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Back in the beginning of September I made a Verdant order. This was the first time in a while I ordered from them, because the shipping cost makes it rather a luxurious place to shop for me. But as I had filled out their customer survey earlier I was in possession of a coupon, plus I had allowed myself to do it in celebration of not losing my job. (Huge cuts, threat of redundancies. Luckily sacking anybody did not become necessary. Long and uninteresting story.) So, I ordered and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Turned out this parcel was to be followed by bad luck from start to finish to start to finish.

You see, my parcel was initially mis-delivered to a completely different country. This is what I think happened. I had ticked the box saying I didn’t mind recycled packing material, and I think the people at the post office accidentally went by an old address that hadn’t been properly blacked out. At least, that’s the only way I can imagine a parcel to Denmark winding up successfully delivered in the Czech Republic.

The tracking number destination did say the Czech Republic, but that didn’t bother me too much at the time, because I thougt that showed the next stop on the parcel’s journey and that there was some sort of postal hub there to go through. But then it said delivered successfully, which finally got me a bit suspicious.

So I wrote to Verdant that I thought either something had gone wrong with the shipping or I’d been told the wrong tracking number. And then I got an auto-reply saying someone would get back to me about the problem shortly.

So I waited.

For a week.

Then I posted a comment on their Facebook page asking if someone could please look at my question. That got me a reply within a few hours. I think I must have been somehow forgotten. Anyway, they repacked my order and refunded me the shipping cost. They also said they had added a little extra that they thought I would like by way of further compensation. I thought that was rather nice of them, expecting it to be an extra sample or something.

Then there was some sort of holiday in China which meant outgoing post was delayed. Then the tracking number didn’t get updated at all for ten days.
Then finally something happened and the last thing registered on it was on the 4th of November. Don’t know what because it was all still in Chinese, but at least it had the correct country on it as destination, so I wasn’t too concerned this time.

I had just checked the tracking number earlier to day to find it still only saying something in Chinese, when the doorbell rang and there it was!

AT LAST! Only took two months. And the extra little something they thought I’d like. Not just an extra sample. Two pouches! This is one of them, the other is golden fleece, which I can’t remember if I’ve had before. I have apparently had this one before and was in fact wondering why I didn’t order it in the first place. I expect it was simply just to keep the cost at a reasonable level.

Note, please, that I’m not in any way blaming Verdant for all this or saying that it’s somehow their fault. It’s nobody’s fault, really. Accidents happen, and this particular parcel was simply more accident prone than most. Yeah, they could have been quicker getting back to me with my support request, but they got there with only one instance of nagging required, and again, if I’d been forgotten, accidents happen. It’s not a big deal once we get there in the end. Plus the refund of shipping fee AND the two extra pouches were generous compensation indeed. All in all my order was probably loss-making for them.

I have to admit, though, that I was feebly hoping whoever in the vicinity of Prague received the original parcel might realise the error and forward it to me. Didn’t happen. I don’t blame them for not doing it, and I genuinely hope they enjoyed the contents because it’s jolly good stuff. All is well that ends well. For me and for a random lucky Czech.

I can see that I’ve had this one before and enjoyed it, so I was quite pleased about Verdant having chosen this as part of my compensation. I wonder if they looked me up. Not sure they could have known I was me, but I like to pretend that they did.

It’s quite cocoa-y and wood-y in the aroma, but when you then sip it, it’s got a bit of orange as well, peel rather than flesh. Still quite wood-y and with a touch of astringency, though. The cocoa is mostly present on the aftertaste. We’re not talking chocolate here, mind. I mean cocoa as in the powder.

The orange peel is making me search for traces of Christmas-y spices. This strikes me as a fairly Christmas-y tasting sort of cup for some reason. I want to be able to find some cinnamon in here and some cloves, but I can’t. I just for some reason really want them to be there.