, and was talking about it with someone, so I went digging in my sample box and pulled this out.
Hmmm ok this isn’t “normal” genmaicha – Tieguanyin, toasted wild rice, toasted brown rice, carob, coriander, dandelion root, cinnamon. I don’t always do well with green oolong, and not sure I want cinnamon in my genmaicha but if Stephanie is kind enough to send this to me – thank you very much!!! – then I’m going to at least try it.

Honestly I didn’t think I was going to like this – I am pleasantly surprised. The oolong isn’t too floral for me, the spices are really subtle way in the back – it’s a little green, it’s a little roasty/toasty the with just a hint of something (spices). I couldn’t pick out the individual spice it’s more just an impression take them out and they would be missing, but not quite identifiable.
This is an unusual genmaicha, but very pleasant and well balance for my taste.

Thanks Stephanie – I would never have tried this, and I’m really glad that I did. :))

Sipdown #48
Another one from Sil. It’s an interesting take on Genmaicha, although I do think I prefer it with green tea, & Even moreso without a doubt my favorite Genmaicha now is Laoshan Black! But this is nice too.

Jumping into the January’s Tea of the Month box from Verdant Tea I decided to try this one first. It’s very yummy but not something I think I would keep in my permanent collection. I am really enjoying it though.

…and that would be sipdown 10.

I’m not sure what to make of this one. It’s sort of like an average cup of stuff going on. It doesn’t knock my socks off, it doesn’t wow me…but i don’t hate it. It just sort of reminds me of a bunch of the recent verdant blends. Rest of this is off to Terri so that she can try the blends as well. I just wish this had more OOMPH or something…

I’m not sure how i feel about this one. I don’t dislike it, but it sort of blends in to a more bland blend than i’d like. and i totally got distracted mid review looking at wedding venues again. Every now and then i feel the urge to at least look at a few things and try to figure all this crap out. But at the end of the day, there’s very much a part of my that kinda wants to keep it small a la city hall wedding with parents and a couple close friends before going out to dinner somewhere with some good music and food. Like 10 ppl max…. sigh decisions, decisions…

Sipdown (yay!). While I really liked the herbal notes in this, I’d prefer it without the oolong. This last cup, which was mostly tulsi, was really nice. :)

Thank you for sharing, Dinosara.

I don’t think I’ll be wanting this again. I have a bunch of my favourite tulsi tea, and I think I’m happy with that.

I fed the last of this to my BFF and she’s had an allergic reaction to it. I’m sorry, BFF! I didn’t mean for this to happen!

Too bad, because we both enjoyed the taste.

Thank you, Dinosara!

I forgot I had already tried this tea. :)

Thank you, Dinosara!

It’s very tulsi-y. Not much in the background at all. I think it would be more balanced with more actual tea.

Still, I do like tulsi, and this will be a relaxing cup to sip while I detail my kitchen and prep food for the next couple days. Yay working weekends.

I have this in my paws thanks to the lovely Dinosara. Thank you so much!

I steeped this super short. 2×3o seconds mostly to flavour some water. It’s tulsi and that root beer tree (sa… Whatever it is.) and a bit of toasty earthiness in the background.

This tulsi is super strong. Almost licorice or fennel flavoured.

And now I’m at work. So thank you again for the lovely teas. I’ll do more steeps of this when I get home and also edit this note because I’m having typing issues on my phone right now. :/

Had a not so great day at work, so enjoying delicious, delicious tea that I like, and not being adventurous with new tea. This joins the seemingly never ending list of teas that I like that are out of stock:
Piccadilly Blend, F&M
Assam Hazelbank, Whittards
Assam Golden Lion, Butiki
York Tea, Whittards
Lao Cong Zi Ya, Norbu

I like the new tasting note format.
This time I brewed this tea in a Gaiwan, Gongfu style. And suddenly the whipped cream flavor came out. Startling and nothing that I’ve ever encountered in a tea before.
I wish that Verdant still stocked this. Apart from this being one of the most beautiful teas that I’ve ever seen, I really love this flavor profile, and I haven’t gotten it from other dianhongs.

Delicious and beautiful Dian Hong, but not much different from Golden Fleece. Will try to have a comparison sip down of it, Golden Fleece and the Chinese Tea Company Dian Hong. Did not get any chocolate taste, but did get a beautiful sugary delicious delicious tea.
Points taken off for price and availability (none).

1/28/14 Gongfu practice in the evening. 2.5g in my 100ml gaiwan. I’m on about the 8th steep of this, and will probably write a reply to this note when I’ve finished. This tea opened with a strong orchid/apricot aroma, and has gently been adding astringency and spicy notes with each steep. I’m enjoying it a great deal. The leaves are still pretty tight, some more so than others. I think I’ll take this tea to the club tomorrow, and see what it’s like brewed by a more experienced and focused gongfu-cha student. I get the feeling there’s a depth to this tea that I am just not skilled enough to draw out.

‘Traditional Tieguanyin’ is one of the categories to fill in my fantasy tea collection, and this one will be tough to beat. I may not even try, at least until this variety goes away and I have to! This being my first year not in a northern state, I think I’ll absolutely have to try Dinosara’s cold steep on this, as I can imagine it will be terrific.