Yu Lu Yan Cha Black

I am a huge fan of this tea but I don’t see it getting too much love on Steepster most of the time. I think this is because it was overshadowed by Laoshan Black for years. I could totally see why when LB was super rich with chocolate decadence, but my bag from the most recent harvest is much less cacao and much heavier on grain notes like barley, so a bit less enjoyable to me overall. Note: chocolate junkie here.

That said, THIS tea is kind of the opposite. My bag from 2013 was good, but not as delicious overall as the most recent harvest. I have both still in the cupboard and they smell distinctly different with the newer harvest having a much richer aroma. The leaves even look different- thicker, more tightly curled, darker and shinier than the previous batch. The taste is more bold and flavorful with rich cocoa and roasted sweet potatoes drizzled in honey that reminds me of the old LB with a super smooth texture. The aftertaste is a tiny bit drying and almost.. crisp? Either way, the transition is interesting and the overall experience is quite wonderful. It also holds up to multiple resteeps beautifully. I’m on my second and the leaves haven’t even unfurled yet. If you haven’t given the lovely Yu Lu Yan Cha Black a try and enjoy blacks with a flavor profile like this, I highly recommend it. Happy Saturday all!

TLDR version: I LIKE TEA SO MUCH. OM NOM.

Loving the way this one smells, agreed it’s vaguely similar to Laoshan Black but not at all identical or on the same metric really. The sweet cinnamon chocolate aroma is awesome, deep and so enticing but not powerfully, obviously “stinky”, similarly authentic and mysterious like the first batch of LB I ever tried. No barley, not the same kind of maltiness (there is some sweet potato—often feels unavoidable with black Chinese teas, ha). And there’s honey, which wasn’t in LB (and is a note I love in Chinese black teas!). I like that this is a “warmly flavored” type of tea, but the body isn’t super thick, just right, a nice light silkiness. There’s a lightly roasty, ever-so-slightly-bitter-in-a-good way note at the end; it seems to mix with a cooling, not exactly minty but similarly numbing aspect—almost citrusy but not astringent in the least—that is unexpected but sort of neat.

This was a fun one to watch dancing around in my glass teapot. I really do enjoy that thing.

My experience with this tea may differ somewhat, because I have stopped trying to be so meticulous with my verdant teas and started brewing them the way tea was brewed in my childhood — Russian style. Throw an approximate amount of tea into a warm teapot, pour in some boiling water, wait an approximate amount of time, and dilute with boiling water if necessary to obtain an approximately preferable concentration. I know some people would cringe if I told them this. But you know what? Good tea is still good tea. It’s just less fuss this way…

I find myself reaching for the Yu Lu Yan Cha when I’m in a particular sort of mood. When the Golden Fleece would be too light, too perfect, and the Zhu Rong somehow doesn’t seem right. It’s like the Zhu Rong, or my favorite ceylon (strange as that might be?), but it strikes me as having something darker, deeper, murkier to it… it makes me think of a swamp, or a wet redwood forest…

(I’m being a little too rambly and poetic, but that’s because it’s five in the morning…)

I brewed this as my back up tea in case I didn’t like the Cherry Mocha that I just logged (which, I didn’t). Sure, this is a new tea for me so I shouldn’t have been so confident, but I’ve never had a straight black tea that wasn’t at least ok enough. This tea tastes like buttery mushroom “enhanced” Laoshan black. Maybe that is supposed to be sweet potato that I taste, but it’s coming through all wrong. If I had to choose, I’d take Laoshan black over this one.

I think it’s that creamy buttery texture that bothers me most. I was trying to finish my cup, but that texture is making me a bit nauseous.

ETA: how am I really the only one who doesn’t like this? I know I am ‘different’ in many ways from the general populous, but come on… I should be able to find a completely positive reviewed tea and trust that I will like it too. I feel so left out!

The scent of this tea is delicious: Chocolate and sweet potato. Sipping… a little more astringent than I expected. The astringency is consistent throughout the sip and reminds me a bit of cocoa powder. There are definitely tones of dark chocolate in this cup. Slurping brings out more of the sweet potato. It also becomes a little bit more malty, too. I also taste some kind of a soapy and toasty floral note. It’s strange because it reminds me of perfume, but the toasty element is what keeps it from becoming too strong.

This is a tasty cup and I will certainly finish the rest of the pouch that I have, but it’s not my favorite black tea from Verdant.

Mmmmmmmm Soooo Goooood!!!
it’s like an Angel peed in my mouth

I think this is the perfect work tea. You can’t really hurt it. Short steep, long steep, forgotten on your desk and it’s almost cold – it’s still just a great tea. I’ve been drinking this on and off all week and it’s really treated me right. I don’t have much of this left, will be sad to see it go……..

I’m bumping up the rating for this one a little because I’m getting more nuance this time around beyond “strong, black tea.” It has a warm baked bread and honey flavor that I missed last time. There’s also more astringency than last time, but the tea is so delicious that I can look past it. Overall, I feel like most of the Verdant black teas I’ve had have the same sort overall feelings and flavors. This is definitely not a bad thing in my book because I love them! Too bad I seem to always be running out of them when they’re out of stock on the website, eek!

Adding 1/3rd of sencha really helps balance the unnecessary sweetness of this batch

The smell as I poured it was like a warm, buttery potato.

It’s definitely unique! There’s nothing astringent, it has a wonderful honey sweetness, the potato taste comes with an overall “meal” taste to me (like it’s a nice big meal of potato and roasted veggies). Most of the chocolate notes hit at the end for me too, so it’s like dessert! There are so many tastes going on in it, but they come together in such a smooth, delicious way.