Verdant Tea

Once upon a time someone, I forget who, shared a sample with me of a charcoal roasted TGY, I forget from where. I don’t think that one was aged, but I do remember that I really liked it and that I was going to do some investigation about whether it was something I could buy for myself, some shops being, as we all know, out of my reach due to geography. But then I forgot about it.

When I went to look at Verdant Tea’s site, to see what else other than the Laoshan Northern Black that was leaving half of Steepster in fits of ecstacy, I came across this one and was reminded of aforementioned charcoal roasted TGY. So obviously I had to have some.

The idea of roasting oolongs that would otherwise be on the greener end of the spectrum really appeals to me. I do generally prefer the darker oolongs, so that’s probably the reason. Here’s a funny fact. The darker end of the spectrum and the greener end, I like those. Oolong that are more halfway between the two? I just don’t find them very appealing at all. Not plain, anyway. I just can’t figure out what it’s trying to be, because to me it’s neither here nor there. The infamous Raspberry Oolong is based on one of those in-betweens, but that’s okay because it’s flavoured. The perfect oolong of this sort might be out there, but I haven’t found it yet.

But leaving that tangent, let’s return to the tea at hand. The aroma is really nice here. It’s a sort of mixture between cocoa and coal. The first association I got when I poured water on the leaves was burnt toast. Maybe it’s my affinity to smoky teas that make me really enjoy this aroma in a tea. Not so much in toast, though. It doesn’t actually smell smoky, but it sort of smells like it could be, and I find that really nice.

The flavour is really woodsy and again there is a hint of burnt toast. The note of cocoa from the aroma is still there in the flavour, but it’s not very noticable.

Actually, the flavour kind of reminds me a little of pears. There is definitely some sort of fruity sensation going on somewhere in here. It’s all juicy and not quite but nearly sweet, and it results in an aftertaste that covers every mucus membrane of the mouth. I can actually feel it on my gums! It’s sort of slightly cool and a bit prickly, a little like mint does. Not quite as heavily as actual mint, of course. Just exactly enough to be noticable.

As the cup cools, I find the cocoa comes out more and there is a little astringency. And suddenly I notice a very strong note of hazelnut. It’s right there in the front waving a big flag and shouting “I AM HAZELNUT! HEAR ME ROAR!” I can’t believe I didn’t notice this before I was halfway through the cup! I could have sworn it wasn’t there in the beginning. What sort of switcheroo magic stuff is this?

Finally, let’s come back to that burnt toast aspect, because that’s interesting. As mentioned I have a certain affinity to smoky teas, and although this doesn’t have even as much as a hint of a smoke note that I can find, I would still place it, mentally, on the outskirts of that group. It’s that burnt toast that does it. It creates the idea of smoke, but then when you look closer there’s nothing there. It’s like an optical illusion for the tongue.

I’m enjoying this, and it totally lived up to my memory and expectations from that other one I mentioned.

The real mystery, though, is this. How can burnt toast in toast be so unpleasant, when in tea it’s so nice?

I’ve had Lavender Earl Greys and I’ve had Green Earl Greys, but I’ve never had a Green Lavender Earl Grey. Given my good experiences with Verdant’s Alchemy line so far, and my interest in various Earl Greys including those of the lavender persuasion, I had to ask for a sample of this one with my latest order. Thanks, David, I’m excited to try it!

The dry leaf smells pretty lavendery with some greenish teaish scents and is that some bergamot? The bergamot isn’t really the main player in the aroma of the dry leaf. I steeped this according to the directions for the base tea (Jingshan green) and the resulting cup smells very intriguing. Lavender, yes, but with a warm, almost cookie-ish aroma. Well that was a surprise. Again, I can’t really pick out the bergamot in the scent. The flavor is intriguing and unexpected. Lavender is the most forward flavor in this tea, but overall it is very light and delicate with a faint sweetness. It is somewhat bright, but more “crisp” than anything else. I’m afraid I don’t actually taste the bergamot nor the lemongrass. I am very much enjoying this cup of tea, but what it’s really making me want is a cup of this tea unflavored, and perhaps to see it in a straight Green Earl Grey blend sans lavender. From reading tasting notes of the base tea, I feel like the lavender, light as it is in this blend (seriously the least obtrusive I’ve ever had in a tea), is steamrolling over the other flavors a bit.

One more cup before passing a bit on to a friend.

Gentle on the sweet grass, a bit buttery, and nicely floral. The real flavor that WOWed me with this one is the comparison to Rock Candy…WHA???? Oh yes! it’s true! It’s sugary-sweet just like one of my childhood faves Rock Candy! Woot! It makes for a juicy wonder that is or sure! The after taste is a bit like lime which is both surprising yet oh-co-pleasing! This is wonderful! Truly WONDERFUL! LOVE this! It’s one of my faves from Verdant so far…but then again…just about everything I have tried of theirs has been LOL :)

This is a great blend and a great intro to pu’er if you don’t want to dive head first into the world of pu’er. I am not a huge pu’er fan, but I have been trying to get more into them. It seems that verdant’s pu’ers are the only ones that I like. I have already purchased more of the Diyi Cornfields Shu that I got from Steepster Select, and I wanted to look at the other pu’ers that they had to offer. I told myself that while the descriptions of them were enticing I thought I should look more into the Alchemy Blended pu’ers to start off with.

It was hard to choose between this one and the Chrysanthemum Pu’er, but the word “spiced” tipped me over to this one. Me being a chai lover I had to try this one first.
The dry leaf smells amazing. No mustiness that has stopped me before, but pure spice. I put two nuggets and 2 teaspoons of the spices. Did a quick rinse and brewed it for 5 mins. The wet leaf was so sweet and spicy smelling that I almost forgot that it was pu’er. The first sip was smooth and clean. Clean dirt with ginger and orange. I could not make out much of the elderberry, but the galangal was in the background.

Very nice Verdant:)

Well, as the rating indicates, I thought this tea was simply amazing. This tea reminds me a lot of a eucalyptus “tea” my mom use to make, but without the medicinal aftertaste. It had a soft “cloudy” sweetness, with eucalyptus and raisin notes in the aftertaste. There was also a pleasant tingling sensation that came through towards the end of the first cup and almost dominated the second.

Where do I even begin? Feng Huang Shan (Phoenix Mountain) Dancong oolongs are probably the big obsession in my tea life right now. I’ve been gripped by a fascination with these teas since I tried my first sample of Mi Lan Xiang (Honey Orchid Fragrance) several months ago. That first experience immediately plunged me deep into a research mission, needing to know as much as possible about this kind of tea, and desiring to try the finest representatives of it I can find. I’ve since acquired a yixing teapot to dedicate exclusively to Phoenix Mountain oolongs.

Feng Huang oolongs have been called the doppelgänger of teas, speaking to their almost bewildering capacity to naturally mimic the flavors and fragrances of completely different plants, foods and spices. There are something like 30+ distinguishable “fragrance” (Xiang) varieties of Feng Huang Dancong, each coming from a different small grove of old and rare tea trees. In the case of a few of these fragrance varieties, the seasonal harvest is confined to merely a handful of trees, and it is said that there is only a single tree in existence for the rarest of these varieties. Aside from these extremely rare examples, there are about a dozen more commonly known and accessible varieties, the most popular being Mi Lan Xiang.

Many of the Phoenix Mountain tea trees, at the highest elevations (1000+ meters), are centuries old; and I think this is a significant factor that contributes to the fascinating complexity of these teas. Like the old grove Yunnan tea trees that are harvested to produce fine sheng pu’er, I feel there is very deeply layered and complex terroir being expressed by these Phoenix Mountain tea leaves. The deeper I’ve gotten into tea drinking, the more I’ve become convinced that Camellia sinensis has a capacity to express terroir that is unmatched by any other plant. And it is staggering to imagine, in the case of old tea trees such as this, the consolidation of centuries of environmental effects, over the life of these trees, finding expression in the tea produced from them. Some of my peak experiences with tea have found this terroir expressed with a sensory experience that the entire landscape and environment of a given tea’s life is unfolding like a vision in my mind, at times becoming so vivid that I feel physically present in that place. One more thing adding to the fascination of Phoenix Mountain oolong is that the local communities of Chao Zhou and Shantou are reputed to be the birthplace of gongfu tea drinking. Given the nature and quality of tea that these communities had immediate access to, the possibility that gongfu cha first developed there seems reasonable enough to me.

So as for the tea in question, I’m writing my tasting note after having just had an hour-plus long session brewing this Huang Zhi Xiang over 20+ gongfu infusions in my Ruci pot. I’ve had about half a dozen sessions with this tea to date, mostly in my yixing pot, but I didn’t want to say anything about it until I could set aside some time to sit down and drink it with undivided attention in another vessel, as my yixing pot for this kind of oolong is still very young and gobbling up a lot of flavor. The glazed Ruci pot was a perfect alternative for this purpose.

The dry leaves smell like orange flavored candy. Immediately on touching hot water the leaves begin to release a woody aroma that I associate with green young tree branches that are pliable when you try to break them and somewhat wet when cut into. When the leaves are completely wet, there is also a vague aroma reminiscent of sandalwood bark and hints of seaweed.

In initial steepings, the front-end of the flavor has a woody base with dominating notes of orange zest, more specifically – zest of blood orange. There is a bright finish on the front-end of this flavor, which could at first be mistaken for bitterness by someone less familiar with the various qualities of texture that tea can have. It is not bitterness though. This finish is a textural quality similar in character to the fine effervescence of hard cider, which sparkles on the front central area of the tongue. I would also associate this flavor/texture composition to some degree with zhang, a quality more commonly found in sheng pu’er, which I would liken to the profile of fermented juniper that comes through in the pine-like quality of gin. Interestingly, the initial sparkle of this tea is wrapped in a silky softness that comes forward after a few seconds and enfolds the mouth.

My readings have indicated that an intense “finish” in the foretaste is prized by the Dancong drinkers of Chao Zhou, who prefer to drink these oolongs with a huge ratio of leaf to water, often filling a gaiwan up to the brim with leaf. This Chao Zhou style of brewing looks for an intense foretaste followed by a deeper appreciation of the complex and enduring aftertaste. For my part, I’m using enough leaf to fill my small 3oz. gaiwan 2/3 – 3/4 full, which is plenty for my tastes.

The overall mouthfeel of this tea is medium-bodied, being neither thick and syrupy nor thin and vaporous. It feels buoyant, as if its edges are round and won’t sink below the sides of the tongue without special movement to make that happen.

Aftertaste is huge, and unfolds over a very long time. This is apparently one of the sure signs of a quality Dancong. I’m convinced that if left to itself, and not covered by eating or drinking something else, this aftertaste could remain all day. The sparkle texture alone stays on the tongue for a surprisingly long time. Breathing stokes the aftertaste like a bellows, with the post-sip retro-nasal aroma release having potent effects. I feel there is a whole orange grove here! The woody bark, the ripe fruit, breeze and sunlight, even birdsong in the trees. Fantastic.

After ten or so short steepings, the tea seems to be waning, but don’t be fooled! It’s just changing and about to start giving out different qualities. In the later steepings, the sparkle texture expands to the side of the tongue , the body grows creamy, a melon-like flavor begins to develop, and then yields to notes of butternut squash.

This tea is invigorating, and will definitely wake you up and feel alert, but I feel it also has enough relaxing cha-qi to allay any sharp caffeinated feeling – like you might get with a CTC black Indian tea or machine-cut Japanese green tea.

All in all, I will say that I am deeply pleased with this amazing tea. For me this tea sets a benchmark for the complexity I want in a Dancong oolong. I love it!

Honey. Clover. (Maybe clover honey?) As it steeps, I’m getting something that reminds me of skiing in Steamboat Springs, CO. It’s mouthwatering…

1st steeping (4 min, boiling water): Honey. Slightly creamy. Now I’m getting a wave of cocoa—this IS like chocolate milk! Also, the clover is coming through. Still gives me the taste of skiing in Steamboat, and because that’s kind of confusing, I’ll explain: Every year around spring break, my family and another family that we’re all best friends with (the family we choose) go skiing in Steamboat, CO. Every year except for one we get completely dumped on with an out-of-the-blue late-season blizzard, and we get to ski in 3 foot deep powder to our hearts’ content. Pretty lucky. There’s this sunscreen/anti-windburn stick we always put on our faces when we’re out there, and the smell of it—whatever essential oils are in it—takes me back to bright shiny morning, riding up the gondola, wrapped up in base layers, coats, mittens, pants, gaiters, helmets, goggles, clipping into bindings and launching off into another adventure that gives meaning to life. It’s one of the sweetest memories I have.

Now does that make sense?

2nd steeping (4 min 45 sec, boiling water): Something I forgot to mention in the first steeping—the cocoa taste reminds me of the chocolate milk I would get at a diner I went to on some special mornings with my mom when I was little. I never got chocolate milk pre-made anywhere else (I claimed it tasted like cardboard), but I got it here and it was delicious.
Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Same mouthwatering aroma while it’s steeping…I’m probably going to use my coupon to get more of this…upon sipping, the cocoa taste is predominant, still with the delicious clover honey note, and wow, this is fantastic.

3rd steeping (~6 min, boiling water): The cocoa has receded a little and the clover honey’s coming back. Mmmm. This is a more subtle sweetness. I’m getting a bit of tingly cinnamon warmth on the back of my tongue, too.

4th steeping (~8 min, boiling water): Put this in my travel mug. Prior steepings have used up much of the flavor, but it retains the slightest hint of cocoa. It’s comforting nevertheless.

Overall: Sweet mercy, this is amazing. I love black tea, and this is one of the most comforting, tasty, unique ones I’ve ever tried. This has made it into my hall of fame—I’m going to always have some of this on hand.

I brewed this for some afternoon tea. Rich and complex with every sip. I can make out the Laoshan Black, and the Golden Buds perfectly. There is a hint of mustiness in the background from the Xingyang 2007 Imperial Pu’er. Its nicely balanced and a vacation from other normal “Breakfast Blends” one may drink.

The Alchemy Blend Adventure continues…:)

So on to my Verdant Alchemy Blend adventure. I picked this up because I have never had an herbal with rose or elderberry. I opened the package and saw the beautiful pink rose petals. The dry mixture had a fragrance of perfume. One of my coworkers said that it smelled like something Marie Antoinette would have had in her teacup.

I brewed 2 teaspoons for 5 mins. The pink from the petals transferred to the liquor and the wet petals were white. I could smell the cinnamon and licorice root right off the bat. Nice..very light. The elderberry was sweet and was matched well with the other ingredients. I’ve had this same tea but with hibiscus instead of the elderberry. While I love hibiscus this is a nice change from the norm. I’m glad I purchased this.

Having a cup of this tonight. After drinking this a lot lately I have realized that I like this chai when I want something light.
I have this chai,Samovar’s Chai, and Yogic’s Chai. To me both the Samovar and Yogic chai beg to have a little milk or almond milk to it. While this chai I think is best with nothing added. I have tried it with milk,almond milk, soy milk, and coconut milk. I love it plain…

Wow…very nice. I have been wanting to try this after I tasted the Laoshan black tea. I opened the package and the spices hit me. I could not smell the tea at all. I was a little worried that it would be just that…SPICE! I gave the packet to a coworker and they said that they could smell it from across the room…it was so strong.

I used about 2 teaspoon in my wabi sabi pot from Samovar. Brewed it for 5 mins and poured. Nice amber color.The chocolate aroma of the Laoshan black was there. It smelled amazing, the spices backed the chocolate flavor of the tea perfectly. I put 2 teaspoons of raw sugar and a drop of cream. It was balanced..really did not need a thing.

This time last year I was trying almost everyones chai. I bought Adagio, Samovar,Yogi,Tazo, Rishi.This to me is the best one. Its because of the Laoshan Black. That tea already has so much dept that it would have to make an amazing chai. I’m so happy I purchased 2 oz of this. I will have to pickup more and do it “old school” on the stove top.
I kind of regret putting the cream, it did not need it……

This lovely Pu’er was an incredible source of energy today. I was feeling tired and I brewed a pot. It gave me a sense of purpose. Contentment. It was nourishing. Truly a great way to start your day. To me, it’s a fortifying cup. A nice dark brown liquor with hints of corn and mint. This is a great morning tea….

After reading all of the tasting notes and seeing that there is a some who love and some who don’t care for it. I love it. I brewed in the yixing for maybe a minute and poured a touch out to smell and see the color. It was ready. The aroma is intoxicating and the flavor is a knockout. I too must admit was put off by some of the reviews. I am getting the corn obviously but with a much more complex profile. It is a lighter Shu that’s for sure. Totally unique. I will say it again, I love it….

Cold and wet Husband asked for something ‘black and robust and super life-giving’ after his shower, having just cycled home in the rain.

I can’t remember if I’ve given him this one before, so I thought now was a good time to do so.

Having the last of this excellent tea this morning while listening to Whitney Houston.

Yeah. It seems an appropriate combination.

:/

(funny thing is, I was never really a fan of hers. I have a handful of songs which I like, but that’s it. And I still have this urge to listen to her now. I had a BIG Michael Jackson phase at around age 14-15, but when he passed on, I didn’t get this same urge to listen to him.)

I actually received my Verdant Tea order a couple of days ago, but then I felt a bit under the weather and in a general bad mood for a couple of days. It’s not very conducive to trying new stuff, so I saved it. This morning, after a three hour nap yesterday and a full nights sleep, I’m feeling less worn out, so I gave it a go.

I couldn’t not buy this one. At the same time I bought it with many considerations first. You see, it has been so very hyped on Steepster lately. Everybody and their grandmother has tried it and they all think it’s the best thing north of the Alps. That sort of stuff tends to make me lose interest. Hype is the reason I’ve, for example, never actually watched any of the Star Wars films in full. It’s also (part of) the reason I’ve never read the Hunger Games series and don’t really intend to. (The other reason being that any book that comes with glowing recommendation on the front from Stephanie Meyers does not exactly win points with me. I have tried Twilight. Utter tripe.) I suppose my problem is that I expect I’ll just get disappointed.

So yeah, I ended up buying this one in spite of all of the above because I found the company’s description genuinely interesting, but I am still approaching this first cup with part expectation, part nervousness, part concern, part fear of disappointment, part sceptism, part curiousity and part excitement.

The aroma of the dry leaf and the aroma just when pouring the water on are very close to one another. It’s very sweet and cocoa-y. No, not cocoa. More like chocolate. A sweet milk chocolate. I’m reminded of that choco-milk powder I used to get at my gran’s house as a child. It came in a large yellow box with a rabbit on the front. I’m not sure if she gave me that because she wanted it to be a treat or if she had got it in her head that I couldn’t drink milk otherwise… If the latter, I wasn’t about to correct her, was I? (And that stuff, by the way, looks really strange when served in a coloured glass!) So, childhood association to my gran. This tea is already well on the way to awesome!

The aroma after it has been steeping is different though. Gone is the milk chocolate sugary powder stuff, and now we’ve got something that is much more like cocoa rather than chocolate. It’s a much deeper and more complex aroma. Along with the cocoa, there is also something very grain-y and another note which I can’t really work out how to describe. It’s a sort of inbetween thing of woodsy and leathery, kind of pipe tobacco-y but at the same time, so not like that at all. On top of all that, there is a rather prominent spicy note, but I can’t work out if I think it’s a note on its own, or if it’s just another aspect of that indescribable woodsy, leathery, tobacco-y, not-tobacco-y note from before. How very difficult.

So there’s a lot going on here aroma-wise and the flavour is no different. Actually, I find it very similar to the beloved Tan Yang Te Ji ♥ (which is STILL being held hostage by tax and customs, argh!). Already here I can say that YES, this tea does indeed very much live up to all the hype. Of course, with the Tan Yang association, I might be rather biased. :) It has that same cocoa-y flavour profile, but I find it to be more grain-y than the Tan Yang. It even has that same sort of fruity aspect to it. Not any particular fruit that I can think of, just some sort of generic fruityness.

Another tea I’m reminded of in this cup is Keemun, and that’s because of how strongly the grain-y aspect is coming through. Keemuns are, for me, very grain-y and have a sometimes floral but most times pseudo-smoky aspect to them. This tea makes me sort of try to imagine a Keemun which has been stripped of that top layer. What’s left then? Grainy-ness. Keemun is another very favourite tea of mine.

This particular tea I find to be a mixture of the very best bits of two of my favourite types. The Keemun with the grain and the Tan Yang with the cocoa and fruit-y business. It’s more Tan Yang than Keemun though, which suits me fine because Tan Yang is my absolute all time favourite. And at the same time, this also strikes me as being very much its own. It may taste like a mixture of the two above, but I cannot bring myself to believe that you could blend those two and get this result. Something similar perhaps, but not the same at all.

Generally, it has a lot of what I tend to think of as ‘Fujian-ness’, this tea, but it’s not Fujian grown at all, is it? I need to consult a map and find out where in China Shandong is. Still on the coast but much further north from Fujian, bordered to the north by the Hebei province which is where Beijing is. Funny, I would have thought that with such similarity in flavour profiles they would have been a lot closer to one another. There must be some similar growing conditions in those two areas. Shandong is also just to the north-east of Anhui which is where Keemuns come from. That explains that similarity. I need to explore this area some more, I think. What else grows there?

I see no reason to faff about with points here. This is a solid 100 if ever I saw one. I’ve fallen hard and will be coming back for more.

ETA: Second steep has gone all cinnamon-y! Forget about above comparisons, this is definitely new! I’ve never met a naturally occurring cinnamon note before. (I like it a lot better than if it had been actually cinnamon flavoured too. Not really a cinnamon flavoured fan, me. Uh, as in, not a fan of cinnamon flavoured things, not me being cinnamon flavoured…)

Upping my-already high-rating! After the second steep, this tea is coming dangerously close to disturbing my light oolong wheelhouse. The sweeter notes that were a bit hidden in the first steeping really came out in the second.

I’m not sure if this is the right word, but I felt this tea was very substantial compared to other greens I’ve had. This was surprising to me because the color after steeping was fairly pale. The overall flavor profile was sweet with a slight fresh steamed broccoli after taste. But, under that umbrella there a few different flavors that would pop up every few sips. If this tea is representative of other Laoshan greens, I look forward to trying more of them. I’m glad I got some of this before it was sold out :)

Sipdown, 220. The rest of this is going off in a swap to another steepster. I also have to say, whaaa? not logged since December 2011?? That is crazy. I must have drank some in the intervenign time and not logged it.

I always thought I preferred autumn picking Tieguanyins, but looking back at my past tasting note and drinking this now, I am not so sure. I just had the last of my 2011 Spring Picking last week, and even as an older tea, to me that had more buttery notes, more floral notes, and more sweetness. This is still very nice, but I definitely do not find it as amazing as the spring picking. I was going to restock on the Autumn Tieguanyin that just came back into stock at Verdant, but now I am thinking maybe I will wait for the 2013 spring picking.

I got this one in the mail last night and I couldn’t wait to try it. Like almost everyone else I loved the spring picking and was excited to try the autumn offering.

To start with, the differences are apparent from the scent of the dry leaf. Like many have pointed out, this tea smells richer and more buttery than its spring counterpart. The dry leaves of both have a floral aroma, but the difference is like that between fresh, bright, light, spring florals and darker, heavy, rich, thick florals. It’s a comparison I made recently for some flavored teas, but it works here (though on a slightly narrower scale). In the aroma of the brewed tea (brewed “western style” in a 12oz cup) these florals are still present and thick (primarily lilac, I would say), with a health dose of buttery creamy nutty notes.

Well I’m not shocked that this tea is awesome. The notes I described above are in the flavor, but also a distinctly green leafiness that I never really got from the spring picking. That’s really the main note in the sip, and all the florals and butteriness and nuttiness is just coming and going. I feel like this one is a little less sweet than the spring… it’s just a tease, a hint, a faint whisp of sweetness playing on the edges of what is really more of a savory quality. All in all a delicious, intriguing offering from Verdant.

This tasted like a typical high quality dark oolong. That’s not a bad thing since I’m starting to love oolongs, but I was expecting a bit more given the description.

I have to say that lately I’ve been thinking about the psychology of tea cups and this has led me to an interesting observation with this tea today.

Side by side I am comparing the taste in a glass mug vs. a japanese cast iron teacup. The tea I am drinking out of the tea cup (it’s black) tasted darker than the tea I’m drinking out of the glass mug. I am a kook.

Anyway it is back to the glass mug for now. This is a lovely light amber color now. I don’t believe I have ever had a golden leaf shu before and I am in for a real treat. This is another tea which is nothing like the traditonal pu-erhs I’ve had in the past. It is much lighter in color and has quite a delicate flavor. I feel I need to sit down and really appreciate it rather than just slopping some tea in a mug.

This reminds me ever so slightly of kombucha or cider which I attribute to the fermentation (and kombucha is made from tea, after all). But no sourness is present here, just a nice minerality combined with a rich beautifully aged tea. I am getting sandalwood and earth. I kind of wish I had not read Verdant’s notes on this tea before drinking it but I am reminded also of a swimming hole deep in the woods somewhere but with natural and clean water. Very surprising for a pu-erh. I will be eager and happy to try anything else that comes out of the Xingyang workshop!

It’s a sipdown… which means I can buy more pu-erhs, right? :)