Verdant Tea (Special)

I provided some of this one to gongfu, which I had not done with this tea before. I wondered how the blends club blends would hold up to a gongfu type environment, but given that their steeping instructions were all nearly gongfu-ish, I thought it was worth a shot. I used the steeping instructions as a starting point, which was almost semi-gongfu because there was less leaf than I would normally use in a gaiwan.

This one held up well, giving lots of cinnamon sugar cookie flavor in all steeps. The last steep we had, which was 3 minutes long, was nicely bready. I definitely enjoy this tea a lot, although it is more of a fall/winter blend than summer.

I wondered if I would still be as enamoured of this tea (#59) now, since lately my taste for roasted TGYs has swung back away from loving them. But the additions of this one really tame it down, and I still definitely get a spiced sugar cookie note from it. Quite tasty. I wish Verdant would make blends like this permanent and not the ones that have all those weird “aromatics” blends.

Ok, time to catch up on tasting notes. The other day I was thinking about whether I really should keep on with my Verdant Blends Club because there is usually only one of the three each month that I’m interested in. But then I had a cup of this tea. It’s not available as a normal blend on their site, and what I have of it is from the box and also I swiped OMGsrsly’s.

Teas like this make it worth it for me. It really is deliciously like a spiced sugar cookie to me. I don’t really care for genmaicha usually, but this is certainly an exception. It is a blend that speaks to me, although apprently it doesn’t speak to many others as it’s not one that they decided to make permanent. Ah well, I will savor what I have.

Yay getting to all of my Verdant blends in a timely fashion. I was excited about this one since I do love tieguanyin, and am really getting more into the traditional varieties lately. I’ve never been too big on genmaicha, but I can be persuaded.

MMmmm. Ok, to me, THIS tea is the one that really smells like a cookie. A snickerdoodle even! The cinnamon, the doughiness, the toastiness of a fresh baked cookie. Wow I really love this one. To me this is sweet, not savory. This blend speaks to me, haha. I want more!

Finishing off this one as well. I thought I was doing better, and I guess I am, but today I have felt overall sluggish and sickly. Teaching for 3 hrs yesterday (and going out in the sub-freezing weather) probably set me back a bit as far as health goes. Sigh. And I get to do it tomorrow too!

Anyway, this tea. Honestly I am enjoying that it is gingery and spicy this afternoon. Snickerdoodle, maybe not so much. But I enjoy it pretty well nonetheless.

I was intrigued by this one. I have enjoyed the yabao blends that I’ve tried before, and I am in love with a reserve yabao. The dry leaf of this, to me, smells powerfully like root beer. I mean, I guess it makes sense with birch root and sarsparilla in it.

Brewed up I definitely get more cookie-ish scents from this. I am surprised that there isn’t cinnamon added to this since I really associate cinnamon with snickerdoodles. The tea is smooth and creamy, and I get a kick of ginger. Otherwise all the flavors do some nice melding together. I did my first cup at Verdant’s parameters (1 minute) but left the infuser in the pot for two more minutes (for a total of 3 minutes) for the second cup. Mostly it made the ginger spicier, haha. I like the yabao, I like the spices, but I’m not in love with this blend. But I will happily drink up the rest of it.

Gah! I lost my tasting note. I was saying this was mild but yummy. I don’t feel like retyping the whole thing. I used 1 tablespoon, boiling water, 3 minute steep, 7 minute second steep.

I’ve been trying to avoid caffeine in the evening, so I pulled out this herbal. I had enough left for one more steeping- a sipdown! I’ve been doing a lot of sipdowns lately, which means I finally get to do a tea order! I have been enduring a long, self-inflicted hiatus from buying tea.

I tried this with milk and it was nummy! Very minty!

This is the first of the three December teas I’m trying. They all sound and smell fantastic! I couldn’t help opening them all and smelling them. Looks like these blends have healthy doses of my favorite spice- cinnamon!

3 min first steep. Dry ‘leaf’ smells like mint and cinnamon, whereas wet it smells like mint and cacao. I wasn’t sure how much of this to use- I used 2 tsp, but perhaps I should have gone for a full tablespoon because first sip doesn’t taste like much. The flavor reveals itself in further sipping however. It really does remind me of peppermint bark- very minty, especially. It isn’t super chocolatey but the undertone of cacao is enough for me. I think sweetened this tea would be positively decadent. In any case I enjoyed this first steep.

7 minute 2nd steep. This steep has much more cinnamon, and just more flavor in general. Nom nom nummy. Both if these steeps were delicious, and I think next time I will go a full tablespoon. I think it would probably be really good with a tea like Laoshan black added as well.

I drank some of this last night, and it was pretty tasty. I meant to have the rest of it tonight and drink a different tea right now, but I accidentally dumped it into my already-damp infuser basket, and so was pretty much forced to have it now. I didn’t really want an herbal, though. I thought I didn’t have any plain black tea at home, but then remembered that I had a sample of Kenyan Black from JusTea, so I threw that in as well.

Of course, I don’t think there was enough Kenyan black in that sample for the amount of this tea, so I didn’t really taste it anyway. Oh well, this is a pretty tasty herbal blend overall. Probably should have mixed it with Laoshan black for maximum chocolate factor.

It seems like everyone has a peppermint bark tea this season, right? Although peppermint bark isn’t my favorite confection, I am happy to try Verdant’s offer. The dry leaf smells minty and very cinnamony… So much so that it made me sneeze!

My first cup is at Verdant’s steeping parameters, but I left the basket in the tea pot for the second cup to steep for however long. The first cup is mostly minty, and I don’t get a lot of the other flavors, especially at first. More of the chocolate comes out as it cools, but the one minute steep seems undeveloped. The longer steep, unsurprisingly, has more of everything… More mint, more chocolate, more cinnamon, although I would hesitate to call it truly chocolatey. I added some sugar to make it even more dessert-like, which was pretty tasty.

Tea Review: This is a day of Memorial and Celebration for many people around the World. I was up early, before dawn.

It’s not odd to drink a wonderfully light and celebratory tea to toast a great Grandfather of us all. I wrote much about my own feelings on my blog and if you like, you can read it beginning below.

This blend takes the Yabao that many have tried already and adds Holiday magic to zing it up!
In classic (now after several years I can say ‘classic’) Verdant fashion, the ingredients are blended in such a manor that no one ingredient screams out ‘Ginger’ or ‘Coriander’ or Birch Bark’.
If anything, there is a softness that I amped up a little by steeping longer than the recommended 1 minute.

Yabao tastes like light nutmeg to me. (It tastes like cardamom to David Duckler but what does he know, he’s a young man!)

Yes this is very ‘snickerdoodle’. BEWARE… our tastebuds are on overkill with cinnamon, peppermint and strongish flavors this time of year (love the goodies).
Yabao Snickerdoodle is light on the palate. I HIGHLY suggest adding sugar or mild honey to your tea (as well as steeping longer, and please don’t underleaf…LISTEN to GRANDMA!).

I would say (am saying) that I sipped a grand white wine or two in my day that were in the same league with this tea. Nutmeg, vanilla and ginger… sparkling sweet and delicious. (Murphy’s California)

Cheers to Mandeba!

Story
I woke long before dawn to watch the news feed from South Africa this morning.

It is the day of Memorial for Nelson Mandela.

What shall I say? Some of you are not going to like what I say…
I warn you…

Yesterday, I tried to explain to my granddaughter Schey what it was like during the days of Apartheid and Civil Rights.
It’s not easy for young people to understand what it was like in the 1960′s-1980′s but I’ll keep on telling my grandmother stories no matter what.

As an interracial couple with two young children in the 1960′s and 1970′s, life for my husband and I was often dangerous. I worked in Civil Rights for many years in local projects, then as a Vista Volunteer in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia.

I was living in the Nation’s Capitol when both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were killed. Riots followed.
Shortly after the riots, my husband and most of the young Black men in the area were drafted. (This was during the Viet Nam War)
It was too dangerous, the Army said, for me to go ‘Down South’ with my husband because of the Klu Klux Klan, so I flew home to California until he was transfered a year later to Texas. (A Hard Place in 1970).
…the rest is on my blog…
www.teaandincense.com

This is incredibly unseasonal for a warm, spring-y day like today, but it is next so there you go. Actually some reserve yabao is next but I am unlikely to be gongfu-ing before the weekend so it is being (temporarily) skipped. Which should make this one #46.

Unseasonal, but delicious. I get kind of bored with Christmas-spices type teas but LB keeps this interesting. I kinda wish they would bring this one back at least at holiday times. Ah well, I have probably half an ounce of it anyway so it will probably take me forever to get through it.

Mmmm, it doesn’t really bother me all that much that the bergamot in this one (as in Bergamot Rose LB) is extremely mild. Would I love more bergamot? Sure. But this is quite tasty to me nonetheless. I just love most things on a Laoshan black base, I guess. A lovely, wintery tea.

Yayyy! This came in the mail today and I had to immediately try it. Holiday Earl Grey! With Laoshan Black (and Zhu Rong) base! I always love Verdant’s Earl variants, and I’m glad they finally had one for the blends club. The dry leaf smells really good, like a super Christmas-y Earl. Lots of bergamot, lots of cinnamon and clove.

The steeped tea smells amazing too, this time helped by the awesome chocolate of Laoshan Black. Mmmmm. The bergamot is less prominent but the spices scream Christmas in a cup. Yup, this one is a winner in my book. The chocolatey Laoshan Black, the sweet festive spices, the bright citrusy bergamot and orange. As with Verdant’s Bergamot Rose Laoshan Black the bergamot is not strong here, and as with that one that doesn’t bother me here. I’m not looking for a straight Earl, but there is enough bergamot flirting through the flavor to remind me that I am drinking a nontraditional Earl.

I’d love to use the tea cash I earned on Black Friday to buy more of this one (nudgenudge)!

Well the blends box for this month is on it’s way, so I figured I should get through some of the old blends. To make room. Also my Cadeux Deco Vendome order arrived today, so I have a lot moar tea!

Finishing off this tea and it really is cementing the fact that this blend is not for me. I mean, I don’t love chais in the first place, but there is something about this blend that is definitely not working for me. Oh well, can’t love them all!

I maybe possibly am doing slightly better today? I hope. I made a pot of this in the hopes that the spices would make it through my fog. Sweetened with maple syrup and mellowed with milk. Not my favorite but I am also not much of a chai person.

Nothing to do with this tea: There are several people that I talked about doing swaps with after the holidays, but I can’t remember who now. If any of you remember talking about a swap with me, let me know!

Hmmm, looks like I’m going to be the lone dissenter on this one so far. So I’ve never actually had the base Yu Lu Yan Cha, and I believe that is wholly the reason for my lack of enthusiasm about this blend.

I brewed as instructed, knowing that I would probably want to add milk and honey, but I took a sip first. People say the base tea shines in this one, and I would have to concur. The spices were mild but nicely balanced, with no one spice coming over the top. I could smell the fennel (bleh) in the dry blend but it doesn’t stick out in the brewed tea.

However, the main flavor in this was the black tea. I did taste the chocolate notes, but there was a bitter harsh note that was almost like smoke but not quite. I thought maybe I was losing my mind (based on descriptions by others) until I read Terri’s note about how she gets a burnt note from it when western brewed, which is obviously how this blend was prepared. Yeah, that’s it… like something that has been burnt, but not the smoke itself. Which is definitely a major turn-off for me. Perhaps I should only brew Yu Lu Yan Cha gongfu, as Terri does.

So anyway I added milk and honey. At first I was still unsure whether I wanted to drink it but the milk smoothed over the burnt note and the honey brought out the chocolate. I will likely be able to drik the rest of this one, although it may go into a swap box for someone who loves it more.