Verdant Tea

Had the spring 2019 edition of this. It’s alright, but not what I hoped it could be. The search for a passable decaf substitute for black tea continues. . .
As for this, I think I’d have liked it more if it weren’t smoky. There’s some woody, earthy, not-quite-mushroom and plummy notes underneath it, and some vaguely tea-ish flavor, but it’s its own thing at the heart. Interesting looking leaves.
Giving it a no recommendation as a tea, but as a not-tea it’s worth sampling at least.

Here’s another tea that was stashed away in my fridge for many months. I’ve been trying to sip down what’s left of last year’s green tea. Pacing myself though so I don’t run out before the 2020 spring greens are ready.

It’s been somewhat of a chore drinking through my Laoshan greens as last year’s harvest wasn’t all that great. One of the few bright spots, however, was the Laoshan flat pressed varietal. I liked the Reserve grade version and the first flush turned out to be delicious as well. It’s a fresh, bright tasting tea with crisp florals and notes of soybeans, peas, and bamboo shoots. There’s a soft sweetness rounded out by a nice nutty tone in the background.

While this tea is modeled after dragonwell, the flavor profile is completely different – it’s closer to regular Laoshan green tea. The leaf is itself is darker, and thinner than the large flat blades of dragonwell.

Autumn 2018. This tea is so freaking good. Rich dark chocolate, malt, and honey. Smooth and easy to drink. I have one more sample pack, and then I’ll be out. Definitely a tea I’d like to have on hand, as it’s something I’ve been gravitating back towards since I last had a cup.

I got a sample size of this in my most recent Verdant order, and it’s now sold out, which is unfortunate, because it’s awesome! Nice and roasty, with some herbaceous notes. Very smooth and creamy, with absolutely no astringency or bitterness.

Drank this and have no recollection of it. More evidence that it’s unremarkable, unfortunately. At least, western-brewed.

Love gui fei oolongs, so I couldn’t resist picking this up from Verdant. Unfortunately, it had none of the leafhopper-bitten sweetness I was anticipating, and was actually a fairly mediocre black tea IMO. I have 25g, so lots to play with – hopefully I can coax something out!

Sipdown 2020! 32/365

I thought I was tasting all these florals this time… until I realized that I’d mixed up Crassicolumna black with this one. Nope, it just tastes like Laoshan Black to me. I just think the strong LB flavours are too much for light florals. It’s fine, but I wouldn’t bother getting this over regular LB.

Autumn 2019 sample. To be honest, I saw the osmanthus flowers but didn’t taste them at all. It was all just delicious, roasty and chocolatey black tea. I feel like the osmanthus is just too light to cut through those flavours. Or, perhaps, this is meant to be brewed gongfu, and it has the opportunity to come out then?

I normally enjoy Laoshan tea but this recent harvest isn’t doing it for me. It’s got the usual vegetal notes – zucchini, edamame, and cilantro being the prominent ones I picked out – but something about it tastes off, like overripe fruit. It reminds me of pears or honeydew that sat out too long. At the moment, it’s been banished to my work stash where my less loved but still palatable teas go. It tastes better cold brewed or blended with a flavored tea so that’s probably how I’ll drink the rest of it.

Sipdown 2020! 12/365

One large pearl was all the sample I had of this. Unfortunately, I don’t recall the specifics, except that it wasn’t a favourite. Not really a surprise given my white tea preferences.

Sipdown 2020! 11/365

Done the first package of this I bought… apparently I’m ridiculous and bought two identical samples (both Autumn 2018) in one order. As it turned out, though, this was not a bad thing in the slightest – I really enjoyed this tea! I was looking for the creamiest oolongs Verdant had, and I think this might be one of the best! I’m much more used to the creaminess of greener oolongs, so to taste it in a roasted version was really interesting, and delicious. I think the roasting also helped temper any florals that were present, which I sometimes find take away from my enjoyment of the tea. I’d strongly recommend giving it a try if you’re fond of creamy and or roasted oolongs.

I received this in a recent Verdant order, but it looks like it is now sold out. Charcoal and roasted notes open up into raisin and deep fruitiness. There’s a strong minerality/rock flavor that contrasts with the raisin notes nicely. Subsequent steeps reveal an intense fruitiness. A bit of lychee and mango.

‘Samurai’ Traveling Teabox – Tea #16
I thought I might have tried Verdant’s Shou Mei before, but it looks like I haven’t.  I like that both types of white are in the teabox and I really hope others taking part in the teabox will be able to compare the Shou Mei and the Bai Mu Dan for kicks.  I know others have been drinking these for years, but to me it has been a bit of a refresher, as I haven’t had too many fresh white teas lately.  Being able to solidify in my mind what Shou Mei tastes like and what Bai Mu Dan tastes like again.  This one is a little starchier, sweet yet a hint of cream.  The flavor of autumn leaves, while also looking more like autumn leaves.  Less lemon than Bai Mu Dan might have. 
Steep #1  // 2 teaspoons for full mug // 42 minutes after boiling  // 1  minute steep
Steep #2  // 33 minutes after boiling //  2 min
Harvest: 2018

Sipdown 2020! 6/365

Picked this up recently, the Spring 2018 version, and it’s everything I could have hoped for. Kind of a spiced honey sweetness (this might be the first time i’ve ever noticed natural spice notes in a tea!) with a fairly delicate black base. It almost reminds me a bit of some spiced pear teas, although entirely non-artificial tasting. I only got a sample size, but this will probably make it onto a future list to at least pick up a sample of to enjoy from time to time.

This was likely never intended to be brewed Western-style, but yet, owing to my gaiwan-less state, that’s how I made it. The strangest things happen when you put things through what they weren’t meant to be; this was the most confounding thing I’ve found in a cup.
The tea is pressed into a candy bar style brick, which gives easily along the score lines, and smells like dark molasses. The lily petals plump up as soon as water hits them. Another thing that happens as soon as water hits these leaves is the smell of fresh buttered popcorn immediately permeates the air. It caught me entirely off guard and I back stepped away from my teapot. With trepidation I took it upstairs to drink it, hoping the popcorn note would fade away, as I can’t say I was in the mood for it. Fortunately it left, and by the time my cup was cool enough to put to my lips the scent coming off of the water was molasses again, and brown sugar.

It tastes of that. It tastes of other things, too. Before the deep sweet flavor settled in something else hit me, something I still can’t quite place. Summer. Automobile, my memory put to me bluntly, and elaborated no more. It might be hot leather, or spilled gasoline on still-warm evening asphalt, or the vinyl interior of my mother’s long-gone El Camino. It swam in and out of the sugar alongside a simple and almost out of place tea note. It felt like it and I were meandering through a field of fog.
This tea leaves a syrupy residue on your lips and the rim of your cup. After long enough in the mouth, it produces a cooling sensation not uncommon to tea, but it changes to an anesthetic prickle. There is a hint of smoke in that crackle.

Disorienting. Memories of summer nights spent sitting by the roadside, trips to the dentist for molar sealant, baking brownies and visits to movie theatres vied for dominance in my mind. Disorienting. Time felt lax.
At the same time, invigorating. While mentally dislodged, corporeally I was keen.

All in all, a strange tea with evocative effects, and likely all because I brewed it wrong. It sounds much more straightforwards served as it’s meant to be, and is reusable then too. Unfortunately, a second steep my way yielded a toast-and-molasses brew that lacked the fireworks of the first. This tea is thus on my list of things to retry when I get a gaiwan, but I think I will do it the ‘wrong’ way at least once more. There’s something about the wild, walloping strike against the senses Western steeping brings out of some aged teas I find myself helplessly addicted to.

Any sort of “purple” tea always intrigues me, so I had to pick up a sample of this (from Spring 2019). The first thing I noticed was a delicious, somewhat familiar, sweetness in the aroma – a little bit like a leafhopper-bitten tea. It’s definitely not quite like that, though, but that’s the only natural tea sweetness I can really recall right now. Actually, scratch that, it’s a bit on the raisiny side, maybe a bit of honey? It’s pretty unique to my palate, though. And rather good. Definitely not doing this tea justice in my description, but I’d recommend anyone trying it.

Turns out I’m still addicted to ordering tea, although I’m really going to need to cut back on it as we’re planning on moving within a year or two and my goodness is everything ridiculously pricey…

Anyhow, picked up the 2019 version of this recently from Verdant (just a sample though), but I really shouldn’t bother with bai mu dan-type whites, as I really don’t think I enjoy the profile all that much. It’s kind of… fresh but musty? Kind of a dry vegetal sort of flavour? It’s not objectionable, but I can think of many other teas I’d rather drink.

It’s likely an interesting example of this tea type for someone who enjoys them, but my rating definitely reflects my personal opinion on this tea type.

Very glad I finally forayed into the world of aged teas because this is a standout thing. Charming, foil wrapped mini tuochas easily crumble into brewable form. The smell is strange, but inviting. As advertised, there’s a strong sticky rice presence underwritten by what to me smells like tortilla chips, and a hot metal note that must be the minerality described. The color is unusual for a tea— it has a ruddy pinkish orange cast I attribute to the other herb involved.
The taste opens with comforting, toasty basmati rice. There’s not a ton of tea flavor then or at any other point, but I don’t miss it as much as you might expect, given my disdain for weak teas, and it provides structural support even if its flavor is a subtle whisper of cedar and a dab of smoke. It provides backbone and bulk that keeps this from being wishy-washy and thin the way tisanes tend to be. The roasted corn note is what intrigued me enough to purchase this and I’m happy to report it’s real and spot on and wonderful. Tastes like it’s been done in its own husk on the grill. Lovely to get a slice of summer in what’s otherwise a cuddly, winter-ready tea. A reminder the warm times will return. At the end of each swig up pops a spout of fruity flavor. I can’t decide if it’s more like a tangy wild blueberry or sugared ground cherry, but it’s strong and clear.

Interesting enough stuff, which survived my initial haphazard distracted-by-baking brewing without too much loss of character. The predominating flavor is barley, with a floral grace note. The end is what’s fun and makes this worth revisiting, in my opinion. There’s a taste of green grapes and green apples that advances into genuine lemon before it fades. This grew stronger over a long, low steeping, achieved by tossing the leaves in my Saddler with no basket. I found the resteep dull.

I didn’t brew this the way Verdant recommends so I reckon I’ll try it their way next time. I suppose it is aged and thus can handle more heat than a young oolong.

One of the first loose leaf teas I tried was a black tieguanyin— an unusual introduction to loose leaf, but I was fortunate to have a good tea store for my local brick and mortar. I cracked this open and smiled- it is so close to the original black tieguanyin I had it’s like opening up an old friend. It smells sweet and deeply plummy, with a hint of soft wet wood. Imagine stealing away into a favorite spot in the forest to eat chocolate-covered dried stonefruits. In the cup, caramelized sweet potato on the nose, autumn leaves and faraway bonfires on the tongue. The magic a touch of smoking adds.
Autumn you can pour in a cup. I’ll never tire of it.

This was the first green tea I’ve had in some time, and whooie I’d forgotten the way they can smell- like a brick of raw meat wrapped in moss, and I mean that in the best way possible. This one gives way to an intensely wheaty scent after that, and wetted, in comes the spinach. One the tongue, it’s toasty, slightly sweet, and slightly vegetal, with the overall impression bringing to mind a summer lunch. A cucumber sandwich, perhaps. Good stuff, a solid drink. I might get more than a sample next time.

Got a sample of this and I’m gonna have to get a larger portion once there’s room in my tea chest! Man I wish I could use curse words to describe this. What a striking rendition of Mao Xie- this hits all of the notes you expect in grand fashion. Wheat crackers predominate, giving this a full body, accented by cinnamon and cut grass, with a little lemon or pear, finishing with chamomile and spring meadow. Sweet-smelling steam with a vegetal undertone sets the mood. The leaves unfurl beautifully, which in my opinion is a highlight of hairy crab.