Summer Harvest Laoshan Green

WOW I love this green! and for me to say that… well, that is big.
This is right up there with the Kiosque Dragonwell. Oddly though, Steepster has eaten both of my reviews, for both this and the Dragonwell. Odd!
SO this is definitely creamy, in a green way, not milky at all. Reminds me of creamed spinach. Only on my second steep, so will update with whatever emerges in #3!
Oh and I just made a cup of Golden Fleece for my boss. She said “It’s sooooo goood! I’m a fan!” Yay! This totally made my day :D
Anyhow, my head is spinning this month, I haven’t been sleeping well at all and I’m so busy trying to get my career straightened out that I feel my notes have been lacking. Sorry for venting here. I just needed to put this out there, anywhere…

Cutting open the first 250g bag of this tea, heat-sealed at the farm just after it was picked a few weeks ago, was a burst of pure nostalgia. The aroma of the tea seemed to ‘waft’ me across the ocean towards Laoshan.

My wife and I were living in a pretty average apartment building in the city of Qingdao near Laoshan while I was conducting research on tea. Every morning before we went to teach classes on western literature and philosophy at Qingdao University, we would stop at a back alley restaurant set up outside with folding car tables and little plastic stools. There were lines down the block to get a bowl of their famous steaming homemade soymilk made from fresh picked soybeans grown on the mountains of Laoshan. This was not your average soymilk thickened with xanthan gum and artificially sweetened. No- this was pure frothed sweetness of soybean, full of hearty earthy flavor. You would pick up a basket (or plastic baggie for those on the go) of fried sticks of dough, hand stretched to order. In Qingdao, the wheat is good and fresh- so these fried “doughnuts” were some of the best. You would dip them in the steaming soymilk. The aroma of the milk, the sweet dough, and the ocean air heavy with morning mist is exactly that aroma that the tea evoked for me.

The flavor is strong and decisive, and very resilient to oversteeping. The rich, confident body of the tea reminds me of the temperament of my friends in Laoshan. The He family is kind beyond belief, but like many in Shandong province, proud, and unafraid to speak their mind. That is the tea I am drinking now.

Yet, just when I think I understand this new harvest, and its frothy sweet flavor, it shifts. There is a cooling and tingling quality like chewing fresh peppermint leaf and basil. It is as though the tea knew that it would be sipped in the summer and offered a cooling balm for the heat. Thank you Laoshan. Thank you Mr. and Mrs He. Even as I sit in Minneapolis, you have extended your hospitality, bringing me back to your home through the care you put into your tea.

When I first tasted this tea it was called Laoshan Green.

This savory Green Tea changed my mind about Green Tea’s because I used to think Green Tea was a bit boring. (Some of you shudder)

I had never tasted a tea as savory or smelled wet leaves that had the aroma of roast chicken before this Laoshan Green Tea!

Today I was running around town…going to the bank, the pharmacy, the grocery… before New Years and more snow flurries.

At 3:30 pm, I had gone through my whole day without any TEA!
I stopped in at my tea shop to drop off some Pu-erh samples to a new shop employee, and found that the ‘guys’ were sampling 4 Oolongs and 4 Black Tea’s from Nepal.
They set all 8 bowls and leaves in front of me to sample. (I love the sweet Darjeeling-like flavors from Nepal) A few will end up on the Tea Wall for sale. (I should have taken a picture, it looked like I was on a tea binge at a BAR!)

When I returned home, cold (25 degrees) and hungry I made some Summer Laoshan Green Tea. (I had enough Black Tea to drown Nepal!)

This was such a savory tea…really a meal in a cup.
I get very creative thinking of how I can transform recipes using this tea. I can’t help myself! I’ve melted butter in some tea and drizzled it over squash. I’ve steeped it in cream. I’ve added a few drops of sesame oil and poured it over chicken.
Drinking the tea always comes first for inspiration of course. Then I cook something with it!

I know this is a revisit of a tea, something that I’ve reviewed before…but in the middle of a cold Winter night…a luscious green Summer Tea that’s savory like broth hits the spot!

This is one of the best green teas I have ever had. It easily ranks up there in my top 5 favorite teas of all time. I have had the spring and autumn harvests, two autumn harvests (2011, 2012) now. I have to say that while Autumn made me like Laoshan greens, the spring made me appreciate them, Summer harvest made me love them.

It’s very rich and creamy for a green tea with a hint of salt. The vegetal notes are green beany, soy bean, edamame, not at all bitter and absolutely no astringency. It is naturally sweet and crisp and creamy and I know it sounds contradictory but it’s there…I tasted it and it was good!

I could drink this everyday, but I don’t want to lose my appreciation for it and take it for granted. I can typically get five really good steeps out of it. First steep is typically around 165* for about 30 seconds. After that about 175* for 30 seconds. Then I just up the steeping by a little bit, 45 seconds, then a minute, then a minute and 30 seconds. After that the flavor starts to get dull with a bite of bitterness to it. I need to try this gaiwan style!

I gaiwaned this today and forgot to take notes while steeping. I have to say though that it evolved very nicely and is still giving me flavor even after 3 hours of steeping. In all, it tastes very similar to a nice gunpowder green.

I’ve been saving my Verdant teas for a special occasion. I have been so busy, so unable to turn my mind off, I know I can’t appreciate them.
I decided to kind of take today off, after I fell asleep midday and kind of burned out. So tonight is a night to relax, watch the Daily Show, and drink this tea.
The leaves are adorable they are like something from a woodworker’s bench, little curls of tea, spiraling like wood planeings.
Brewed up for the first infusion, this smells refreshingly interesting. I’m not usually a fan of green teas, but I keep trying. This smells nice – a little bit buttery, a little floral, as if you could eat the creamy sweet scent of gardenias.
I’m picturing a summer porch where wisteria grows (I think there was a children’s book about a porch of wisteria that was guarded by a cat? I’m picturing the cover illustration here), in the summer. The porch rails are painted white but chipping off in places. The wisteria and the latticework cast mottled shadows in the creamy light. A wickerwork basket of green beans sits on a white wicker chair with a flowered cushion. A couple of small yellow flowers sit scattered upon the beans. The afternoon is redolent of half remembered snippets of hiding in gazebos and dreaming under bushes. Seriously. I’m getting a very defined synesthetic image from this.
The flavor was interesting. It was very vegetal, with an artichoke like back of throat feel. I honestly think I just don’t care for green tea that much. I found it nice but not very complex, certainly not living up to the aroma or some of the other Verdant teas I have tasted.
That said, I did make three infusions and enjoyed them, but I did find the flavor profile fairly one dimensional.

This is my first tea from Verdant. Thanks Autumn Hearth for all of these wonderful sounding samples! There’s quite a bit more tea here than I expected, I feel like I should have sent more :) My room is currently drowning in teas, teawares, and packaging between my Mandala and YS orders and multiple swaps that all came within the past two days.

This tea is quite vegetal, which usually isn’t my thing, but wow! This tea is nice and refreshing with flavors of green bean, bok choy, fenugreek, and clover. It has a nice, creamy mouthfeel with a subtle honey sweetness. Great stuff!

This reminds me (quite a bit) of Adagio’s Mei Hua, but fresher and considerably better tasting. They look so similar and have pretty similar taste profiles, I wonder if they use the same processing technique? The Mei Hua is from Fuijian, which I looked up and found to be fairly close to Laoshan, but not especially so.

Brewed this properly today, short steep time (10 seconds for first instead of a minute, adding about 5 seconds each infusion) and i love it! Have had 2 cups, the boyfriend had 2, and the leaves are still going strong! First steeps were very light and buttery, and later ones flavorful greens with butter! So savory, reminds me of some type of soup almost! Time for another cup pretty soon, I just can’t get enough. I really want to try the autumn harvest for this one as well! My verdant addiction continues :)

Oh these Laoshan harvests keep getting better and better! This is the milkiest, mintiest most decadent and refreshing incarnation of this tea I’ve tried. Though I think last year’s Autumn Harvest was more buttery, this one seriously rivals milk oolong. Whenever I feel ambivalent about green tea, Laoshan restores my faith. I’m learning to appreciate it more and more and so enjoy reading the tasting and background notes David provides. It makes drinking this all the more rewarding. I have enjoyed three infusions of this today taking breaks to cook and entertain the toddler. Also though I have never had the pleasure of trying green bean ice cream, I can totally see that in this. Yum!

I am usually not someone who likes the scent of green tea. In my experience, oolong and black tea are much more appealing to my nose than greens. This tea is something special. It’s buttery, sweet, fruity and toasty. Mmm.. so many different notes and all before sipping!

First Infusion: First sips offer something light and milky. It’s not terribly buttery, but milky instead. The sip finishes with a deeper kind of green flavor. It’s very similar to spinach or Brussels sprouts. What I like about this first cup is that all of the flavors are rather tame. It is very much a smooth, creamy and calming cup. I can’t wait to see what the second cup offers!

Second Infusion: This cup has a lovely mouthfeel. It’s full and creamy. It’s very similar to the first infusion, but the flavors are not as strong. I really do detect something that tastes like soy milk… but it’s natural and unsweetened. Very nice. I could keep sipping on this tea all night!

Third Infusion: I detect more of a chlorophyll taste in this steep, but it’s still sweet and yummy. I love that it isn’t astringent at all… throughout all three infusions!

This tea is my favorite green tea I’ve ever had. It’s so delicious and pleasant on this cold night! We had our first snow today & have more planned for tomorrow! Even though I’m not a fan of the cold, this kind of weather means I’ll be drinking much more tea during the day and night.

Drinking Laoshan-style at the office (green leaves in the bottom of a glass mug draw some attention!) to make way for the new order coming soon :) Drinking the Laoshan Apothecary Green helped me learn to recognize the spicy-sweet notes in the this, as well as the leafy green ones

The third steep of this was my favorite- creamy! I may not have been in the right mood for this tea as I had a hard time finding much flavor. I’m pretty sure i used enough leaf. The second steep was the sweetest and the first had the most ‘green’ flavor. I will save the rating until I’ve tried it again!

I am bumping up the rating on Summer Harvest Laoshan Green. For me, the results were far better brewing it Gongfu style with short steeping times. It was smooth, light, and fresh with no bitterness. I used 3 gm of tea for 4 oz of water at 185, letting it steep 6 seconds and adding a few seconds for each subsequent steep. With Western style brewing and longer steeping times, I found it to be too bitter for my taste, but I don’t think that’s been a problem for others.