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“Mmmmmmmmm so tasty. Used a random amount of leaf (maybe a tbsp?) and used my nose to figure out when I should pour it out, and my nose indicated I should start at 20 seconds, so a 30-second steep...” Read full tasting note
“Time to cleanse my palate, & this is the tea for that! This dragonwell style tea is lighter than Ms. Li’s & other true Dragonwells, but it’s still a worthy cup. The leaf itself is also much...” Read full tasting note
“Short steeps of this “not-Dragonwell” in glass gongfu pot. Coming from leftfield, the smell of the dry leaves and the taste of the first steep remind me of a McDonald’s Apple Pie- which is...” Read full tasting note
“Trying this western style~ This has a really unique fruity sweetness to it, now that I see the description on here it is SO totally banana. Mostly though it is sweet and vegetal, I said green beans...” Read full tasting note
Region: He Family Farm, Laoshan Village, Shandong
Picking Date: Autumn 2011
Processing: Hand picked in high altitude, naturally mist-shaded tea gardens, withered in the shade fanned for several hours before being hand pressed into spears in a wok over low wood-fire.
Flavor Profile: While many Laoshan greens seem earth-bound in their hearty bean-flavor, the gentle processing on this tea gives it an almost sparkling sweetness. There are bursts of brown sugar along with a nutty base that combine in a way that tastes vaguely like bananas foster with toasted almonds. In later steepings the texture is more similar to sticky rice and the sweetness becomes that of butter rum lifesavers or vanilla cream. True to the “Dragonwell” style of this tea, late steepings have mineral notes that remind us of rocks in a fresh well. Intriguingly, we even get a little bit of spearmint flavor in the aftertaste.
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Mmmmmmmmm so tasty. Used a random amount of leaf (maybe a tbsp?) and used my nose to figure out when I should pour it out, and my nose indicated I should start at 20 seconds, so a 30-second steep it was! Just love the light sweetness of this one and complete absence of astringeny and bitterness. I think finding the best dragonwell tea may become a goal of mine, although I’ve probably started at the wrong end of the spectrum, with the two from Verdant!! Upping the rating because this tea is remarkably consistent in its amazingness.
ETA: Second infusion (168F/1min) also great.
Time to cleanse my palate, & this is the tea for that! This dragonwell style tea is lighter than Ms. Li’s & other true Dragonwells, but it’s still a worthy cup. The leaf itself is also much more delicate & lettuce like as it steeps. I went with the western steep, allowing the leaves to float in my glass cup, before straining them into another cup to drink.
1.5/2/3min.
I’m adding this one to my shopping list!
Sadly, it is no more. I’ll gladly send you a sample though, if you like :)
Oh no I see!! Oh you don’t have to do that,,you must keep what you have left,,the description sounds great on their page.
Oh, I’d be glad to share, no point letting it sit around too long :)
Ok, I will send you some of mine. :) Thanks!!
Short steeps of this “not-Dragonwell” in glass gongfu pot.
Coming from leftfield, the smell of the dry leaves and the taste of the first steep remind me of a McDonald’s Apple Pie- which is something I haven’t had in at least ten years. It’s tartly sweet, in a fruity way, and loaded with brown sugar, vanilla, and something “zippy fresh”. There are hot banana notes that come out more as I sip this first steep but the fruitiness tends to drift more into the realm of apple dessert for me. A bit of puckering mouth.
This is not as buttery or creamy as Mrs. Li’s, at least, not yet. Instead, it has more of a refreshingly green quality to it that is delightful in its own right. I haven’t been drinking any simple green teas, besides Genmaicha and Dragonwell, lately. I need to fix that!
This is very good although I don’t think I’d get it again.. not that it seems I will ever be able to get the same tea twice from Verdant. I hate how I’ve fallen in love with these smaller companies that will never be as consistent (maybe “constant” is a better word) as a David’s Tea or a Teavana sized company. I guess that’s part of the charm though. :)
Haha, DavidsTea, for me, doesn’t seem to be as consistent as it should be! With Verdant’s stuff, I find that different pickings of the same tea taste much the same to me for the most part, even though other people can pick up different flavours, so I console myself that I can at least get close to the same tea (if they bring it back, that is).
That’s true, especially with the blends from David’s Tea that have crazy amount of ingredients or have a huge weight difference among those ingredients (banana oolong, Indian summer, etc). I guess I feel better about being able to always have access to most of their teas. I’m just worried that I’ll find a tea I absolutely love and then I’ll never be able to get it again. I haven’t tried other pickings of Verdant’s tea yet so we’ll see. :)
When you steep in gongfu pot, how many oz do you steep at a time? I saw a cute little glass pot at DavidsTea that I might snag if I don’t find a gongfu pot somewhere else and I’m trying to figure all this out.
If they aren’t too busy and you ask, the employees should be able to do a demonstration with that little glass pot at David’s Tea! I made my friend who works there do that for me.. it was quite the spectacle.
DT’s glass pot looks exactly like this one http://www.teavivre.com/exquisite-glass-gongfu-teapot-with-doublewall-cups/ except it didn’t come with the proper serving cups (I use DT bubble cups right now..)
I’m honestly a slob when it comes to measuring things and usually fill it to full with leaves ranging from enough to at least cover the bottom to 1/3 full. I’ve read some places that your supposed to have it overflow a little? I’m probably the worst person to ask about this. XD
I used my Teavivre glass pot and double wall glass cups last night at Writers’ Group. One of the ladies put money in my hand as she was leaving and told me to get her those cups. LOL! People were fascinated by them, and the tea really does look pretty in them.
Just realized – I think my pot actually came from purepuer.com. I am not sure. It has a green handle and knob on the lid. Teavivre has one with pink, which is adorable and will probably come to live with me (and one with my daughter) soon.
I like how that looks – so pretty and cute. I wonder if I should buy a gaiwan instead of a mini glass pot. But I could go to DavidsTea TODAY and get the pot and drink my dragonwell samples properly! Decisions… :/
I’ll probably end up with everything eventually, but I’m trying to fight it!
Thx for the info!
Cavocofax, if you can afford it buy both and you’ll be glad you did. They should both be cheap. My glass pot has lasted 5 years so far for $9 and my gaiwan’s run $10-$18 for the fancy one at the high end. These are my most used brewing instruments along with a finum basket and a small strainer. (My glass pot has a stainless basket in it). The standard tea’s from Verdant are those from Laoshan Village but that will probably expand eventually. Davids used to be better when I tried them a year ago I thought. BTW my double wall glass cups were bought at TJ Maxx for about $3.99 for 4. Not bad. Checking out the discount stores can be surprising.
Thanks Bonnie. I bought the mini glass pot and am enjoying it now, but am still thinking a gaiwan would eventually be nice. But when would you use the gaiwan vs the mini pot? Functionally, aren’t they the same?
Well,Sometimes I do a side by side comparison so having 2 is nice, also…I use the gaiwan for puerh and often poke at it so a gaiwan is easier. Instant steeps seem easy with a gaiwan. I have a gaiwan for oolong,one for Puerh(clay), and a small white porcelain one. My yixing is for roasty oolongs but it’s a medium size pot.
Trying this western style~
This has a really unique fruity sweetness to it, now that I see the description on here it is SO totally banana.
Mostly though it is sweet and vegetal, I said green beans before but it’s more like some other fresh bean…soy? Maybe. Just a bit of a mineral note in there too.
Now I just need to try it properly in a gaiwan since I see last time I used the shaker that is supposed to act like one but really is the saddest thing I ever bought.
Sip down! So lovely and complex for a green. At times creamy, sparkling, brothy, sweet, vegetal, and nutty with hints of vanilla, mint and even cinnamon. Some steeps feel like soup and others are sheer dessert, rice pudding specifically. I know I must eventually drink through all of last year’s Autumn Harvests and then early Spring, making room for the harvests ahead, but I shall take my time.
The dry leaf is beautiful and fresh. After maybe 2 minutes in the Gaiwan I have an irresistable aroma of a very fine green tea. I am definitely getting a slight banana aroma. This is as good as it’s spring ancestor although I feel it is a bit lighter. I am getting the bananas foster after I have swallowed the tea and not while it’s lingering in my mouth. Tea can do some pretty cool things at times. This is my second tasting. Last night I wasn’t bashful with the amount of leaf and it was very flavorful. Not that it’s not as flavorful now. It’s just showing me another complexity altogether. I’m steeping cup #2 much longer. I am far from a traditionalist in terms of preparation. I like to tweak until I find what I feel is the best. I do try to follow the guidelines that have been followed for thousands of years but sometimes one must stray to find their own tea voice. Cup #2 has a honey sweetness. I’m getting a slight chill when I drink it. I consider this a plus. My mouth is watering. This truly a very fine tea. Cup #3 is soft and subtle. Whenever a tea gives me the chills and has a fine flavor and aroma I have to recommend it highly. But for some reason my phone never allows me to rate it numerically. 96….
Oh my. You might want to fix your rating. It’s a 3 right now. The tea sounds delightful.
If you have an iPhone, I think I figured out the trick but I’m not sure how I do it.
Oh wow, at first I was wondering a 3 for a Verdant Tea?? No way!! Hell has frozen over.. ;)
Ok. Read the end of my tasting. A 96. Yes its an IPhone. And no I do not know how to move the rating scale….
The adjustment was made
You can’t slide the slider with your finger on an iPhone, but you can touch on the area of the scale that you want to put the tea at and it should move the marker. Sometimes it takes zooming and touching in a few areas to get the number right.
Thank you Dinosara
Funny Daniel. I just drank the last of this tea today….
Thank you to Invader Zim for the huge sample of friendship tea!
I cower before green tea! If it were not for the instructions and videos on the Verdant website (THANK YOU!) I would not try brewing green tea at all. I am intimidated by the shape-shifting nature of some of them (or so I am led to believe). Reading through recent Verdant lessons about pouring this tea back and forth between two pitchers, straining the tea and keeping the steep time short, I thought my PIAO glass pot would work fine doing the same thing which it did! Pour, release, pour back through, release and drink it.
Sounds vulger my way, but then I’m alone at home. If I were to entertain, I think the flourish of 2 glass pitchers swishing tea back and forth would look tres’ smart!
My steepings here are 4 oz. pot each time. 2tsp. tea. PIAO teapot.
First steep
The liquor is blush yellow-green. The vegital flavor is fleeting…a tease and gone. Poof! Up front there is a mineral rock sugar sweetness I’ve read about but never tasted altogether in one tea-bite. Here it is. The elusive oneness…the tea without tannin, not bitter, or sour, no acid-rotten vegital ruination that we all dread…and the sigh of relief ah….! Juicy!
I have to do another steeping…off I go…
Second steep is a bit darker and there is some tannin. I noticed that the wet leaves don’t smell as vegital as I expected. They are beautiful dark green unbroken leaves, long spears like broad grass. The tea is juicy…very juicy…but not as sweet as the first steeping. I might like this steeped a shorter time. Usually you add a little time but here maybe not. Something went wrong. I did it. Steeped 20 seconds too long.
Third Steep…
I reduced the steep time which is much better. The mineral has returned and the tannin is gone. No vegital flavor anymore. The perfume of the liquor is floral reminding me of the Springtime blooming trees here in the Rockies, not flowers. Rock sugar which has that subtle aire of Cane Molasses is creeping up from the bottom of my little cup. When you live in the countryside in the Caribbean, you know that Cane Sugar and Molasses are the beginnings of RUM. People went out to the fields and made all three right on the spot, stills and iron pots in the cane fields. (Maybe not now…but when I lived in Puerto Rico they did 25 years ago). Add a little sweetening to this tea and the full sweet buttery rum appears….along with a steel drum and some good looking guys on the beach at Isla Verde! Uh…I got carried away!
(Sorry Verdant!)
So, I like this green tea! You won me over! I know how to brew this tea, drink it which is wonderful! Makes me giddy! This is not a dinner tea I think. This is a tea to enjoy talking with friends or with a light bit of rice or toast. A before dinner appetite stimulant.
I got this sample size from Amanda. I really want to brew this gongfu style but my life has been so nuts I just can’t. I have a little bit of time before I run some more errands, so I’m just brewing this up western style (1tsp/cup, 175 degrees, 1.5 minutes) or else I might keep saving all my Verdant Tea for “later”.
The liquour looks so light, I really wasn’t sure if I didn’t add enough leaves (I hate measuring dragonwell without a scale).
Okay, amazing notes now!
This actually smells like rain.
I am a fanatic about rain. I cannot work when it is too bright out, I would be perfectly happy if it was almost always raining. There are so many perfumes, candles, etc that are supposed to smell like rain but they don’t.
This smells like petrichor. And it’s reminding me of The Wasteland. My own headcanon version of The Wasteland where the rains actually come and the thunder isn’t just dry and sterile.
I get a little of the banana scent as well.
This tea is interesting – it has a rather delicate flavor. Initially it tastes very green, goes into a sweetness, segues into a slightly bitter flavor, and then resolves tasting like cream.
There is a slight mineral aftertaste, as though I had the smallest square of tin foil between my back teeth. And because I like strange or interesting flavors, I am calling this a good thing. Nowhere near some of the other Verdant Teas I have tried but head and shoulders above some other teas I have been drinking lately. I might try the last of the gongfu style later.
With my first sip, I say “this is a Dragon Well?” Then I read the label again, and see that it is Dragon Well Style… not Dragon Well. And yes, it does look like Dragon Well, especially the dry leaves which are flat but a bit brighter green than most Dragon Well teas that I’ve tried.
But the flavor is different to me than a typical Dragon Well. While I love a good Dragon Well, I’m REALLY loving this too. There is an intense sweetness – like sugar! – and yes, I do taste a caramelized banana flavor too (the description suggests a bananas foster taste … and I get that, sans the cinnamon).
This is my tasting note for the first two infusions, more to come!
My second two infusions: Wow! just as the tasting notes from Verdant suggest, I can taste the butter rum lifesaver! Incredible. Sweet, as you can probably tell by that comparison, this cup has very faint vegetative tones, even less than the first two. The finish is dry. A very enjoyable cup!
Actually, the above comment should read “my third and fourth infusions” rather than my second two infusions… sorry for the confusion.
I also had this tonight. Very very nice
LiberTEAS – if you have a chance, I highly recommend you try this tea again right after drinking Verdant’s Huang Zhi Xiang Dancong. The first time I tasted this Dragonwell, the very day it arrived in Minneapolis, I had happened to taste it on the heels of drinking the above mentioned tea, and I’m not kidding when I say that my jaw fell through the floor in amazement. It was vivid, undeniable bananas foster flavor. I bought a huge supply of the tea and tried brewing it again later, but was unable to reproduce the incredible quality of that first session. It was later discovered by myself and others that the flavor potentiation I experienced that first time was the result of a synergy effect between the strong aftertaste of the Huang Zhi Xiang and the flavor of this tea. Don’t get me wrong, I will affirm that on its own this is a most excellent green tea, but that first tasting with the synergy affect was downright mind-blowing, and I just couldn’t believe that it was possible for tea to produce a flavor like that. One my highest peak experiences with tea. Worth a try if you’re adventurous.
