Wow, it’s been a really long time since I posted a tea review. My internship this summer has been a lot more hectic than usual, and I really just haven’t had time to sit down and write a substantive review, but hopefully that will be changing the next two weeks or so. Anyways, I actually rather excited about today since I finally have both my new Gaiwan and small teacup from Verdant! Big shout out to the guys at Verdant for working with me to get the cup to me after my local post office returned it without sending me a notice!
First steep, ~20 seconds with hot water. I got distracted by some computer issues, and steeped this a bit differently than normal, but the result is amazingly creamy. The tea actually had some very lovely floral note, not I’m a bit rusty so I couldn’t really speculate as to what they really tasted like. One thing that I really found amazing was just how different it was from another tea I have that is similar in age, albeit it was roasted every 6 months for the duration of its aging period. That tieguanyin had a very pronounced caramel flavor which would overshadow the more delicate flavors of the tea, but this tea from Verdant is much more balanced. I really can’t wait to see how it develops.
Well, it was bound to happen. Apparently there was still some water left in from the previous infusion, so this second batch came out a bit bitter. Don’t get me wrong it still tastes better than some tea I’ve had (COUGHGolden PeakCOUGH), but there is a lot of bitterness in this cup. IT is interesting to note that I can still get a bit of a floral flavor from the tea, but not anything that special. Oh well, hopefully the next try will work out better.
Preparation
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Good you mentioned the need to really get all the liquid drained off before steeping again to avoid the next cup tasting bitter. Too many people rush making tea and regret it…oops…! (We’ve all done it) Mentioning it here helps teach newer tea drinkers that might be having trouble. The other most common flavor killers are bad water (unfiltered) and wrong temp./steep time.
I hope a lot of people see this, since it was a fairly harsh lesson for me when I learned it a couple of years ago. Jasmine tea and 2-minute steeps using lousy water from my university campus is not exactly a very good combination…
Not to mention all of the perfectly good tea leaves I wasted since sometimes I couldn’t stand the flavor and had to throw it out…
Good you mentioned the need to really get all the liquid drained off before steeping again to avoid the next cup tasting bitter. Too many people rush making tea and regret it…oops…! (We’ve all done it) Mentioning it here helps teach newer tea drinkers that might be having trouble. The other most common flavor killers are bad water (unfiltered) and wrong temp./steep time.
I hope a lot of people see this, since it was a fairly harsh lesson for me when I learned it a couple of years ago. Jasmine tea and 2-minute steeps using lousy water from my university campus is not exactly a very good combination…
Not to mention all of the perfectly good tea leaves I wasted since sometimes I couldn’t stand the flavor and had to throw it out…