Bergamot Rose Laoshan Black

I made an order just to try this as it contains 2 things I like a lot: bergamot and rose. I was, however, slightly disappointed. Then again Verdant Tea has raised the bar pretty high. It’s a nice blend but does not have the “wow” factor (at least for me). It’s not too heavy on either bergamot or rose so I can actually taste the tea.

The recommended 2 minutes and 2 teaspoons for 1 cup of tea made a very nice first cup. The rose is somewhat berry-like in sweetness and flavor. The citrus and rose brought out the chocolatey flavor in the Laoshan black so much so that I thought there were cacao nibs in this blend.

The first cup was probably my favorite cup of Early Grey-like tea, but subsequent cups were somewhat lackluster. The second steeping was not nearly as strong nor as satisfying.

I just finished off my sampler. If I drink this tea again, I may try steeping it gong fu style to see if the flavor lasts longer. I’m afraid the rose flavor may not steep out as well that way though.

Picked up a sample of this eons ago and hadn’t opened it until now. It was surprisingly alright, but I am reminded that although I now enjoy lavender in tea, rose generally tastes too perfumey to me. In this case, the delicious laoshan black base helps temper the perfume a little, but I would really prefer it sans florals entirely (or perhaps, lavender instead?) Probably a good tea for those not put off by strong florals, though.

Sample sipdown. Having a mug while catching up on Downton Abbey. The rose scent is very nice. And there is of course, some bergamot. Then there is chocolate from the base. Flavour- the rose and citrus go really well together. I rather like floral grey blends. And this makes for a very good afternoon tea.

Review for 3/6/2015 – Friday AM

Going to start dating my reviews (if I remember) since the dates posted are on an increasingly crude timescale if it’s over a month or a year ago.

This review should be taken with a grain of salt since I’m not a huge fan of bergamot to begin with, although occasionally, it’s completely awesome. My last Verdant tea with Bergamot, I loved so I took a chance on this one. I do not love. It’s not terrible but it’s not something I would drink if I had better choices (for me) so it will likely be donated to my local guy who only drinks Earl Grey since that’s pretty much what this is. A floral Earl Grey. This guy is otherwise known as my veterinarian so it works out. Will have to wait until I get my car fixed though, hopefully Tuesday. I walked to work today (not as bad as expected) and will likely do it again on Monday.

Bergamot love!!

With it’s high quality and high ratings from the steepster community, I wanted to taste this a few times before I reviewed it. I got this and Laoshan Black as well as a sample of Big red robe in my order from Verdant yesterday. I think this one is a case of reading the excellent reviews and getting my hopes up, because it wasn’t quite what I expected. I love Earl greys so I thought this tea would be perfect for me. The bergamot is not very prominent – I get more of a floral taste before the bergamot which was a little disappointing. I’d prefer it the other way around but there is definitely a lot of rose in this tea.
I TOTALLY get the “natural” chocolate taste though – whenever somebody described that I never understood how that could be but I think it’s really nice and intriguing – perhaps I’ll prefer the regular Laoshan Black when I get the chance to try it.
So overall very nice and I’ll definitely have more, but when I get to order again I’ll probably try something different!
Yay for fancy tea though!

(sidenote: the instructions say steep for 2-5 seconds…..is that right?!)

Bought a sample of this because it intrigued me.

Sometimes I like teas with roses in them, i ALWAYS love LB, and I usually enjoy Earl Greys. So I figured this might be good.

Once I smelled it dry I wasn’t quite sure, though it was really pretty to look at.

It ended up being pretty tasty though! The flavours seem to work really well together. I will have some more steeps of my sample tomorrow for sure, this is not one to use once and throw away!

I would consider buying some, but it’s not a MUST HAVE for me or anything.

None of the flavours seem to overpower the others, though the main thing I taste is LB, which is probably why i enjoyed it so much.

The next thing I notice is the bergamot, but it’s not overwhelming. The roses are pretty faint, which is probably a good thing because a super floral tea can be too intense for me.

Overall, enjoyed this one!

OK now I am slightly up to date. I busted out my teapot late yesterday afternoon and found a sample packet of this. I just dumped it in and figured if I steep it a bit longer, maybe it’ll all work out, which it did.

I didn’t read the packet fully though, so when I went to look up the tea I was shocked that it had bergamot. I could taste the citrus, but it was just so seamlessly integrated in the flavor of the tea that I thought it was just a note of the tea. (Though I should also full well remember that LB = brownies.)

You see ‘bergamot rose’ and you might expect like lots of soapiness. There is none. There’s the flavors but there’s still the black tea front and center. There’s rose and citrus, but they are not overpowering. It’s a perfect mix.

I also ended up walking to the grocery store while I still had a decent amount of tea left. This was even good cold! Bummer it’s not available right now but maybe it will be again because one day I would like more.

800th tasting note! What better way than to review a tea that I’ve, gee, had for a year and still haven’t written about even though I quite enjoy it.

Yes, it was oodles better when fresh. The citrus notes, particularly the orange and bergamot, popped out a lot more than now. Fresh, this is seriously the perfect balance between the warm cocoa notes in the Laoshan base, the sparkly colourful citrus notes, and elegant rose. Nowadays, I’m getting mostly rose, and I swear the base is more mineral-like than cocoa-like with age.

Whilst I wouldn’t go out of my way to get this, if Verdant restocked this with a bunch of others that caught my fancy, you bet I’d get more.