Anxi Fo Shou Black Tea

First Verdant order. Awwwww.

My first experience with this was a little bumpy. The first steep was awesome. I really got the dark chocolate many are talking about. The aftertaste really tricks you and makes you think you just had a couple squares of dark chocolate. Sneaky! It is a little on the mineral side too, like hot rocks.

The second steep was super weird. I put the leaves in the fridge overnight, excited to take the second round to my three-hour morning class in my Timolino, hoping it would keep things interesting. I woke up with a so-called stomach flu, so not sure if it was the nausea and what not that turned me off, or the Timolino made this taste weird, but that mineral note was amped up to the roof. I only tasted a twangy, almost metallic note that made me hate life there for a second.

Now that I’m basically over the illness, I’m giving this a second chance. Again, the first steep was the same, super dark chocolate and malty.

The second steep now is much better. Yes, the mineral undertone is there but it is very subdued, but wheeee, the chocolate is still there, and the maltiness, and something else? Coffee! It’s coffee and cake in a cup.

I like. Would I repurchase? No, but while it hasn’t swept me off my feet, I will gladly finish off the rest.

Full Review on Sororiteasisters.com on the 31st but here are my snippits:

Anxi Fo Shou Black Tea from Verdant Tea is scrumptious! When I was opening the bag I could smell the chocolate notes just jumping out at me. I was surprised to find yet another sealed bag inside the first bag which told me this tea was very heavy with flavor notes considering how strong and wonderful the aroma was through not one but two sealed bags!

If you notice the flavor notes listed by Verdant Tea “NOTES: chocolate, scotch, caramel, walnut, coconut, jasmine” I want to note that every single note is easily detectable.

The distinct note in the beginning is the chocolate note but caramel peeks through nicely. As the tea cools down some there is a note of a single malt scotch and a light lilting note of coconut! The walnut note lays nicely all over the tongue giving a slight drying sensation like walnut typically does, yet this tea is anything but drying! It is refreshing and juicy!

Yes friends, this is a true winner and if I had any tea funds I would jump right on the Verdant Website and order more RIGHT NOW. I am so excited to have had a chance to get some of this tea and will be cherishing what remains of my stash. Hopefully soon I can order more if there is any left to order!

“Hear ye, hear ye!”…I’ve decided not to rate tea’s this year by number anymore…not because I think it’s a bad system, but because most of the tea I drink is pretty wonderful. I’ll say if a tea is good, great or mind blowing.

After tasting Master Han’s Wild Picked Yunnan Black a few days ago, I took a red packet of this Anxi Fo Shou Black Tea down to Happy Lucky’s Tea House, showed it to the guys (as a teaser) and made a plan to come back for a tasting when Steepster Eric would be working and the tea shop would not be busy.

Granddaughter Schey came along today for the tasting. It was 12 degrees out and sunny.
We received our “Hello’s” from Eric, Joe and Andie as the bells on the Tea-Shop door jingled the announcement of our arrival.

I always bring a green fabric bag, stocked with tea samples when I go to Happy Lucky’s Tea Shop. I’m the Fairy Tea Grandma.

“What’s in the bag today?” Is the question I’m asked.
My eyes light up and I pull out a sample of a tea I’ve tasted and reviewed on Steepster.

Friday night Preston drank 3 or 4 samples from my green sack and got quite silly. He drank some pu-erh (which he is learning about) that he loved and said it made him feel like he was “13 again, riding his ATV through the woods”. Pretty funny.

Today, the guys knew I was bringing the ‘red packet’ of Anxi Fo Shou.
Eric brought out a Gaiwan, heated it and dumped the whole packet in. (Eric teaches Gonfu classes so it was nice to be waited on!)

The color of the liquor was deep golden amber and had a chocolaty scent…there was a sweet fruity lychee aroma that followed.

Schey was the first to say that the tea tasted like baking chocolate and dark coffee. I asked her if she meant bitter chocolate and she said no, not that and not a burned flavor but the darkest chocolate with sweetness left in it.

I thought about that a moment and she was right. There wasn’t a ‘roastiness’ like an Oolong or a cooked taste, but a rawness. (I was very proud of Schey for her observation!)

My first impression was a thinned down caramel syrup and golden raisins…enough to coat the tongue but not a heavy sugary taste.
That raw chocolate flavor followed on the finish and with every steeping the caramel lasted becoming lighter towards the 8th pour.

The flavor was buttery and the tea has a great deal of body and lingering taste.

The color, and scent (lychee and golden raisin) reminded me of Oolong then the Black Tea scent and flavors (chocolate and caramel) was so distinct and interesting almost like two tea’s in one.

I’m loving these experimental ‘artistic’ tea’s that stretch the imagination. This enhances my tea education and helps me grow.

This was a very good purchase of a limited addition tea that won’t last long, and a good buy! (About as much as a moderate/low bottle of wine)

Winner

I am so bored! Boredboredboredboredbored! Not bored enough to take the hoover around the house, though. Not yet. It needs to be done, but it can wait a little longer. I hate hoovering…

Instead, I shall have a cup of tea to celebrate the Teavivre order I just accidentally (yes, totally!) placed. Finally, oh finally, I shall try that their Tan Yang. I’ve been feeling kind of guilty about not having tried it yet, because I distinctly remember asking them if they were planning on getting. So not having tried it yet feels like not following through on my own suggestion, which is kind of poor manners.

While I’m waiting for that, I’m going to have a crack at another one of the Verdant samples I received recently when, on Husband’s orders, stocking up on the Life-Giving Tea. That would by the Laoshan Black, FYI. Hasn’t been called anything else in this house since forever. Yes, we nickname our favourites. Don’t everybody?

This one, I have to admit, I picked almost entirely based on the name. Every time I see ‘Fo Shou’, my mind reads it as ‘Fo’ sho’ and often supplies either ‘dude!’ or ‘man!’ after that. Can’t help it. It makes me smile. Obviously, therefore I had to try it.

The packaging is different from the other Verdant samples and thankfully comes with an identification sheet. I hope I don’t lose it. It would be just like me… Perhaps it’s a sign that I should try this out sooner rather than later, yes?

The aroma is slightly wood-y and slightly leather-y, and I want to say slightly fruit-y as well, but I’m not super-certain that I really think it is. What it does have in large amounts, however, is a strong note of something that… I know what it is, but I don’t know what it is! It’s kind of like cocoa, but not quite there. I think it’s cocoa mixed with something and it’s the something that is confusing me. Roasted nuts, perhaps? Hmm, I need to think about this.

Gosh, the flavour is a lot stronger than I had thought it would be! There is definitely leather and wood in this, all dark and rough and somehow faintly ash-y. Now those of you who remember the recent encounter with Tetley’s tea bags, will remember that I said those tasted like ashes, and that it wasn’t particularly pleasant. For some reason this note of ash is coming off in a much more favourable light here. I suspect the unpleasantness in the Tetley bags was in combination with the smell of wet cardboard and the taste of the paper teabag, whereas this particular tea is completely cardboardless and guaranteed paper-free. This way, the ash just comes over as something with just a hint of smoke. It isn’t really smoke, but it reminds me of smoke, and apparently that’s close enough for jazz.

Ashes, but good ashes. Right. Okay. I’m not sure that there really is any sound logic in that, but there you are. It is, however, a note that brings a warning with it. With many Chinese black teas you can generally steep them from now and until kingdom come, and your result will still be drinkable rather than a bitter, astringent mess. I don’t think that is true for this one. That note is a strong one, and I think it will turn strongly astringent if left to its own devices for too long.

That note is the primary one here, and it’s the first one I meet when sipping. It’s fairly small at first, then there’s a pause in which other stuff happens, and then sort expands rapidly on the swallow, greatly dominating the flavour profile.

Now I want to talk a bit about that other stuff that happens there in the middle. Those are our more friendly, calm and well-behaved notes. The source of the cocoa-and-something notes in the aroma. So there is a great deal of cocoa there, obviously, but there’s something else as well. It’s not pure caramel, but more a dulce de leche sort of note. I loffs me some dulce de leche… I’ve only ever seen one brand of it here, though, and it costs a small fortune for a small glass, so it’s a very rare treat indeed.

Although the cocoa note is stronger than the dulce de leche-y note, I still think it’s the dulce de leche-y one that I’m noticing the most. It feels longer, somehow, softening the ash-y pow at the end of the sip. As I drink it even starts to build up a little on the aftertaste too.

As it cools and develops, this is the note that really starts to come out more and more and I don’t even have to wait so very long before that initial ash-y dominance is almost completely broken into something much smoother and caramel-y.

I find I’m enjoying this a great deal more now than I thought I would when I had the very first sip. But I still think it’s one of the few Chinese blacks that it’s actually possible to ruin through over-steeping. This tea does not give the impression of being foolproof.

When I made some of this up in my glass gongfu pot my roomie exclaimed that she could smell the chocolate and assumed this was a flavoured tea. I let her try some and she seemed to like it quite a bit.

This one is incredibly smooth, with a malty taste that is sweetened by a creamy cocoa liqueur flavour. I get a little coconut milk too. The creamy, gooey, caramel rich, sweetness seems to have come out even more on second steep. This is as good as the Himalayan pink salt caramel chocolate I had a few hours ago.

I wish I had more than two little sample bags. I feel that Verdant Tea has spoiled me for other things, especially when it comes to black tea and inherently lush flavours.

Edit: a little more spice and mineral sweetness on later steepings.

This is a combination of long, unbroken leaf with some smaller broken pieces. A few of the pieces have slipped through into my cup with each brewing. Not really a positive or negative, and really just a result of each 5 gram sample being individually packaged more than anything else I think. The dry leaf smells VERY heavily of unsweetened dark chocolate/cocoa powder. It really is reminiscent of the Lao Shan Black.

Steeped gong fu style with boiling water and my (precious, as-yet unnamed) gaiwan.

1st steep – 10 seconds.
Smell strongly reminds me of LaoShan black – roasted, baking chocolate/cocoa powder. Very toasty and bready. The liquor is very dark for a 10 second steep. This is a heavy, earthy tea. Just the way I like it!

2nd steep – 12 seconds.
There is more of a charred taste to this. Like the bread has been toasted to the point of blackened. The liquor is even darker. Not really smoky, but definitely burnt tasting. For someone who typically doesn’t like that sort of thing, this is surprisingly tolerable.

3rd steep – 15 seconds.
Now the color of the leaves are slightly lighter than the previous steep. The charred note is receding to more of the quality of the first steep, which is preferable. I can only do burnt for so long!

4th steep – 25 seconds.
The roasted note is even fainter, and if I think about it I can maybe get some cocoa. Now that its cooling I get a honeyed taste as well. Yay! Up until now this has been a largely one note tea for me so I’m glad to see it starting to evolve a bit! It’s even starting to smell sweeter!

5th steep – at least 30 seconds.
Predominantly honey and chocolate. I was thinking I’d be tired of this by now but it’s just getting good! WOW. Well, guess I’ll be refilling the Breville!

6th steep – 1 minute.
Now I’m back to the roasted quality again, though the base is discernible through it, unlike in the first few steeps where it was like drinking straight char – maybe Angrboda’s description of ‘ash’ would be more apt? I need to stop reading her notes because I’m quite suggestible, it seems. :)

7th steep – 2 minutes 30 seconds.
This is officially the longest I’ve resteeped any tea. I’m loving my new gaiwan so much! I do think I’ll probably only be able to get one more steep out of this, though. Right now I get a burnt sugar honey, but it is somewhat muted compared to earlier steepings. The color is lighter, too.

8th steep – 10 minutes.
Whoops, got caught up in chores and let this go twice as long as I wanted. The flavor is kind of weak though, anyway. An echo of its earlier bread-ish self with some faint dustings of cocoa. I have exhausted the leaves (for my palate, anyway) and I’m pretty proud of myself for being able to do it!

Overall, I feel like this was similar to Lao Shan black initially, but a less complex, less sweet version of it. I had high hopes for the chocolate and honey elements judging by smell alone, but they didn’t quite manifest as strongly as I would have liked. I will have to see what it does Western style, but I did really enjoy the whole process of gong fu with this. I just think that between this and Lao Shan, if I had to choose, it’d be the latter over the former.

Brewing this for the first time yesterday was a bit of a disaster. It tasted so weird! Sour and harsh and somehow underleafed all at once. I gave up after two steepings. Today, I decided to change things up a bit and see if it made a difference. I used the remaining half of the packet, but only half the amount of water as yesterday. I also used unfiltered water from my tap since I had used filtered last time. Result? Much better! So does this mean some teas taste better with unfiltered tap water? Or is my brita messed up? Water tastes fine… meh. Oh well. Now I know! And I can review this tea!

First, the dry leaves smell like a delicious chocolate truffle. mmmmm….

The first steep is luscious and dark chocolatey. Also mineraly, like hot rocks. Tasty!

Second steep tastes more like burning rocks and dry fall leaves. This is good. There is a sweet aftertaste. And something undefinably fruity. Still have that dark chocolate quality.

Going for a third steep! This is a nice mellow one with a lovely sweetness. I can definitely taste its oolongy origins here. Reminds me of forest soil, like many dark oolongs do.

This is a very tasty experiment indeed! I’m glad I got an ounce of this to play with. :) Next time, it’s going into the gaiwan.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone! Have a green day!

I tried this for the first time last week but words were escaping me, the only things I could think of were chocolate, raisin, rum and a bad pun: I like this tea “fo sho”, yeah…

I love these little one-two serving packets, so convenient and unintimidating. Oh well if I mess this up I still have a dozen more! I feel like this tea, Verdant’s Yu Lu Cha and Mi Lan Dancong Black all need a side by side brewing. They all have this oolongy Laoshan Black thing going on, though I’m sure each is quite unique, its hard to find them just based on memory.

The first time I tried this I could not find any hints of Anxi Tieguanyin, but there are some lovely honey orchid notes present in this first cup steeped a bit longer than my first gongfu session (15 secs instead of 3-5). I also get Big Red Robe, which I love and miss. I really liked Laoshan Black and Big Red Robe together, so this is a winner.

I’m going to steep it out through the day and I hope to find some of those single malt scotch notes. I really love Bonnie’s tasting note on this and completely agree that the raisin notes are golden raisin and the chocolate feels very raw at the beginning. Already this session is yielding a much fuller bodied tea and I’m looking forward to brewing this western style for the husband who will have none this sparkling mineral nonsense (aka how I love my teas). Also, yay 275!

Decided to use a whole 5g package of this one instead of leaving remnants… so since I didn’t want a huuuuge mug of tea, I opted to go for gongfu-style brewing, which I don’t often do. I used about 10 oz. water with my 5g of tea, so definitely a higher water:leaf ratio, but I didn’t want an accidentally overly bitter brew!

First infusion (15 seconds):
The aroma I’m getting is quite burny, at first. Not smoky, just… burny. The good sort though! As the cup cooled, the burned aroma turned a little bit chocolatey, and that’s how this cup tastes. Predominantly of… burnt chocolate! Keep in mind that this is not a bad thing at all… it’s pretty tasty, in fact!

Second infusion (10 seconds):
Less “burny”, more dark chocolate. Pretty good, although perhaps 15 seconds would have been ok after all (I now err on the side of caution with the second infusion; I’ve noticed that if I increase infusion time on the second infusion, I usually end up with something unpleasant and bitter, because the first infusion of course included the time to hydrate the leaves. I imagine that if I rinsed my teas, I wouldn’t have this “issue”, but I don’t want to waste any tea goodness!) Anyhow, in addition to this slightly modified flavor profile, there’s a nice sweet finish at the end of the cup now that I hadn’t previously noticed. Granted, I also just finished this off cold, so perhaps it’s an artifact of the tea having cooled.

I have the chance to write this note thanks to Sil – thank you so much for sharing.
You know I’m not a plain tea person. It means I don’t get all the natural flavours you mentioned in your notes.
It’s a medium bodied tea, quite malty but no so much. What I get much is a smoky burnt taste. I feel a little like if the tea itself was hidden behind this flavour. It is mineral too to my opinion.
It’s doesn’t taste chocolate to me or maybe the grilled cocoa beans.

I’ll try a second steep to see how the tea evolution is

I’m going to play with this one today and see how i like it as i try out the various steepings. This first one is excellent! The main note i’m getting here is chocolate and it’s wonderful! I’m going to enjoy having this one throughout the day. mmmmmm

Edit: Next steeping of this are truly delicious and I love how the tea is changing. Less chocolaty but still present. More of the sweetness coming forth…

Oh, steepster! How could I have abandoned you? I’ve been in quite a funk lately. I mean a seriously depressed funky state of anxiety. Due to financial setbacks we had to push our big move to Portland back and sign a six month extension on our lease. That has really been depressing me and I’m extremely worried we won’t be able to pull it together in the next six months. I don’t care what I have to do. Come June I’ll sell all my stuff, pile the rats in the car and just go. Forget my stuff I don’t need it (except maybe my breville haha).

The delivery of my tea of the month from Verdant has been one of the only things that has really gotten me excited. I haven’t made tea in so long. I even got the 12 Teas of Christmas from 52Teas and was too depressed to even do it. I had a few – but the whole box is just sitting in my kitchen basically untouched. I was so excited to participate and then I just neve did. =(

This morning when I woke up, after a particularly low day yesterday, I looked around my apartment and decided “this has got to stop”. So I pulled my beautiful gaiwan tea set off that damn shelf and got right to setting up a little relaxing tea session for myself.

I think there’s something magical in that little red packet. This tea is exactly what I’ve been needing. It’s sweet dark chocolate and honey. A really beautiful way to prepare mentally to face another day.

Wow, what a deliciously fragrant cup. As soon as I poured the hot water over the leaves the aroma rushed out and filled the room. The strongest notes of chocolate where present. I love it. It has a mineral flavor and a toasty feel.

This is one of those tea you have to try to really understand its complexity and rich character profile.

I had to make this today. In my hazy morning fog I botched the first package. It’s embarrassing to say how, so we’ll leave it at that. lol
Second packet was perfect. Had the first steep while i packed my lunch, second and third came to work. It is bold and unique. Thank you verdant!

New verdant monthly order! I’ve gotten pretty bad about logging my teas lately, but it’s been a lot of laoshan green at the office, mostly. This is a lovely experimental black tea, more robustly flavored than the Yu Lu Yan Cha (my only complaint there is its subtlety), but a similar flavor profile to both than and Laoshan black – chocolate, caramel, cream, but also a roasty flavor like dark ooolong to give it strength where those others fade away.

Anyone who likely Wuyi oolong and black teas should give this a try, or if you like Laoshan black but just wish it had more staying power.

My gaiwan is tiny (I was gifted with a pair for Christmas, both hold about 3oz)so I only used half a 5g packed on this, and plan to mix the other shortly with the chai spice mix that was this month’s 3rd tea. This is a lovely warming, hearty trio for the cold winter!

Hmm. I like this one more than Laoshan black, but that’s not saying much at all. Both the teas have this smoky burnt taste that I don’t like. This tea is more mild in terms of that flavour, and the rest of the flavour profile is also different, but… no. I will actually be able to finish this cup, and have a few more steeps, but I think I’m only going to keep one package. The rest can be swapped or given away.

I’m glad I did this Verdant order, but I wish I had purchased sample sizes of /everything/ instead of just a few 1 oz packages.

I brewed half a package in a normal sized mug, boiling water, 2 minutes. Second steep will be 2:30, third 3:00, etc. The other half package I’ll try next week in my tiny gong fu pot.

Edit: ok, nope. Moving on to a matcha latte. I’ll try another steep of this later, with added milk and sugar. Definitely not a plain tea for me.

New to verdant and they definitely have not disappointed. Seriously. If you haven’t gone Verdant yet – do it. Its so worth it. If anything to treat your taste buds on a special occasion. Or when you’re feeling bad. Or just cause. Just do it!
I have had a few unflavored blacks but nothing nearly this delicious. The flavors listed in the NOTES: chocolate, scotch, caramel, walnut, coconut, jasmine” are all quite present. The coconut is the faintest but there.

100th Tasting Note!!!

I had been saving this tea for a time I could sit down and really enjoy each steeping. But finding those windows with 3 kids running around isn’t always easy. But then, while cleaning the kitchen today, I realized that cleaning the kitchen was the perfect time to drink it. It’s a crappy task, but optimal for drinking small amounts of tea at a time. And makes a crappy job way more fun!

I’ve been looking forward to this as the reviews make this sound super roasty and delicious. And it is! I got about 5 steeps that were really roast-a-licous, but then the roast flavor faded quickly. I didn’t actually love the resulting flavor. Seemed a little thin or something. But I did love the beginning steeps.

I also loved how it came in a little package that I could just dump in my gaiwain. No worrying about getting the optimal amount. I wonder what it would be like western style.

Sometimes when I’m sampling teas, I like to talk about each round of steepings, noticing how the tea changes as I go along.
I’m not in the mood for that kind of left brain tea drinking today. Luckily, I have several samples of this varietal, so there will be time to drink it that way. Today, I’m more in a right brain mood, & have other things to do (while I drink tea). So I’ll just give my overall impressions here.
Per David’s instructions: 5G + 4oz water (rinse) X 4 – 6 sec

I drank the rinse water, as I often do, LOL. Not bad!

The first steeping I drank alone & the immediate impression was German chocolate cake accompanied by a cup of coffee, no doubt about it! It is a deep flavor, a very earthy taste, roasted & malty, a rocky essence, but with a sweetness & a sense of buttery-ness as well.

Then I combined several steepings in my pitcher, because I just can’t keep returning to the kitchen over & over again. I have things to do!
I’ve refilled the pitcher & am sipping that now, taking a break. The buttery sensation has somehow worked it’s way into my sinuses, & this is one of those mouth watering teas, giving my tongue a bit of a thick feeling.
Steeping 8 or 9 (lost count) I’m drinking this one separately from the others. Now the chocolate & malt are mostly gone. Very mouth watering, very tongue tingling, there is a sweet creamy taste.
10. (more or less, which I allowed to brew for 1 minute) Rock, chocolate, & a really interesting aftertaste…

I wasn’t as mindful during this tasting as I like to be. Before I sample this one again, I think I’ll drink some Big Red Robe & other Oolongs, & then come back to this one.

On to lunch…

Aww yea! A package from Verdant!

I’m doing this western style. Why? Cuz ‘Murica that’s why.

The malty chocolate is the first responder to the tea emergency in my mouth. While malty chocolate is performing CPR on my tounge bean flavor sneaks in to draw blood. Finally, Tieguanyin appears to coddle me and tell me everything will be alright.

Chocolate, nuts and beans all up front. Long sweet finish smacks the palate with Tieguanyin.

SECOND STEEP-
Oh man, this is some good tea. It’s become more floral. I’m also getting some assam black tea flavors.