The Tea
I ordered this tea just in the nick of time so it seems, because the stock has already sold out. I know that Verdant will blend some more as soon as the autumn harvest of Laoshan Green is in! Waiting, waiting, wanting!
When I read that Minnesota wild rice and Jasmine sticky rice were being roasted at Verdant to be blended with the superior Laoshan Green tea to make this Genmaicha, I was all in. My taste imagination recalled the buttery green bean smooth tea. Um, with a pairing of toasted rice how brilliant!
Laoshan green leaves are lovely to begin with, very small and curly. The white and black rice, slightly puffy from roasting, made a pretty speckled trio with the tea.
The scent was roasty, like sweet sticky rice and the aroma of buttered popcorn.
The taste didn’t disappoint me!
The flavor was my best experience with a 4 hour Wedding Banquet at the ‘Empress’ in Chinatown San Francisco, and the best day at the
Butte County Fair eating BBQ Corn dripping with Buddah’!
This tea rocks! (Now that’s something you’ve never heard me say!)
The tea is SAVORY and a little SWEET at the same time almost like kettle corn. You won’t be able to stop because of that sweet, savory addictive quality that begs you to have more and more.
I can hear my self now…“Hi, my name is Bonnie and I’m addicted to Laoshan Genmaicha.” …“Hello Bonnie”, thousands of voices respond with the same problem. Sigh. (I’ll have to fill the complimentary hot beverage containers in the back of the room with this tea hee hee!)
There is enough flavor to drink this with a meal. I love the way the taste lingers lazily, a long while after the sipping is done.
With a piece of toast and honey for a snack or at breakfast…yum.
The Story:
Last night I stopped at my tea pub (Happy Lucky’s for those new to my stories) and brought Eric and Sam a sample of the new Verdant Earl of Anxi tea blend with the Frankincense in it. The evening crowds were gone (dinner time) all was quiet and I sat at the bar while they lined up tastings from a small Gaiwan.
The first was great, the second steeping also, but the THIRD…well that’s when the Frankincense began to bloom and meld with the Oolong into an aroma and flavor that amazed them and me.
What an awesome experience. I gave each a little sample to take home and then ordered a pot of Assam and a ginger cookie (Sam’s shift was over and he went home).
People began filling up the shop and I chatted with some, helping others while the lone Eric rushed to make tea orders. This lasted for an hour until another lull arrived.
Still sitting at the bar talking about tea while he frothed some milk, a long line of people came into the shop, behind the bar, past me and Eric and disappeared. “What’s going on?”, I asked surprised.
“Uh, oh, he chuckled, it’s the ghost walk.” “The what?, I answered, is this place supposed to be haunted?” “Well, you know this was a firehouse and had a jail in the back…but in the basement was solitary confinement,” Eric informed me. Yikes! And a few minutes later, a line of people came back up (about 25-30 in all) and filed past me again only this time I held up my hands and said BOO!
I watched the young couple on a date, the oldsters on a night out. The young couple with a baby enjoying Chai. Four friends playing a board game. Most of the people stayed to drink their tea as the sun went down and it became dark.
Never a dull moment at Happy Lucky’s Tea House! It’s beginning to be my Lake Wobegon.
I’ll have to share some of this Laoshan Genmaicha Tea too!
(but just a little since I only have an ounce!).
The sharing makes the tea taste even better I think!
