Laoshan Pine Needle Green

dry leaf smells of toasted rice, hot chocolate, and cream
tastes of cream, baby lettuce, seashells, cod, barley
smells like lilacs, cream, and honey roasted whitefish
later infusions consist of fish and kale soup, lemon zest, calendula, sweet pine, and the sweetness of sea rocks in the sun
honeyed orchid petals and leaves in a lush forest on the finish
dry cup smells of honey and lemon

Another sample Hoalatha sent my way! Had a previous session with it and finishing up the last of the sample today. Dry leaves have a fruity aroma that becomes more mineral once the leaves are wet. The liquor is a nice, clear yellow and the flavor is a well-balanced blend of mineral, vegetal and sweet creamy notes. I get hints of salt, sweet roasted nuts that emerge and fade throughout the session.

The mouthfeel is very smooth and I don’t get any astringency out of any of the steeps. A
hint of creamy sweetness with light sweet florals briefly lingering in the empty cup between each pour.

The flavor profile of this one remains fairly consistent while growing more robust throughout the session. It’s a very mouth filling, super smooth and satisfying green!

First Saturday off in 6 weeks :). Enjoying this tea and relaxing for a while before tackling the to do list. My 21h/week job starts monday and I therefore know that I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands other days, but I still feel like I should keep my hands busy.

I’ve had this tea 3-4 times now. Always 8oz of 175F water, 3 steeps (about 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min). Buttery and Vegetal- delish. I find when I overleaf I get a bitter taste so I’ve been cautious. Otherwise a really lovely tea. As mentioned, now that I will have more days off for a while I will be enjoying more of these delicious teas :)

Continuing my mission to plow through more unflavored teas, I came to this green tea from Shandong Province. A product of the He family in Laoshan Village, this is one of the more unique green teas that they produce. Knowing that I had yet to have a tea from the He family that I found to be bad, I figured I would enjoy this one. I was right.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. Rather than following Verdant’s guidelines, I used them as a starting point and then just let the tea tell me where to go from there. I started with 5 grams of loose tea leaves and steeped them in 4 ounces of 175 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 11 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 9 seconds, 13 seconds, 17 seconds, 21 seconds, 25 seconds, 35 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

The dry leaves had a wonderfully vegetal, grassy aroma. It was like a combination of soybean, snap peas, kale, lettuce, spinach, and freshly cut grass. After infusion, the grassy, vegetal aroma intensified and was joined by a subtle hint of spice. In the mouth, I picked up strong notes of soybean, lettuce, snap peas, kale, spinach, butter, cream, grass, vanilla, and minerals. Subsequent infusions saw the vegetal notes increase in strength and the minerality play a slightly larger role on the finish. The later infusions were increasingly mild, creamy, and buttery, offering delicate notes of lettuce, butter, vanilla, cream, and minerals with faint traces of soybean, spinach, and snap pea in the background.

I was greatly impressed with this green tea. I found its strength and complexity very appealing. I am always on the lookout for savory, vegetal Chinese green teas and this one is definitely that type of tea. I would recommend it highly to those who enjoy more vegetal green teas.

One of the better green teas I’ve ever had. Very smooth while still having plenty of flavor. Still not my favorite flavor profile though, probably wouldn’t buy a full ounce.

Having a cup of this while I rewatch Doctor Who. I finally cleaned out enough room to open my boxes of Verdant Tea. Now of course I have no room again but that’s okay as at least I have plenty of tea to drink!!

As for the tea itself it was really quite yummy!

ahhhhhhhhhhhh!! I love this whole Laoshan green series so much. So so much. This one’s such a lovely sweet green, it’s definitely sweeter and lighter and a bit more pea-like and i think even a bit creamier than the standard Laoshan Green, I definitely prefer this one. It has so much wonderful vegetal, like light peas and lettuce, nice smooth flavour from around the 2nd to 4/5th steeps in my Gaiwan; those few steeps are some of the greatest tea I regularly drink. Unfortunately, it does seem to lose its flavour a bit quicker than other teas, but even after it has started to lose its flavour, it’s still really sweet and.. it makes me think of a really pure spring with crystal clear water. So lovely to sip, I thought I’d try to save it a bit, and not drink it too much since Verdant isn’t the cheapest store, but it’s hard to help myself, especially with this one.

Give one of the Laoshan greens a try if you haven’t already. You won’t regret it.

Oh, and I just noticed it’s mildly astringent, especially in later steeps but then I didn’t want to take the time to put it in my review properly so yeah :)

Backlog from a few mornings ago.

I know I’ve had this at least once before. This is a nice green, though – it’s got an underlying sweetness that I like. It’s vegetal and nutty, but not too strong in that direction. I’ll enjoy finishing this off.

Thanks for the sample, Ubacat!

From Jan 18th: Sample sipdown. dry leaf- green beans, peas. Wet leaf smells cooked green vegatables. Drinking the tea tastes like eating dark leaves – spinach, collards? nope. A nice quality tea, but not what I want in a tea.

I purchased some Laoshan teas in November from Verdant. They are all great but I’ve had far too much going on in my life to leave reviews lately. I had this one this morning and it’s not my first time having this tea since I got it. I think I’ve had it 3 times now.

It has the deep green freshness I find in the Japanese teas. There’s a green pea flavour to it. I wish I could come up with more but I’ve been under considerable stress the last month so I can’t remember things too much. All I can say is this tea is fantastic.