Eight Treasures Yabao Winter Blend

This year being my first ‘TEA’ Holiday time (I wasn’t even a tea drinker last November or December), I’ve been slowly purchasing favorite tea’s for my family. Now that you can get sample sizes from Verdant, I can get flavors to use as stocking stuffers. Little added goodies in my holiday boxes.
It will be so easy to send tea to California and to my Niece at Cornell University.
But, I just couldn’t help getting something for myself. You know how it is.

I couldn’t resist this Eight Treasures Yabao Winter Blend for ME!
I’m one of those people who loves the Yabao Pu’er!

This morning I brewed 2 pots of tea Western Style with the same leaves (aprox. 24oz). NO Rinse.

The wet leaves for the first pot smelled like roast chicken, and the second pot smelled less meaty and more like juniper berries.

The aroma of the liquor on the first pour was amazing! Lilies and jasmine, so fragrant that the vapor was like incense. I felt like I had stepped into one of the hot houses at Filoli Gardens (one of my favorite places to go in the S.F. Bay Area).
It felt like was close to the gardenias with the steaming scent of orchid and jasmine filling every scent receptor. Almost too much really. This was indeed intense!

I took a sip of tea which was sweet from the Yabao and Elderberry but I couldn’t taste any other flavors.
Being an experimenter, I poured some tea into another glass cup and added some honey which wasn’t very good, then milk in another cup which I didn’t like either and finally a little sweetening which was just OK.
I didn’t feel that I had a very good experience with this tea.
For all the quality ingredients, I wasn’t tasting what I should
have and I knew there had to be some reason for it.

I thought it over step by step.

Spring Water. Maybe my water was the problem because I had used tap water, and maybe I should have rinsed the tea leaves first.

So, I emptied the electric kettle, poured fresh Spring Water in and began again. Rinse, steep and pour.

Aha, this time the flavor was smoother, with Jasmine, Juniper, Yabao a little Lemon and the Tulsi was way off at the finish. (Not a taste but a coolness.)
The Vanilla taste wasn’t there at all. I think the Vanilla added a balance that kept the blend from getting acidic. As the tea cooled you can feel a creamy texture and the Elderberry aroma and flavor appear.

The second pot of tea was like moving out of the hot house onto the
garden path around the reflection pool…a quiet walk through cool gardens with the wafting scent of flowers, citrus and mint.

http://flic.kr/p/dq3Nhd

I learned a lesson that you can’t cut corners with tea! My oops!

Before I made a cup of this, I made a cup of the previous Eight Treasures Yabao, just to fully experience the difference. The Summer version is so damn beautiful, so dainty & colorful, so fragrant, that I feel like a fairie princess while steeping & drinking it. It looks like Spring!

The Winter blend is heady with the aroma of a pine, juniper, & redwood forest. It smells kind of like something I could rub on my chest to help my breathing. It smells like something you should drink when you are under the weather, something you should drink to avoid being under the weather, & it is! This tea is loaded with herbs that support your immune system, that are anti-inflamatory, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, & detoxifying.

Call me a wierdo, but I love the unique taste of Burdock root. I always eat it in the fall. It’s a potent blood purifier & an excellent tonic for the kidneys, liver, and lungs. Juniper is also a great tonic for the kidneys, which tend to suffer in the winter. I drink elderberry regularly, especially in the fall & winter, for it’s antiviral properties. It’s great for the digestion & respiratory systems, and Holy Basil, also known as Tulsi, helps to keep the lungs clear & is a natural nervine.

So as far as I’m concerned, this tea is a winner!! Even if tasted like crap, I’d probably still drink it.

The good news: I love the taste!
It’s an unusual tasting tea, there’s a mild camphor/pine essence, with a bass note of slightly bitter & earthy burdock, balanced by the oatmeal taste of the Yabao & the sweetness of vanilla, & jasmine. It’s an amazing combination that is both intriguing & soothing. This is a blend that I hope to drink often.

Another sample I brought along to have my mom try.

To me, it smells sweetly like juniper, and the taste is much the same, kind of like a juniper-flavoured white tea with creaminess. I’m not sure if yabao is growing on me, or it’s more pleasant in this blend, but I kind of like this one!

My mom thought it was nice enough; I can’t recall how she described it, but she didn’t catch the juniper. I don’t understand how!

ETA: On my fourth infusion of this one now. This one lasts forever!

I may have let this cool off too long, so I’ll definitely try it again, but for right now I am leaning towards not for me.

I made $55 at an elementary school fall festival, selling my lip balms and wax tarts. Really I only made like $10 after the table fee and lunch. Whatever, it was nice to be able to sell to people physically because you can’t smell stuff over the internet. It just annoyed me that just like the evil tea place, people were very good at freaking out over how good something was, told me they’d come back, and were never to be seen again.

I’m actually kind of disappointed in how expensive most of the shows/festivals and the like around here are. I’m sure a $200 fee is all fine and dandy when you don’t sell things that average $2 a pop. And for the most part they all seem far more art focused and it’s just irritating. It doesn’t seem like craft shows are a big thing down here at all, and the festivals like I said are all super pricey.

I was hoping to have tea earlier but it was SO warm I just didn’t even want to look at tea. So now it feels completely unseasonal to have this one.

It’s very different from the normal Eight Treasures Yabao. I love that one because of the goji berry especially. This one is a bit heavier on the pine than the berry. I can’t even really taste the elderberry. I’m also surprised the juniper berry isn’t the strongest note because I got a lot of them in the cup. Instead I think I can really taste the holy basil more than anything else. The jasmine and berries are in there too, but it’s just mostly that.

I may have to follow Bonnie’s lead here and try a rinse first. This would be right up my alley but I’d love to taste more than just the earthy, pine flavors. I’ve got an ounce so that can be done.

Initially, I had this very looong, like giraffe neck or elephant trunk long, note rambling on what I thought I was tasting. Luckily for universal sanity, I decided to scrap most of it. Yes… this is the shorter version. Shock and awe.

When I ordered from Verdant Tea for the first time I randomly picked a bunch of sample sizes so I could meet the free shipping quota. Except for a few, I didn’t read any of the ingredients or the notes here on steepster. All I can say is that it was a very big surprise, like redwood big, when I got a whiff of this. It smells like scorched vegetation- burnt and sweet. It made me recall the odor of Palm Spring’s dry desert lands.

First steep: I was intimidated by the scent so attempted to do a hybrid kind of short rinse with two cups. I mostly got a hot woodsy flavour, some jasmine, and a hint of basil. I don’t see this noted anywhere else, but I experienced an almond nuttiness too, which I really liked. The complex profile manages to be smooth, sweet, and creamy.

In the second steep I was able to smell the juniper in the wet leaves and liquor. In the third and fourth steeps I could distinctly taste the juniper berries and the “tree-ness” tasted less cooked. I didn’t get any lemony citrus notes until the fourth steep, which became cold after I forgot about it for hours. It’s sweet and “oily”, with dabbing of vanilla and white leaf creaminess.

I steeped this and Cantaloupe & Cream four times each throughout the day. While C&C was consistent this cup never stopped evolving. There was so much going on in this tea that it overwhelmed my pitiable little brain. Despite that I really enjoyed the experience. This is very unique!

I’m apparently too exhausted to be tea logging tonight. Nt going to rate this because I think there are those who would really enjoy this blend. It’s got a lot going on and appeals to me…until I drink it. I do love this more than the non winter version though. :) still enough for me to do another run through of the tea another night when I’m more alert and can really get some thoughts down…mostly it just comes across as being too…..floral? Or something for my preferences. But way better than normal 8 treasures heh

So I am finally trying my sample of this! I was waiting so I can do a comparison between this one and the summer Eight Treasures, and I now have time to. I will be drinking the summer Eight Treasures right after, it’s currently sitting in another cup waiting to be steeped when I am finished this. Tea day for me :)

The dry leaves smell fairly strongly of Yabao, and there is a lot more present in this blend than the summer one. The dry leaves definitely evoke winter as well, with all the juniper and elder berries, and the yabao makes it look very piney to me.

The wet smell is where the different smells really emerge. I get a faint spiciness and a hint of the vanilla at the latter portion. It’s quite a delicious smelling blend, definitely a lot less floral than the summer, the wood smells come out more in here. I can’t pick out the lemon or burdock yet, they might shine in the flavor though. Oh, and I think I get a bit of the jasmine just mellowing everything together. Yes, definitely some jasmine.

The taste is quite a sharp contrast to the summer one in my opinion! This is very woodsy, the Yabao is there, tasty and tree-like, then I do find the lemon in there, and a touch of the basil. I’m not entirely sure what juniper berries and elder berries taste like, but I imagine they add to the pure, foresty goodness. The tiniest hint of vanilla keeps this blend balanced and smooth, and I think the jasmine helps with that too. As I continue sipping, actually, the floral and sweetness comes out a bit more, reminding me of the summer blend. It becomes smoother and not quite as woody too. The Yabao becomes more present at the end of the cup as well in this steeping.

Overall, this was not quite what I was expecting, but I am pleased with it. I guess I pictured more berry and spice tastes in it and maybe even more wood flavors, but this is excellently blended so that nothing is overpowering. I really like the Yabao in this, I’m very sad the straight Yabao is no longer on Verdant’s site, fingers crossed it comes back! Thank you Verdant for another superb blend!

I love Yabao. Its one of my favorite teas. I liked the first eight treasures and I asked for this as my sample.
I did it for the suggested 185 temp and brewed it for 2 minutes. Had a nice sweet cedar taste. The juniper berries was a nice touch.

I brewed it again and let it go for maybe 5 to 7 minutes. With Yabao usually the longer the better. Not with this blend. It became pretty bitter. But then again there was not much yabao in this. More jasmine green tea then yabao. Best to keep this short and sweet.

I got a sample of this with an order, and finally pulled it out for a try. It smells quite lovely, but really doesn’t taste like “tea” to me. I will have to try a longer steep next time.