Verdant Tea

meh. Not crazy about this one…need to play with it a little more still.

Going to have to try this one again at a lower temp or maybe as a gonfu brew. It was pretty middle of the road as far as i’m concerned. Not bad, but nothing special. More to come as i play with it a little more.

Sample from my verdant order. Honestly nothing to write home about. It was a tasty cup but nothing i’m going to be dying to have in my cupboard. Not really surprising since i’m not partial to this tea as a green version either. That being said, a nice sample to have and there’s a little left for me to give to variaTEA for a small cup lol

Sad Sipdown -but I can’t get enough of this tea! Thankfully it is still offered on the site. It literally is the perfect companion to a Monday going wrong on a few levels. We’ve now had two direct exposures to COVID which is not a good thing at all but with our kiddo-Parker going thru treatment at St Judes, things are really scary. (Two of our kids are currently in healthy quarantine too) Parker was hospitalized last week with a cold and we ventured into some pretty scary waters. My hubs and I are both feeling really overwhelmed and both have made up new cuss words. Oversharing here but I’m sort of at a loss today. Tea is the ultimate comfort.

Now this is how you start a morning off right. Lovely dark chocolate notes with a rich malty like texture along wit a hint of bready notes to finish. First infusion and I’m already in love. Soooo glad I brewed up a giant pot of this one.

Also received as part of Verdant’s 5 for 5 promo. My packet was from Autumn 2020. This was the first time I’ve tried a Sheng Pu’er, and I really enjoyed it! It’s a cold, snowy-turned rainy day here, and I got out of bed feeling a little under the weather, so I decided to make some of this. I did gaiwan steeps of varying times (though I kept water temp. at or below 177F) poured into a big mug, so no exact tasting notes. But overall, brews like a nice clean green tea with a nice aftertaste and mouthfeel, and was comforting to have. Thanks to everyone who noted before on the lower temps! I would’ve liked this tea a lot less if it was bitter.

Probably not a tea I’d purchase again given nothing particularly stood out to me, but that could also be due to me not feeling too great today. But as part of the 5 for 5, I enjoyed it much more than the Shu Pu’er.

3.25/5 stars

Pretty sure this wasn’t posting correctly before due to the Chinese characters from the name of the tea that I was trying to include (printed on the tea as well, but includes some classical Chinese characters that some browsers aren’t equipped to display). I’ll assume people would be looking for the Romanization on Verdant’s site anyway and leave that out for now.

2014 Loose Gong Ting Shu Puer Verdant

5.1 g, Brita filtered water, steeps with 132-140 mL water (finally caved in and bought a scale not too long ago…), water temp slightly off the boil

Spring 2014/春季 2014

Zhengyuan Dongsa Cooperative
Qianjiazhai, Mt. Ailao, Yunnan, China

Dry leaves smell: slightly fishy. I say slightly because I don’t think I’ll ever come across a pu er as fishy the time I ordered tuochas from some shady company where the brews turned out so revoltingly fishy and muddy (even after rinsing) that I had to throw out the whole package.

3s steep: leaves smell: grainy, like barley perhaps
Thick consistency, reminiscent of syrup.
Smell of tea: very slightly fishy like dry leaves and then the grainy smell.
Taste: …I’m not sure. There’s nothing prominent enough to note anything

12s steep: smell: more prominent grains for both leaves and tea
Taste: something medicinal and bitter. Still a thicker consistency.
Side note: wow these are some dark brews. This tea came with very small leaves and infuses very very fast

15s steep: smell: same as before
Taste: a barely there hint of sweet appears. Same thick mouthfeel. Interesting because up to this point, I’d been thinking I would have no notes and no tastes for this tea. Onwards!

23s steep: smell same
No new notes, same as before

35s steep: I’m going to stop mentioning smell from here on out bc I’m not noticing any changes. Will add on later if changes occur though.
Brew color visibly lightened for the first time.
Taste: sweet note a little more obvious. Consistency also not as thick for the first time.

45s steep: leaves have a hint of medicinal smell, reminiscent of the Chinese traditional medicines my parents made me drink when I was sick as a child.
No new notes

60s and 75s steeps: brew color lightened both times. No new notes.

2 min steep: no changes, tossing leaves into thermos for grandpa steeping. Not expecting anything from that though. Will not update this unless I notice any significant changes from the grandpa brew.

I expected better from the other reviews of this tea, but I didn’t like this very much. Outside of the barley, I did not pick up on any of the notes mentioned by Verdant (pasted below from Verdant’s website). I generally do not read too much into tasting profiles until I have made my own observations so I can minimize potential bias into what notes I notice.

“VERY SAVORY – pastry, roasted barley
FLORAL – vanilla
SPICY – sandalwood, fir tree bark
FRUITY – kumquat”

I’m not complaining since this was a free sample Verdant tossed in with my order of other things, but this isn’t a tea I’d purchase in the future. Most of my steeps turned out fairly bland to the extent that I wasn’t sure what to note about them.

1.5/5 stars

Qilan Wuyi Oolong （奇兰武夷山乌龙茶）- Li Family, Wuyishan, Fujian, China
Spring 2020/春季 2020 (including the details on the bag here since I can’t find this tea on the Verdant website and from the tasting notes from 7 years ago, I’m not sure if I’m drinking the same thing as others are)

Got this as part of the 5 for $5 offer from Verdant Teas.

5g tea (whole packet), Brita filtered water, gaiwan 140 mL (not certain on full volume, but I use a standard gaiwan, and this sounds about right), water temp a bit off the boil
Dry leaves smell: chocolate, roasted oolong smell
7 s: first steep: smell of leaves: grassy, stones, green
Taste: very vegetal— Something like spinach, with some light note of bitterness. Unexpected. Good mouthfeel.
10s second steep: smell of leaves: something grassy and charred
Smell of tea: sweeter than previous
Taste: more bitter, still vegetal, slightly unpleasantly reminiscent of medicine
15s 3rd steep: same leave smell
Taste: still some bitterness, but more lingering sweetness, lingering taste somewhat reminiscent of mint or cilantro
30s: same smell, tasting a slight note of raw celery
47s: not picking up anything else noteworthy so going to throw the remaining leaves into a thermos and grandpa brew

I usually enjoy Oolongs more, but this tea, while not unpleasant, was not particularly outstanding in any way. Usually I might go for more gaiwan steepings to explore the remaining notes, but I wasn’t blown away by it, and I didn’t care enough to pursure it further. It’s been a while since I’ve done a gaiwan session since I’ve been really busy lately (so I’ve stuck to grandpa style brews with the jasmine tea I’ve amassed), so it was nice to take some time to myself today to do this. One thing I might adjust if I had more tea was brewing temp to see if that would’ve affected bitterness more, but I’ve always done water off the boil with oolongs, and controlled for time as my variable.

3/5 stars. Personally will not purchase more, but not a bad tea, all in all. I wouldn’t recommend against it, but I’m not going to recommend for it either. There’s better oolongs to try out there.

edit: this did not hold up to grandpa brewing very well. If anything, grandpa brewing only highlighted the bitter notes and left nothing else.

Dry leaf aroma would mislead you into thinking this tea is one note, flat, and grassy. However, the experience of this tea is so different.

Wet leaf aroma reveals the complexity of this one. Notes of grass, cocoa cream, maybe some subtle nutmeg or something. The leaves lose their complex scent after several steeps, and begin to smell very grassy and somewhat bitter.

Actual flavor was beautifully floral with rose, jasmine, peony, and honeysuckle. Slight sweetness of flower nectar balanced with a semi-nutty vegetal barley scent as well. Complex, beautiful. Will spend more time with this one and update my tasting note as I discover more.

Got this as a sample with my Verdant order this summer. The concept of this tea was intriguing: a green tea made from an oolong tea varietal and compressed into a puerh like disc the size of a coin. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t coax any flavor out of it. I brewed the entire 7g toucha in my 120ml shibo, a rather high ratio of leaf to water. I was expecting a strong cup but it tasted like hot water. There were faint notes of zucchini, okra, and dandelion but it was mostly tasteless. I decided to ambient brew the rest for a couple of hours and then poured it over ice – my shortcut cold brew method. Finally some flavor but man was it strong! I had to dilute to strength considerably to get past the bitterness. It tasted alright. It didn’t have the flowery characteristics of tieguanyin or the musty/earthy flavor of puerh and similar compressed tea. To me, it tasted like a fairly generic Chinese green tea with a chestnutty edge.

Verdant describes a pretty exotic flavor profile so not sure if I screwed up the brewing or something was up with the tea.

Tried this this morning – good but not my absolute favorite! This is very floral. I don’t really taste much of anything else.

Chocolate bar pu’er from with orange peels. This tea has been one of my most coveted teas. I love the way it looks. The intermingled orange pieces with the pu’erh tea looks wonderful to me . I always admire it for a few minutes. It is a simple and comforting tea to me. It is not one that is complex tea or anything too special. It gives me a few infusions but it brings me joy like no other.
It has been out of stock since the pandemic so I have been rationing it.Today I felt that I should just drink what brings me joy instead of worrying about running out of tea.

It is a hardy tea with a full body. The liquor is woodsy and savory. I can really taste the orange in this one.

Sipdown!

Trying to keep up the trend of sipping down old swap samples, this one is from Arby! I’ve never tried yabao before, but it sounds mighty interesting so here we go. I had a hard time deciding on steeping parameters, as the Western directions on their website are more like a hybrid style. In the end, I just steeped it like a black tea since it called for a temperature of just under boiling. The buds are quite fluffy so I used a whole tablespoon for my 12-ounce mug. Dry scent reminded me of oatmeal with a bit of a fresh vegetal note added in.

This is… odd. There’s definitely a crisp piney flavor, which I greatly enjoy in tea. It leaves a nice cooling sensation in the mouth and throat as well. There’s also some honeyed sweetness, and a lingering sweet aftertaste that coats the tongue and throat. A touch of floral? Something a bit cooked-green-beany near the end of the sip, and a very slight creamy oatmeal note underneath it all. Honestly, I was hoping for more oatmeal. There’s a strong and clear mineral note as well, like a cold stream running over stones.

Somehow the initial part of the sip reminds me of freezer-burned popsicle or something. The strong mineral and pine notes combined with the nectar-like sweetness are likely the culprit here. But in the middle and end of the sip, the vegetal and creamy grain flavors come out and change the dynamic a bit. Overall the mouthfeel is quite thick and coating. Noticing a bit of astringency after each sip as well.

Strange but good, I suppose! :P

Sample 15/19!

As soon as I smelled this I realized this is exactly the tea I am in the mood for. It did immediately smell like fish, but, like, a good fish.. It reminded me of a good salt & pepper seasoned salmon filet with crispy skin. I only steeped this for like 10-20 seconds and it is medium reddish-brown in color. It smells so good. There’s something other than fish there, I just don’t know the word of it. The taste is very smooth on the first steeping, no new flavors to note though. Will continue drinking and potentially update later :)

Sample 13/19! Just want to make note that I tried this tea. It was good but not life-changing. Very roasty/rich/smokey flavors and aroma without being bitter. Again, glad I got to try it but will continue to try different kinds :)

Sample 10/19! This one was just so-so for me, maybe Im not a big plain green tea person. There was like a sweet vegetable/creamed corn smell I wasn’t a huge fan of. It was very flavorful, though.

Sample 6/19. I have more steepings to go, but wow, I really like this tea. The leaves are beautiful. I knew I was in for something good when I opened the packet. Dry, I thought the tea something like licorice or even pumpkin spice. I tried to brew the tea based on their gongfu recommendations (and failed miserably, but oh well!). There are so many flavors and smells in this tea. It’s unlike any black tea I’ve tried before. The first steep (which was supposed to be for 10 seconds but ended up more like 40) reminded me of all sorts of things I’ve smelled in the past, christmas tree farms, peppered steak with roasted vegetables, mexican hot chocolate minus the chocolate.. in taste, it reminded me vaguely of honey (like most black tea does) but a more woodsy honey. The second steeping (shorter this time), was equally incredible. I don’t know why it reminds me so much of the roasted peppered zuchinni/mixed vegetables my dad makes with steak… I need to ask him how he seasoned that!

Another dan Cong that probably sat too long in my cupboard. This one was earthy like crushed autumn leaves and very mineral. I got notes of spice, incense, and wood. Didn’t taste any of the floral or apricot notes described by Verdant. Quit after a few steeps because I couldn’t convince myself to continue drinking any more of it. Good thing it was just a sample so no big loss here.

I had a very nice cup of this tea this morning. Typical Qianjiazhai flavors for me – olives, forest floor, orange, touch of bitterness. Quite nice, mellowing out, early in the maturity phase. Wish I had more.

Another Verdant sample that had been sitting around forever in my cupboard. Unfortunately it was far less impressive than the Old Tree Wulong I just finished prior. There were some intriguing aromas – orange peel, wet rocks, and sandalwood – however the taste fell flat. It was pretty forgettable, more like a generic yancha than a typically fruity dan cong. Woodsy with an oily texture. At times, there was a faint floral glimmer in the aftertaste but otherwise it didn’t offer much in the way of flavor.

Finished off my sample of this tea recently. Even though it was nearly a year old, it still tasted amazing. Verdant tea’s higher grade Dan Congs are really underrated around here. They are generally quite refined and exquisite.

I followed my usual method of brewing Dan Cong oolongs: 1 g per ounce of water, flash steeps using boiling water. Out of the bag, the tea smells woodsy with notes of tobacco and roasted peaches. Wet leaf brings out honey aromas and more stone fruit.

Tea starts off a bit woody and fruity with dried fruit and prune notes. As it steeps, it develops a honeyed sweetness and presents interesting notes of licorice, roasted fruit, and saffron. Subtle florals and nectarine appear along the way. Reminiscent at times of a peachy Mi Lan Xian.

Overall, a smooth and elegant Dan Cong with lots of subtlety and evolution of flavor over 8 steeps or so. Another winner from Verdant!