Verdant Tea

I truly believe I have found a great tea seller with Verdant! This Sun Dried Jing Shan Green is a gorgeous tea. Especially after drinking the Hand Picked Oolong! The aroma is intoxicating and so is the flavor! I brewed this basket style with a generous amount of leaves. I am higher than 10 Himalayans! My sincere thanks to David for honoring my request for a sample of Big Red Robe { a generous amount too } and the Dragonwell. You have a loyal customer….

I am saying goodbye to this beloved tea today. I put the remainder of the bag in the Mason Jar for a final cold-brew. The color. That greenish yellow hue I will see no more. That flavor that lingered long after consumption will be but a memory. The aroma that came to me as a spring day. Is gone.

This tea was with me on many a journey. Most notably my fathers funeral. I thought what will I drink to maintain my composure? This was the answer. Just like springtime life goes on.

I am back to work. I have been training and going through orientation at Revel {I am not authorized to say this} LOL. They are allowing us to have a beverage with us in a cup with a lid to take to the meetings and I have been taking this along. It’s comforting to know I am employed. It’s also comforting to be able to have this wonderful Oolong with me during my new journey.

I brewed this single cup basket style with 1 tsp. The water was a rolling boil. The 1st cup was very good when the tea cooled a bit. The usual sweet flowery nectar that we have come to love. This tea has a very calming yet not tiring energy. Something so nice and relaxing is better suited for later in the day. As always the 2nd cup seems to open up and awaken. My supply of this is running low. I will miss it when it’s gone. We will see what this spring brings….

When I originally bought this tea I got 4 ounces. I froze 2 ounces to keep it fresh. I used up the first 2 ounces so it was time to remove the other 2 from the freezer. I left the bag outside to slowly adjust the tea to room temperature. But not before I wanted to cold brew the frozen tea leaves. After 24 hours in the fridge, the result is nothing short of sublime. It tastes so fresh and delicious. You know the flavor profile by now, it seems amplified. Nirvana….

I cold brewed this is the result is a sensory delight. It is like revisting a spring day on a cold and dreary January day. The color is this light green hue and the aroma is heavenly. The flavor is superb. This is not exactly a morning tea. It is a calming tea. A lovely liquor beyond description. Words cannot do it justice. This was the end of one bag of the spring picking. I have had the other bag in the freezer. Any suggestions for removing it from the freezer? I do not want to do anything to harm the precious leaves.

I’m enjoying this precious nectar after a salad of bitter gourd tossed with long green hots with a vinegar soy dressing. After last nights Orchid Oolong I had to revisit this spring beauty. This is a nice way to digest the spicy hot bitter salad. It’s a soft loving caress in comparison. The Chinese believe in having something bitter, sour, salty, pungent, sweet and I know I’m missing something. There should be a heaven taste. That’s what this is….

The Mason jar brewing was superb. I know the purists may laugh but I truly believe no other form of tea preparation can allow you to fully appreciate the flavor of oolongs and greens. My hot water brewing in the Yixing has yielded a beautiful nectar as well. A lovely aroma of flowers and heaven if there is such a scent. I also note on the feelings a tea gives to ones moods, I felt an inner calm and peace as if the Iron Goddess of Mercy had blessed me. A truly sublime tea….

I just got home to find my delivery from Verdant. They are fast! It’s too late at night to taste so I had to put a teaspoon in the Mason jar to watch the leaves unfurl in the refridgerator. In the afternoon I will be in for a treat.

Revisiting this tea this afternoon. This is one of the very best green teas that I’ve had. It is sweet and delicate and has a complexity all its own.

I managed six infusions from these leaves (combining the liquor of 2 infusions in one cup), with each cup tasting quite different from the previous one. The first cup was quite sweet, soft and crisp. It has a remarkably clean taste, with hints of citrus that become more apparent in the aftertaste. The second cup was still sweet, but the sweetness had mellowed somewhat and there was a new, savory tone that was emerging. The third and final cup offered a very pleasant savory tone. It was still sweet, but less so than in the first four infusions.

A very, very pleasant green tea. This is one that I will need to order very soon.

Amazing! The teas from Verdant Tea are absolutely amazing! Every single tea I’ve tried has been so good.

This has a very bright, crisp flavor. The vegetative flavor here is light and not what I would consider “grassy” it is more of a steamed vegetable taste. It has a pleasant sweetness that lingers.

I will be writing more about this later… for now, I just want to sit back and enjoy!

Once upon a time Verdant sold this tea, and I bought a oolong sampler than included it. That was ages ago! I found the remainder of this sample kicking around the back of my tea drawer and decided to use it up. I decided to give this one the gongfu treatment and put what was left in my little ru kiln teapot. The dry leaf still smells green and floral and lovely.

I used the general oolong gongfu instructions that Verdant provides: quick rinse, ~5 second first steep. The wet leaf smells remarkably charred and roasty, which was totally unexpected. Guess I forgot this was a half-oxidized oolong base. The tea, however, smells floral in a thick, rich, dark way, and tastes ridiculously sweet. Seriously, did someone put sugar in my pot when I wasn’t looking? On this first steep I can’t quite get beyond that candy-ish, slightly floral flavor, like pure sugar. At times there are notes in the background of green-ness and a very slight hint of toastiness, but mostly an overwhelmingly sweet aftertaste that lingers in your mouth and the back of your throat, reactivating every time you breathe in. It’s quite extraordinary.

Unfortunately my subsequent steeps weren’t so awe-inspiring… the sweet aftertaste remained, though growing fainter, but the main part of the sip is just kind of vegetal and a little roasty and bit boring to be honest. But I have kind of consistantly been unable to make multiple tasty steeps when I do gongfu, no matter what I seem to do, so it’s probably more me than anything else.

Back to a nice flowery oolong. I like it when an oolong with a flower in the name is actually scented with those flowers (as opposed to being given that name because the natural characters might evoke that flower) because my expectation of those oolongs is often for a more floral tea than I end up getting. This tea is interesting because of all the myriad of aromas and flavors going on!

When I first smell the dry leaf it has that vegetal, slightly grassy, oolongy, slightly floral aroma that I might expect from any green oolong. What’s crazy is that if I blow into the pouch, the aroma that comes out is roasty toasty grains, though more like toasted rice than a dark oolong. That slowly fades back into the first aroma, and somewhere in the middle of that transition is what the tea actually ends up tasting like. It’s also what the steeped tea smells like: greenish florals (a kind of oolongy florals, not intense like smelling that particular flower) with a warm toasted grains backdrop. This is a green oolong that you can definitely tell is half-oxidized, and the combo of flavors is nicely balanced. The main body of the sip seems to really be the vegetal, not-too-floral green oolong with the toasted background notes. There is some natural sweetness to this oolong, and it swells up at the back of the sip along with more intense florals. Overall this is a very tasty tea, and really not overally floral for a tea that is scented with orchid flowers.

Once again started my day with this fascinating green tea. It brews so perfectly in my Koryo (Korean) celadon infuser cup, warming my hands and warming my soul. I went back to review my previous tasting notes on this one and it continues to amaze me that it fuses some of the best qualities of Dragonwell/Longjing with the Gyokuro and Laoshan green flavors and aromas. I had a second steep an hour after the first, putting me in a good mindset to make it through another day! :)

What a beautiful tea this Dragonwell Style Laoshan Green! The dry leaves look identical to the very high quality dragonwell (or longjing 龍井茶) teas that I have had the pleasure of drinking. Flat, pan fired and distinctly complete — not broken or crumbled. Truly worthy of pondering the long journey these leaves have made to make it into my cup.

The aroma is the first surprise. Not nutty like the longjing, but that distinct smell of the other Laoshan greens, combining the butter bean aroma with the slight scent of the ocean mists. When described as being somewhat like a Japanese gyokuro, I had my doubts, since gyokuro teas are not only shaded before harvest, but also come from different varieties of cultivars. I should have known better, since David has such a wonderfully developed palate and honesty which I have never seen hyped. You see, I love gyokuro, but my budget leaves it to being enjoyed on only the rarest of occasions!

So I brewed this at a lower temperature (140F/60C) and for just 90 seconds, and what a wonderful complex flavor from this perfectly translucent light green infusion. Sweetness, light grassy flavor and a touch of umami, a surprisingly complex green that is hard to categorize, yet truly enjoyable. It shares the characters of several well known tastes (gyokuro, longjing and Laoshan green) and comes up with a whole new flavor/aroma profile. Second infusion, was slightly higher temp, and only for 45 seconds, yielding a new profile that is even sweeter and lighter. More infusions coming, but I could not resist writing this tea experience up and sharing on Steepster…

Da Hong Pao from Imperial Teas in Lincoln England was my first experience of this tea. I love its darker nature and the toasty/roasted nature.

Sipdown (Verdant Edition), 224. This tea is obviously old, given that it is spring 2011 picking. I only had a small amount of it left and I’m not sure why I was holding out on drinking it for so long… hoarding beloved tea impulses, I guess. I only had enough of this one for a western-style mug.

Despite its age, this smells amazing. Sweet and floral and buttery. The flavors are also still amazing, although I know they have diminished a bit. But still, if I can get this much flavor out of it two years on, it is a pretty amazing tea, and it still makes me very happy. Can’t wait until the spring 2013 picking!

Going gong fu with this one this afternoon. Approximately following Verdant’s steeping directions, my little teapot is about 6oz, and I used a tablespoon of leaves which is about 5g. First steep (after a quick rinse) was about 10 seconds by the time all the liquid got poured out of the teapot. The liquor is very pale, barely changing the color of my light green ru teaware but it certainly smells good. Fresh and floral and buttery and very sweet. First steep is light, but very tasty. Damn, I love TGYs, and this is a beautiful one. So sweet, especially as it cools quickly in my tiny tea cup (probably one of my favorite things about gong fu brewing… I am always waiting for my tea to cool because I prefer it warm but not hot). Orchidy florals, but not perfumy in any way, and with wonderful honeysuckle/honey notes.

Second steeping, 15 seconds. The color has deepened considerably. This time the sweet buttery floral aromas are joined by a leafy greenness. This time I definitely pick up the saffron notes mentioned in the description. Still sweet, but more robust. The florals are a bit darker. Third steeping, 20 seconds, is very similar to the second. I really have to let this steep cool way down before I really enjoy it, because while hot it lacks the florals and sweetness and honey qualities. My subsequent (4th and 5th) steepings all added 10 seconds in time and were all very similar to these steepings, like the tea hit a note and just kept sticking there. Even a sixth steep which jumped to 90 seconds showed little variation. While the are all pretty tasty, they all seem a bit weak and none of them are as interesting and outstanding as that first, rapturous steep, which makes me think that maybe I need to use a tad more leaf to start, or keep my steeping times really short throughout the first steepings, or both.

This tea is just out of control. I haven’t had it for a while, but man is it tasty. I typically brew my oolongs at 195°F for 3 minutes, which is what I’ve done in the past for this one, but this time I noticed that the instructions on the back of the tea pouch said 205°F for oolongs, so that’s what I did. I used to be afraid of steeping my oolongs at boiling or near boiling because I thought they would get overcooked that way, but I’ve done it with a few teas under instruction from the company now, and have been rewarded. This one is super sweet once it cooled down, with those floral, buttery, creamy, almost caramelly notes. Yum.

Ah, finally time to try this one! Oh my goodness, the dried leaf smells amazingly sweet and floral; I am very excited. I’ve tried one plain Tieguanyin before (at the Harney Soho shop), and while I enjoyed pretty well I wasn’t blown away or moved to buy it. I have a distinct feeling this one will be different!

Brewed “western” style in my 12 oz Kati cup. The liquor is a pale yellowish green, and it smells awesome. Fresh and floral, warm and buttery, sweet and creamy. Yup, the raves about this tea are totally warranted: it is amazing. The main body of the sip is light and fresh and green and buttery, and then toward the end the florals (orchid, magnolia, lilac) really come out along with a very lightly sweet aftertaste that gets a bit stronger as the tea cools. It still never gets as sweet as some oolongs I’ve had, just a faint wisp of sweetness to tease your taste buds. All of the characters of a Tieguanyin are present in spades in this tea; truly an amazing example of it’s kind.

I’m so thoroughly enjoying my second round with this tea. It’s really uplifting, and I’m really getting the candy qualities in my first three infusions.

What a gorgeous tea! Intoxicating-smelling and delicious, this is definitely the nicest Tieguanyin I’ve got my hands on so far. This is my tea happy place, for sure. It’s fascinating to evolve with it through the infusions, and the experience makes me feel so privileged and content. This is floral, green, sweet, and creamy in ways that change slightly between infusions but that remain perfectly balanced. Delicate and yet satisfyingly robust!

I had this tea the other day at a co-worker’s tea gathering. I’ve had the big red robe several time before. Some of them were costly premium ones brought over by relatives from Singapore. Compared to what I’ve had, this tea not as heavily roasted as my other big red robe. The one is a bit sweeter but is missing the thick texture in premium batches. Overall this is a decent tea.

This summer, I have been enjoying the Laoshan Northern Green from Verdant Teas, and have taken a real shine to its sugar snap pea flavor and nice light aroma. When my supply was out, I perused both Steepster and the Verdant Tea’s website, where I found some great videos about the farm, and a great description of this Early Summer Laoshan Green. I was intrigued, placed an order, and quickly received my package, filled with teas I can’t wait to experience and enjoy.

I loaded up my medium size glass gaiwan with 4 grams of tea, and did a quick steep of 175F water for 30 seconds (the website says 3 seconds, which seemed too short to my eye). Wow, what an interesting aroma! Somewhat like boiled peanuts or butterbeans – and a hint of saltwater sea spray. And the taste was just about the same. Very solid, sweet and possessing that bit of umami flavor that I have not experienced outside of Japanese green teas. It was so very good, that I followed the initial steep with 4 more, and then started to get a bit of bitterness. I left the leaves in cold water overnight, which cold brewed me just a tad more.

Today I am sipping on this tea once again. I haven’t even started any of the other teas I ordered, other than taken a good healthful whiff of the Artisan Revival puerh tea that David so generously included with my order (read my Steepster review of that one, for another fantastic tea). The only problem with this tea experience (I say with great sarcasm), is that I can’t get the lyrics out of my head:
…
Some people are fat, some people are lean
But I want you to show me the person
Who doesn’t like butterbeans
Yay!

Well, you can have your yams
You can have your collard greens
But if you want to please little ol’ me
You better fix butterbeans
…
Anyone old enough to recognize this snippet from “Butterbean” by the B-52’s?