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This is supposedly a very late autumn tea, picked November 6, 2015. Typical northern profile, floral but with decent bitterness. The tea is very young with thin stems, can’t say these trees or bushes are very old at all. But the tea is clearly different from the 1800 cake with the thin stems and fragile leaves, compared to the thicker stems. Not much thickness here in the brew at all, color is a yellow tinging to orange which seems consistent with an autumn picking.

I brewed all six grams of the sample generously provided to me by Steepster pals in the recent Sheng Olympics group buy. About 100 ml or less. Did about seven steeps and our unseasonably warm weather turned my leaves a bit mucky on day 3 of sitting in the gaiwan, so I decided to toss them after getting a murky looking cup.

Couldn’t find any information on the price tag as the tea is now sold out and was available on pre-order only. Still, my benchmark remains the Chawangshop Hekai at $36 for 200g. This Verdant tea is not a bad autumn brew, pleasant enough and would have steeped much longer than the seven steps I gave it. Can’t see any reason to complain about it as a drinker, aside from the thin brew. But spring tea can be had in the $30 price range for 357g from places like Yunnan Sourcing, so the budget-minded have better choices than this. The 300 year is a boutique romp for people with cash who already have everything they want from the 2015 season.