Verdant Tea

Still loving this chai, especially with the dreary rainy day that is today. I always love warm comforting rich teas when it’s a blustery windy, rainy day and this doesn’t disappoint!

Mmmmmm….not much to add here beyond yay for this wonderful tea. Way to make patch day of WOW that much better!

Rather than talk about how long this has been in my cupboard before trying it…let’s just move on to YAY I’m drinking it now! Actually part of what inspired me to have it this morning, was a comment someone made on one of their tastings about saving verdant teas for when they can truly sit and enjoy them. I realised at that moment, that it was kinda what I had been unconsciously doing. And at the same time i realised that if i kept doing that, there might come a day when i regretted having saved that one tea for a special occasion that never happened. So i’m MAKING time to enjoy this tea, even if it’s on the subway in to work or in the middle of a huge project that makes me want to scream. So this morning, this morning it was the village chai. I don’t have time for a re-steep this morning, but it will wait for when i get home.

So on with the tea… this is a wonderful chai! It reminds me of those flat spice/ginger cookies that we used to bake in the fall and dunk into plain old boring red rose tea. I was super little then and didn’t like tea except when i could dunk these cookies into my mom’s tea when she wasn’t looking. She usually figured it out when the partially disolved floating bits of cookie popped up haha. Anyway, this is sans milk or honey – just straight up and i LOVE it. One of these days i’ll have to try it with a bit of milk or honey.

This is such a pretty tea! I haven’t seen a tea with leaves like this.. it’s fluffy, curly, thin.. so nice. I’m tasting snow peas paired with a bit of butter and floral notes in the background. I have to admit that white tea isn’t exactly my favorite thing to drink. It’s a little astringent and flat unless it’s very flavored. I’m sure that others who enjoy white tea more would appreciate this one. I will still finish drinking this cup, but won’t purchase more.

Mmm, this turned out strong and FRUITY this morning. I don’t know which fruit exactly, but it’s the same kind of acidic fruitiness you get from dark chocolate and coffee. Blackberries or plums?

Drinking the last of this today – I got a half ounce in the black tea sampler – and sad to see it go. I had a bit over a teaspoon left, so I brewed it somewhere between western and gongfu styles: I put all the leaf in my tiniest post (about 3.5 oz) and let it steep just long enough to develop some good color, around 30 seconds as it turned out. Two steeps like that made a good mug-full, and I’m hoping to get at least another 2 or three steeps out of it.

The flavor is delicious as ever, creamy and chocolatey in a way that you just don’t usually see in a black tea. Yum yum yum, I probably need to buy more of this once it’s in stock again. In the meantime, I still have Laoshan Chai and Bergamot Rose Black to keep me company _

I brought this to work, which means brewing Western style, which always makes me feel guilty with really nice teas. So, I decided to at least follow David’s direction on how much leaf to use. But then, the steeping time seemed… long, compared to the tea water ratio, so I stopped it a bit early (when there was already a deep coppery-red color to the tea).

That’s probably more than you all needed to know, but it’ll be good for my reference :P Compared to the gongfu style, this tastes much stronger and sharper. As it cools, it tastes more like a dark oolong than a black tea, with a very bake-y flavor.

Still sweet and chocolatey, very little bitterness (but more than there was gongfu style), very drinkable plain. I’m optimistic about later steeps evening out the strength.

1 tbsp leaf, 8oz water

ETA: Steeped this 4 times – the strength was more in balance on the later steeps, but it continued to taste more like a dark oolong than a light black to me. It was good, but I definitely prefer the gongfu method for bringing out all the flavor details.

I have been so excited about my first Verdant order – it arrived Tuesday but I’ve been entertaining company all week and didn’t have the time to give any of my new teas the attention they deserve. But today, I finally got to pull out the Laoshan Black, and decided to brew it gongfu-ish style this first time in my 3.5oz glass teapot.

I… I don’t have much to add to the descriptions above. I’m on the first 3 steeps and this is delicious, light, creamy, chocolatey (the dry leaf smells intensely of chocolate) – very smooth. I’m curious to see how it will change with further steeping!

It’s a bit on the light/weak side, but I might not have used enough leaf – I used the 1g to 1oz rule for 3.5oz, whereas the instructions recommend 5oz… It’s not bad! But I like my tea a bit stronger :) Fortunately there’s plenty in the sample pack to try it differently next time, and I’ve yet to see how it does with longer steeps.

ETA: I steeped this at least a dozen times. It was getting a bit weak by the end (though still tasty!) so I left the last steep for a few minutes, and that ended up being one of my favorites! It was sweet like fresh grain – I was thinking barley, but apparently semolina is more common – a fittingly bright amber color, and very smooth.

It’s -40°C outside thank goodness for a hot cup of tea!

I tried this again today and no there was no evil taste to it which proves that I screw up the oolongs most often (sigh) I did a much better job this time around and it came out rather nice.

well work is trying to screw me over because I’m going back to school. all of a sudden my years working there (since 2009) mean nothing, and I only have until Monday to think about their current offer. I’m sooo not impressed. Anyways onto the tea, I don’t think I did a good job rinsing it or something because it reminds me of cigarettes… (I’ve never smoked) I think I’ll redo this one.

I have had more cups of this recently than is probably healthy :D It’s very yummy and I can’t tell you why but it is great!

Really extremely yummy! and I got more with the March monthly bundle so I’ve got even more.

Had a cup yesterday and it was super yummy!

Drinking this right now mmmm…

Made a cup of this to take to work and just sipping it now :D such a great oolong :D

I’m having a cup of this and it is yummy! I steeped it for a minute maybe two… not sure :D tastes awesome :D

This is pretty darn tasty :D I’m not sure what I like about it, but I do like it :D

Getting back into tea now. I took a month off to do more juicing. I’m surprised that I have not written a review of this herbal. Love it!
So refreshing and light. Has my favorite tea herbs which are peppermint and licorice. Can not go wrong with this.