Verdant Tea (Special)

This has an incredibly malty, savory aroma once steeped. Before steeping, it smells mostly of clove. I over-steeped and probably used too much tea so this is just a touch bitter but not at all like I was expecting. I can taste the coves slightly but it’s mostly the tea. I should mention that the leaf on this is beautiful – stiff and tightly wound into curlicues. I’m tasting a little artificial sweetness about midway through the cup. It reminds me of licorice. There may be some in the blend or in the oil that was used. This tastes somewhat smoky too and I’m wondering if I mistakenly labeled it as bitter at first when in actuality it is smoke I’m tasting.

This has an incredibly surprising fragrance right out of the bag. Believe it or not, it smells exactly like my husband’s shaving cream. It’s that cooling mentholated smell mixed with the sweet spiciness of cloves. I can see the cloves in the dry mix along with the black tea and what appears to be citrus peel. There could be ginger there too, maybe, and a bark of some kind.

After steeping, the aroma is different. It’s tobacco maybe. Most of what I smell now is the black tea. With some of these scented teas I’ve noticed that the scent of the essential oils is really strong in the dry tea but fades or vanishes altogether once the tea has been steeped. I often can’t detect any of the fragrance at all in the flavor of the liquid.

Unsweetened, this tea tasted extremely bitter to me, but after adding honey it is much more palatable. The tea itself tastes very complex. I may want to try the black tea on its own at some point, without the spice. I can still smell the menthol, but taste mostly a lightly spiced black tea. Cloves come to mind first and foremost. There is also a perfumy quality to it.

Second Steep
8 ounces water + 212 degrees + 50 seconds

The second cup still has that lingering sweetness in the background from the cloves.

This smells mostly of anise with a touch of licorice. The steeped tea leaves have a spicier scent to them, but not like chai. It has a sweeter aroma. They also smell a bit like curry powder. I need the extra kick from the spices this morning since I’ve been fighting off a headache. I’m hoping this spicy tea will clear my head.

My grandmother passed along the recipe for a Lebanese cookie she used to make and now I make them twice a year. The recipe calls for soaking and then draining anise seeds in boiling water before adding the seeds to the cookie dough. This tea reminds me of the anise liquid I would have leftover after making those cookies. Straight anise flavor.

Second Steep
8 ounces water + 205 degrees + 1 minute

This cups smells slightly peppery, like ground black pepper.

This tea looks and smells like an herbal tea and is even called an herbal on the package, but the website lists one of its ingredients as Pu’er. I’m glad I looked there first.

There are pieces of rust colored bark in the mix and LOTS of fennel seeds. The fennel is mostly what I smell here, but it’s strange because I don’t see fennel seed on the list of ingredients. Perhaps I’m wrong, but these look and smell exactly like fennel seed to me. The rest does look like different kinds of bark so all of that fits with the description.

This actually turned out much better than I expected. It’s spiced but not overwhelmingly so.

Out for lunch with my brother today. Vacation tomorrow. Strong cup of black tea for breakfast. I’m feeling positive about this day. I love the smoky aroma coming from this tea. I don’t smell the coriander, but I’m okay with that.

Second Steep
8 ounces water + 205 degrees + 1 minute, 15 seconds

This is good, kind of lightly smoky. The dry tea has a spiciness to it which I’m guessing comes from the essential oil. I can see coriander seeds but it doesn’t have that spicy sweet lemon aroma that typically accompanies freshly ground coriander. The wet leaves smell more smoked and less fragrant than the dry leaves.

I’m having this with honey and a bit of light cream. I eventually want to try this with maple syrup. It seems like quite a few of the notes I’ve read about smoky teas show people using maple syrup as the sweetener so it must offer something to this particular type of flavor. The only other smoked tea I’ve tried is Twinings Lapsang Souchong which I really enjoyed and which had a much stronger smoky flavor. I’m not sure how the production of the teas differs, but I really would like to taste more smoke in this one.

Second Steep
8 ounces water + 212 degrees + 50 seconds

My second cup brewed up darker than my first. It’s definitely a little stronger after the longer steep. My desk smells suspiciously like cigarettes now.

Third Steep
8 ounces water + 212 degrees + 1 minutes, 10 seconds

This third cup tastes much like the second. It still has a bit of smokiness but it’s fading.

These Verdant blends are so powerfully fragrant! This one smells strongly of juicy fruit and flowers. There are long strips of fuzzy white tea and bright pink flower petals. There are also golden flower buds that resemble lemon seeds. This smells wonderful – I hope the aroma carries over into the flavor. It’s quite stunning. Both the steeped leaves and the liquid still have that floral scent. I was a little worried that this would be bitter because of the high temperature, but it seems fine. It’s lightly floral, not overpowering at all. It’s a nice, gentle cup.

Second Steep
6 ounces water + 190 degrees + 50 seconds

This second cup smells just as floral as the first. It must be the jasmine. The tea leaves are starting to look a little faded, and this cup is bitter, unlike the first. It was steeped according to the package directions so I’m not sure what changed. Maybe 50 seconds was too long. Maybe the hot water finally penetrated the leaves and was too much.

This is much better with added honey. The flavors really come out. I’m enjoying this now that it’s cooled. I think this would make a wonderful iced tea.

I wanted something different this morning, something lighter. This turned out to be a nice choice. I haven’t had this in a while. It was stuffed in the back of our tea cabinet. I steeped it longer and at a lower temperature and it came out flavorful, not too light at all. It’s not something I would purchase more of but it’s a nice cup to have every once in a while.

This tea blend has an incredibly strong scent. It smells very floral and somewhat sweet. I can also detect the sweet spice from the cardamom that I can see in the bag. Alongside the cardamom pods are whole flowers with yellow centers and white petals, each about as big around as a nickel. There is a mintiness in the aroma as well, perhaps from the lemongrass. The Tieguanyin itself is beautiful. The shades of green vary from that of dried mint to as deep a green as cooked spinach.

The liquid brews itself to a golden yellow in a short 30-second steep and smells primarily of the floral Tieguanyin. The tea liquid has good flavor and seems to be the right strength, but I’m not tasting any of the additions I picked up on in the aroma.

The name of this tea made me think it was an herbal tea, so I let it steep for a long time. Oops…my bad. The resulting brew came across, no surprises here, very herbally. I finished it, but it was a little too much for me. Surprisingly, I found no bitterness.

The second steep I dropped the water temp and steep time. Much better. I didn’t detect the herbals. What I tasted was olive oil?!

I have enough to have another go at this. I’ll treat the first steep better the next time.

Thank you TheLastDodo for the sample!

Thanks for the sample Dennis!

This is a bit of an odd bird to me. A lot more vegetal than other young shengs I’ve experienced. Light spiciness/herbaciousnes in early steeps. Extremely mild bitterness, and a tiny bit of sweetness but not much. Really interesting and different!

Glad I got to try it :)

First tasting note? Ah, so much pressure!
I wasn’t expecting to like this tea as much as I did. It smelled like hippie perfume. Nothing says yummy like drinking a bottle of essential oils!
No, but seriously. That scent combined with the slightly sweet and smoky black tea like a charm. It wasn’t soapy or incense-y. I say give it a try if you can!

In depth-ish review here:
http://sororiteasisters.com/2015/04/18/nurture-4-black-tea-verdant-tea/

Random chance sample from Dinosara. I’m a fan of mint, so I thought I would give it a shot.
The dry leaves are very fluffy, so I chose two (actual) teaspoons for my 8 oz up at home. The smell of the brewed tea contains definite mint an rose notes, but also something…. like a light meat flavor? The leaves smell very faintly like tuna! Not fishy tuna, either, more oily, meaty tuna! So bizarre… Luckily that flavor doesn’t translate into the brew. There is a faint minty tingle at the end of the sip, but I think it just contributes to the slight sweetness of the sarsaparilla and rose flavors. The rose really saves this tea, it makes it a nice, complicated cup; otherwise I think it would be too muddy.
I think the cardamom is giving me that meaty undertone. In overall profile, this tea is more sweet than savory, though. It almost reminds me of a good, floral soda (that I think has a touch of sarsaparilla flavor in it) from Kentucky called Ale81. Definitely intriguing.
I added a touch of sugar to see what it would do, and WOW did it bump up the sarsaparilla/floral soda analogy! Thankfully, the sugar forced the meatiness out of the flavor profile, as well. Now I’m really enjoying this cup with some sugar!
Unfortunately, if I gulp it too quickly all I get is the muddiness of the mint… This is definitely a sipping tea.

Backlog (from this past week). Ohhhhhh dear. This was not pleasant at all. From the moment I opened the bag, something smelled really off and really terrible. Basically, it smelled like the inside of one of my travel mugs when something has gone bad in it. YUCK. Up close, and once steeped, it smelled like that smell mixed with… smoked meat?! Flavourwise it actually wasn’t too terrible (herbaceous, pu’erh, blah blah), but I just couldn’t get over the smell, which starting making me nauseous while at my desk. Won’t be drinking more of this one, sadly.

I haven’t had the opportunity to try a jin jun mei before, so I grabbed a bit of this one with my Verdant order. It looks like a dian hong, and truthfully, it tastes like a dian hong. Sweet, yammy, smooth, maybe a bit of caramel, but not really distinct. Not really sure why there’s such a hype and steeper price for this kind of tea.

I’ve had this one for a long time lol
Anyways it’s still pretty tasty :)
I love dandelion alot which is probably why I enjoy this one, nice yummy cinnamon notes too, I can’t taste the yabao inthis blend but hey it’s a year old and still pretty damn good.

I received this from the Verdant Blend Club for April, and this is also available on their website. There is a lot going on in this tea due to the many ingredients, but the sweetness from the Laoshan Black and licorice root are ever-present, with the herb flavors (from the rosemary, thyme, and oregano) coming through more toward the middle-end. The typical chocolaty notes from the Laoshan black tend to meld very well with everything, and there are some very subtle fruity notes here from the orange peel, grapefruit peel, and bergamont… but only a hint. Some sips are sweeter than others, especially as this tea cools. I’m really enjoying the licorice sweetness which tends to hit me in the back of the mouth/throat, while the other flavors are more ‘forward’ on the toungue/mouth.

I found this to be fairly complex and unique and I recommend you try it if you are a fan of licorice sweetness, herb flavors, or if you just can’t get enough of Verdant’s Laoshan Black variations.

Here’s the blends club blend that resides in my cupboard (#19). I hadn’t tried this one until recently when I cold brewed some.

I would say it is a decently tasty blend. I wish there was more tea and less “stuff” in it (‘cause holy crap there is a lot of stuff in this blend). So many flower petals. It tastes like jasmine with a hint of fruitness. I will probably cold brew the rest of it since it’s not super exciting.

Ok, now I can review this one, which I am drinking this morning. This tea isn’t actually in my cupboard, but it should be. So it’s not going to get a countdown number because it would screw everything up. But it should be about here; there’s another blends club blend here, which I will be having later this afternoon. I almost put this one in my list of blends club blends to sell (note: I have a bunch to sell that I listed over in the forums), but then I realized there isn’t actually any wacky ingredients in this that I dislike, so I decided to keep it and at least try it.

This is one of those teas that is impossible to measure out properly. Everything is long and spindly and doesn’t fit in the teaspoon. So an approximate 3 tsp (2 perfect teaspoons) went into my cup. I like this one. It reminds me a bit of the Cocoa Goji Zhu Rong, which was a blend a while ago, but this time with jasmine. It works. It’s a bit chocolatey, a bit of bright goji berry, and then an nice strong hit of jasmine with some creaminess from the yunnan white. Very tasty. And of course not a blend that they will ever bring back.

Back logging from memory

Started out mildly citric fruity spectrum which bled into lemongrass due to lemon flavor being more pronounced followed by a slightly herby tail which reminded me of dried lemongrass. Unlike other fresh sheng I have had by verdant I would say this is an attempt at storage puer where as in the past it seemed they were friendly/light “drink now” profile whether intentional or not. There was a bitterness which I like but unfortunately it was not followed by a sweetness (as per bulangs I enjoy) which would have sealed the deal for me to order a larger chunk but we shall see in a year or so. It slightly reminded of w2t bulang mini cake I really adore but this tea was more complex but it was lacking the body and sweetness that complete the experience personally.

I will have to rebrew in the near future due to this being the first sheng by verdant that has held my interest and have potentional to be flavorful with flash steeping or sub boiling water.