Verdant Tea (Special)

So. A lot of leaf, and a shorter time to balance it, to try this one out again.

The good news is that this tea now tastes like something other than leaves and earth. There is definitely a bright fruitiness that I mostly associate with goji berry, and there is definitely an incense note. Not sure how I feel about that one. Ok, well I’m not in love with it. I don’t tend to like overly herbaceous teas, and I feel like the incense gives it an almost medicinal quality.

Overall, meh. Not my style. I can sometimes tolerate these things better in cold brew, so that will be my next experiment.

When I read the description for this tea, I was not thrilled. Inspired by inscense in temples… inscence can be nice to smell, but I rarely want to drink it. However, when I smelled the dry leaf I was really surprised. It does not smell like inscense (to me), but instead dead up like molasses-covered grain (horse feed). I know that sounds like a bad thing to many people but it isn’t! Some of my favorite Fujian black teas remind me of molasses grain, and it’s a pleasant olfactory memory for me anyway.

There are (also surprisingly) not too many crazy ingredients in this one. The one that is an unknown quantity is the Aloeswood Tincture. That sounds like something that I wouldn’t care for, just because anything called “tincture” sounds medicinal and herby and gross.

Brewed, the smell of the mi lan oolong comes out. Kind of woody, slightly sweet smelling, a bit like autumn leaves. It tastes like… um, I’m not sure. At first I thought “nothing” and then I changed my mind to “dirt” but then maybe it was like “dead leaves on the ground”. Ok but that was when it was still quite hot. It cooled down and then it tasted like… not much. I mean, it did have flavors of autumn leaves and a bit of honey (the dirt taste went away mostly), but honestly it wasn’t very interesting. I couldn’t taste the berries, I couldn’t taste the aloeswood.

I would think my lackluster experiences might be due to needing to change my water filter (and I might anyway, it’s been a while), but I did just have a delicious and satisfying cup of Dammann Frères tea, so I doubt it. I will try to brew this one stronger and see if it can’t leave more of an impression.

Sore throat today. Yesterday involved a ton of talking between a flu shot clinic and then manning the table for senior day at my Walgreens store. I’m not sure how I feel about this. This is my first licorice tea so maybe that is what is making my throat feel funny, like it’s being coated. That could be how it helps sore throats? It’s not pleasant, everything just gets stuck in one place on the top back of my mouth. I don’t even taste this otherwise. I think I’ll leave this one for the boyfriend to try but I doubt I will reach for it again.

I am certainly behind on tasting notes. Well, here is me catching up. They will all be fairly brief!

I just sipped this one down, after drinking it regularly as a cold brew. I actually really liked it as a cold brew! Apparently I never logged it as a hot brew, even though I did have it that way once or twice. In the hot brew, it was over lavender-y, without enough bergamot. I tried another incarnation of this ages ago (in the “Alchemy Blends” days), and it was really similar.

Cold brewed, the lavender tamed itself a bit and it was a better balanced green earl grey. Still not my favorite blend but I had no problem drinking it up.

Last night I tried this blend with my husband as our ‘Saturday night tea time treat’. I already had my Gongfu teapot out from an earlier session so I used that, it’s 200ml and I used roughly 6g of tea. Honestly I felt I would try my method first before the standard instructions, partly because it was late and I felt like being a rebel and partly because I like my tea strong.

Well the first steep of roughly 45 seconds came out rather strong. Difficult to taste any orange (at all) but it was certainly spicy, smoky, earthen and toasted. Not unpleasant, much like a mature Tie Guan Yin, nice but just not what I was looking for.

The second steep of roughly 45 seconds came out lighter than the previous steep and there was a hint of waxy orange amidst it’s heavy and mature flavours. Nicer but still not quite right.

Then I went for a third steep, losing my faith in this tea due to the lack of orange I decided to give it a minute to steep and give it a final try. It mimicked the second steep rather well, it was waxy orange like rind and it’s strength was a little toned down from what it was.

I left it for roughly an hour or two before deciding I would give it one last go. So with the same leaves I prepared some more. Roughly 1 minute each additional steep. The wait made all the difference, my fourth steep ie first re steep revealed more orange flavour, less thick Tie Guan Yin and a spicy lingering after taste. Much more what I was expecting. It was still full of flavour too, medium strength overall so it carried on well. After that I did another two steeps and each was a wonderful greeting of orange, spice and lightly baked Oolong with wood tones. A fresh, autumnal style flavour that left me feeling warm inside.

I liked this tea very much (in the end) but it’s still not perfect to my tastes. I would prefer more orange and spice still, something sweeter perhaps to help lift the ingredients together. Though I know with certainty that I could happily finish this sample.

Well, this one is gone. It made a pretty tasty cold brew, so I drank it up quickly. Not too sad it’s gone though.

I did finish this cold brew up with a bit of Silk Road because I didn’t have enough leaf, and that one did not make it better. I’m going to have to say a big “no” to all tulsi blends in the future, blech.

I should probably drink more teas if I want my stash to ever decrease! I’m just not as excited about teas anymore; probably because I have spent a lot of time lately focusing on sipdowns and thus drinking teas I don’t really love. Good thing I have some new DF teas coming in; those should be a pick me up!

This is of course one of the blends club blends from last month. When I had my little rant about the redundancy of Verdant’s blends the other week I didn’t realize that this has sarsaparilla in it as well. WHY MUST ALL OOLONGS CONTAIN SARSAPARILLA? I say this as someone who loves root beer/sarsaparilla/birch beer. But it’s too much. They all taste the same.

I am nevertheless rating this one slightly higher than the others because I think the orange adds a needed brightness and the vanilla a needed smoothness that really help this blend. That said, I feel like the flavors are a bit weak in this one. I added a bit more to my steeping basket because the first scoop seemed to be mostly “stuff” and little actual tea, and I was wondering if it would be too much for my 12oz cup at 3 minutes, but not so. Definitely not oversteeped, and definitely wishing for more vanilla and orange. And less sarsaparilla/birch. Ah well, into the cold brew basket it goes.

I’ve hoarded my last little bit of this, because I was afraid I’d never be able to try it again after finishing it off. But I see on the Verdant site that they’ve blended it again, so another sip down.

Now I just need to figure out if I’m gonna order an obscene amount or just a moderately obscene amount. I still haven’t decided.

Many thanks to Cameron B for providing the sample!

This tea is absolutely divine. To look at it’s beautiful with the marigold petals. But to sip (really slurp and gulp), oh my my. And even though I seriously over steeped this, it was still ridiculously delicious. No bitterness even though I forgot about it for about 5 + minutes.

So smooth and creamy. I got loads of butter with mild vegetal in the background. It is deliciously toasty, just like a traditional genmaicha, but this has a little extra something that makes it so much more tastier and special than a traditional genmaicha. I didn’t notice the juniper, but I pretty much slurped my first cup back in about 5 minutes, it’s just that good!

I’m trying for a second steep, even though I’m not sure if there’s any flavour left in the leaf, but this is far too delicious to not at least try.

Why Verdant? Why does this have to be limited blend? If this became part of the permanent collection I’d be all over it.

This is tea that generated the amazing swap with Cameron B., who was generous enough to share this with me. Thank you so much!

Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox Round #3 – Tea #29

Sometimes jasmine tastes almost like bubblegum to me, and this one does. It’s surprising because it seems like there are more of the other ingredients than there are of the jasmine white tea, unless everything is infused with jasmine. But I mostly get a jasmine flavor. There is also something that reminds me of allergies, something floral/pollen I don’t like very much but the jasmine is so nice I can live with it. The second steep was lovely as well, just less jasmine. I think the Yunnan on its own would be better than this blend.
Steep #1 // 30 min after boiling // 2 min
Steep #2 // 25 min after boiling // 3 min

Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox Round #3 – Tea #23
Another really odd blend from Verdant. I’m not even sure what these ingredients are… looks like some things I’ve never seen before. I wish Steepsterers who had the info for these blends (or Verdant) would update the Steepster page at least with the ingredients… it could become a potential allergy issue. Anyway, the dry leaf scent is not at all appealing. I decided to try it anyway… like the pear tea I had the other day I figured the dry scent could be entirely different from the flavor. Not here. The flavor seems kind of woody and kind of like BBQ. It definitely seems like something that would say ‘cask’ to me. And of course the natural woodiness of the rooibos helps. Sipped it while catching up on Supernatural… I’m going to be so sad when I’m done with season five but the new season will be epic, I hope. I can’t wait for the meta music episode!
Steep #1 // few min after boiling // 3 min

Here we go, the last tea from this month’s Blends Club. I don’t have any experience with raspberry leaf, so I have no concept of what this might taste like. I will say that this is the most annoying tea ever to measure… It’s big fluffy raspberry leaf mixed with tiny pieces of citrus peel and rooibos, so you have to stir it ten times to give it anywhere near combined, and even then the rooibos immediately plummets to the bottom, taking most of the citrus peel with it. Ugh. I had to empty my pouch into a tin to be able to leaf this properly and make sure I got some of everything. Not off to a good start! The dry leaf smells vaguely sweet and musty, I guess from the raspberry leaf? I steeped about two teaspoons for 5 minutes in boiling water.

Once the tea is steeped, I can definitely smell the rooibos along with that odd musty somewhat raw herbal/grassy scent. The taste is pretty meh, I guess I’m not a fan of raspberry leaf. It’s very musty and dry in the mouth, but the aftertaste is nice enough. I guess I could draw some connections to chamomile…? But in a weird raw herb way. Not for me!

So… this tea. This is definitely the one I’m least excited about. It’s a shame because I’ve tried the base tea plain and really enjoyed it, but when I open the pouch I can see (and smell) a ton of lavender… :( Now, lavender’s not as bad as a lot of other florals in my opinion (*cough*rose*cough*), in fact there’s something about it that reminds me of citrus. But lavender is all I can smell here, and that’s never good… Visually, this tea is a mix of wiry green tea leaves, lavender buds, coriander, juniper berries, and some other small chunks of herbal-y things. I brewed mine for 3 minutes at 175.

Hmm, yeah, I pretty much just smell lavender in the brewed tea as well, with a little bit of coriander mixed in. Ooh, and it tastes like almost pure lavender as well. I can’t even tell that there’s green tea in this blend, which is rather sad to me. Lavender tea! :(

Not rating as I feel somewhat biased… Although clearly this is a very heavy-handed blend, and that speaks to me of poor blending.

This tea is the start of what I have decided to be a day of trying several yet untried teas. I mostly want to do this because I’d like to get my list of rehoming teas up soon so they won’t be sitting on my counter, and I don’t have that many teas that I haven’t tried yet. But I have yet to break into any of the Blends Club teas, so away we go! This tea is the one that smells the best to me, so it’s going first. The oolong pellets here are very loosely rolled, and it gives the appearance that they’re not rolled at all, but are a bunch of very tiny leaves. I was very confused when I first opened the packet and saw them, lol… There are lots of little (and some big) chunks of random “herbal-y” things mixed in with the tea leaves (ingredients include tulsi, sarsaparilla, schisandra berry, and blue lotus). Dry scent is an interesting combination of savory herbal and licorice-like sarsaparilla. I let mine steep for 4 minutes at 190 degrees.

Wow, the brewed aroma is very different! It’s a lovely melange of creamy, nutty, slightly spicy, sweet, and a slight vegetal note. Taste-wise, there’s definitely a slight sharp spiciness from the sarsaparilla that presents itself mostly at the beginning of the sip. I do get flashes of licorice-like flavor throughout, but the tea itself is quite creamy and nutty in flavor, which is rather lovely. I have no concept of what schisandra berry and blue lotus taste like, so I can’t comment on what they contribute here, but I do get a light hint of something similar to pine. Overall, this is rather tasty and I can see it being an excellent latte. It’s almost chai-like in a sense. :)

I am a gin drinker. I love the intense, outdoorsy, almost medicinal flavour and scent of a good gin.

This tea, while nice on its own, just isn’t that reminiscent of gin for me. Both the nose and flavour are dominated by fennel, and I’m only getting much in the way of juniper and coriander on the finish, when I really want the juniper in particular at the forefront. The fennel also gives this a warming sensation, when I really associate gin with cooling, so that aspect is not what I was wanting or expecting either. This leaves a slight tingling numbness on the tongue and roof of the mouth.

The tea base is pretty subtle. I can tell there’s a white tea in this blend, but I couldn’t tell you much more about it than that.

At 3 minutes there wasn’t much of anything to this, so I gave it an additional 2 minutes of steeping.

The Blends club package came while I was away over the weekend, but I don’t think I will count them just yet to my cupboard since I am at 101! And that will hit 100 later today. Plus I didn’t count my swap from Cameron B., so if I just don’t count any new teas I can be make believe that I hit 100, LOL.

Anyway, the blends club. It’s getting pretty repetative. The teas this month feel like things I have seen before. Jingshan green with lavender? Check. Let’s add some coriander, yes? And this one, an oolong with sarsaparilla… where have I had that before? Oh yes, Sarsaparilla Tieguanyin and Wuyi Whiskey Trail. And why not throw in some tulsi? All of the flavor profiles are really similar. I got sucked back into the blends club when they reblended some of my favorite lost blends, but I am reconsidering again. It wouldn’t be too bad if I wanted floral, herbal, tonic-ish blends all the time, but I don’t. I’m going to give it to the end of the year because I want to see what they do with the holiday blends, but probably not much more beyond that.

So this one specifically. Well, it’s kind of herbal, and tonic-y. It’s also a little bitter and I’m not totally sure why. Overall it’s not bad, but it’s kind of boring. To me, anyway; I just don’t crave those types of flavors in my tea. Oh well, if anyone is interested it will be posted in the sales thread and for trade (as soon as I can get to that thread, since the boards are hardcore broken).

Long Awaited Sipdown (462)!

Man, I feel like I’ve had this tea for ages. It’s actually a little bit of a relief to be out of it now; though I did really enjoy it. I finished it off this time iced, with an extra long steep to draw out the roasty notes and then finished with just a little bit of milk. I also crushed the juniper berries prior to steeping as per the usual.

It was REALLY good! I feel like all my vanilla must have wound up in this last bit of leaf because it was extra, extra silky and creamy with the most potent vanilla notes I think I’ve experienced in this tea to date with great, strong roasty supporting notes and a creamier mouthfeel from the added milk. Hints of slight sweet and pine like juniper in the undertones but, man, the focus was TOTALLY on the vanilla. REALLY satisfying and as beautiful a sipdown as I could have ever hoped to get from this one!

Crushed up the juniper berries in this one prior to steeping it; I also overleafed slightly to get a richer flavour since I know there’s been A LOT of flavour deterioration with this tea since I first acquired it…

The combination of those two things were very beneficial though: this was certainly roasty with that toasty brown rice flavour and some light grassiness but it also had this wonderful bright sweetness that I haven’t experienced with the blend in a LONG time. A little piney on the finish too, from the crushed up junipers.

Toasty morning cuppa.

The flavour of this one is pretty shot now; it basically just tastes like any old Genmaicha blend. There’s nothing special about it anymore, sadly. That’s what I get for hoarding my tea like a mad woman. And so, on that note I’ve put this one in the sipdowns section of my stash…

Hopefully finishing this one off soon.

I need to drink this tea more, because damn do I really enjoy it when I do. Lots of roastyness typical to a Genmaicha, and then some squash notes and vanilla with tiny little hints of the juniper in the finish. This is old now, but still quite good.

This is a queued tasting note.

Enjoyed drinking this one on the way to work last week; in addition to the lovely toasty flavour of the rice the array of vegetal notes were quite soothing. Squash, green beans, edamame, and snap peas specifically. And then, you could just faintly taste the juniper in the finish as I nice pine note. Really peaceful. However, one of those teas I think you kind of just need to enjoy on its own – so no tea and song pairing for this one.

This is a queued tasting note.

Final tea from tea tasting day with Shauna.

I honestly didn’t think there was a chance of Shauna being able to nail down any of the flavours in this tea blindly, but I think it’s a phenomenal tea and I wanted to share it with her regardless. And sure enough I was right; she was so confused – except with one minor exception! She could tell this had a green base, and that’s certainly something! Her most interesting comment about this one was as follows though: “It tastes like something I’d drink when I’m sick. You know, kind of medicinal but also weirdly comforting”.

I’d wager the ‘medicinal’ quality was the junipers: I took extra care to crush them before infusing the tea. They taste much stronger that way! So, likely, she was tasting a mix of berry and pine which I can see as possibly being interpreted as sort of medicinal.

I decided to try practicing out doing a more serious, thought out tea and food pairing since that’s the next module I’m doing with class and the last week of Tea 103 did touch on this topic. I waited to see what my mom had planned out for supper and then picked my tea out afterwards!

So, tonight we ended up eating spinach stuffed ravioli with a parmesan topping (and the meat eaters in the family had chicken as well – but I am not a meat eater). I decided that because all of the flavours in that dish are pretty light that a full bodied, brisker tea like an Assam would be an inappropriate pairing. A medium bodied or lighter tea would probably be a more suitable pairing.

I picked this unconventional Genmaicha because I thought that the delicate flavour nuances wouldn’t drown out the flavour of the pasta, and the vegetal nature of the green tea would blend in with the spinach filling while the toasted rice notes would provide some contrast. I definitely really enjoyed the meal even if I’m not totally positive this was the best pairing I could have come up with. I think a medium bodied tea like a high grown Ceylon or something like a greener oolong with floral notes both would’ve tasted really good too.

As for the tea itself, it was very soft with a good balance of sweeter vegetal notes like spring beans and a subtle marine-like quality with some toasted rice notes and a slight nuttiness as well as a soft vanilla edge. The taste was very clean and well rounded. I couldn’t taste the juniper in this infusion but I also didn’t crush the berries before hand which is what I’ve been doing lately when I drink this. I still really, really love this Genmaicha.