Verdant Tea (Special)

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Recent Tasting Notes

78

This tea is by this company from this company by this farmer.. holy middle man smoley… But it is a good thing for the farmer. More eyes on his tea.

Marine attributes will assault your nose first. Fish market. Seaweed. Salted dried fish. And raw woods. Green woods. That is all in the liquor aroma. The marine notes fade for the woody notes in the flavor. Deep mossy woods. Red wood forest. There is an astringency but it doesn’t fully develop until you steep it longer. It’s slightly metallic when steeped too long. It is also very smooth on the palate.

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65

2022 Harvest. 4 steeps at 205 F. 6 seconds, 8 seconds, 12 seconds, and 20 seconds.

Dry leaves smell light, sweet, and fluffy. I can imagine a visit to a local bistro or coffee shop in the morning when business is just getting started and the treats are still being rolled out.

Once wetted, however, the scent becomes almost unreasonably sharp, and we get a transformation that doesn’t really suit the scene above. Mushrooms and vegetation, heavily earthen. Full disclosure: the aroma of these leaves when wet offends my nose with how pungent it is. The smell of the soup itself, however, lightens up and brings us back to our scene, albeit with reduced sweetness.

One of this tea’s notes was “steamed buns”, and I can definitely see the direction they were trying to steer drinkers in with that. Bready, very bready, with the occasional hint of something savory, maybe the mushroom smell come back round to pay us a visit through taste instead of smell. The shroom’s presence is far less intrusive this time around, so I’m happy to accommodate it, though it really only pops in for a quick exchange of pleasantries.

And really.. that’s about the sum of things. This tea isn’t bad by any means, but it also doesn’t stand out to me, nor does it offer much beyond tasting bready and slightly savory. Consistency is always great for a daily driver, so if you’re looking for something in the “steamed buns” or “bready” category, give this a whirl, but I’d cautiously advise you not to go in expecting more than that. Still a nice tea and one I’d recommend, just not in my own cup.

Flavors: Bread, Bread Dough, Earth, Mushrooms, Vegetal

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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25

2022 Sipdown 30/365!

Yuck. This tea has a certain flavour in it that I really detest – I have no idea what said flavour actually is, but it’s really offputting and I hate it. Also, licorice. I don’t often dump teas, but I did dump the last of this one. I just really did not like this blend at all.

Maddy Barone

Since I hoard my money and tea is an expensive luxury, I used to force myself to drink the whole cup. I am still broke, but I have decided that if I do not like a tea, I will pour it out. It’s so freeing to empty the cup and brew something I like.

Shae

I finished my bag of this one about a month ago and the licorice was so overpowering in that last cup.

Kittenna

@Maddy – Yeah, I’m similar. I rarely dump anything because I feel guilty about it – I almost always resteep teas for the same reason! It’s freeing to dump out something like this and not subject myself to choking it down!

@Shae – ugh, my nightmare. The licorice thankfully was not overpowering in this cup, but the strong mystery flavour I detest was quite enough to ruin the experience for me anyhow!

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67

Old tea; not surprisingly it doesn’t smell a great deal like jasmine anymore. However, brewed up it was a reasonably pleasant floral melange. Definitely not a favourite for me, and I recall not caring for it originally either, but it’s drinkable.

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82

This is from StarFevre a while back! Thank you! I was expecting a harsh brew for some reason, but no, this is a nicely balanced delicate blend. I thought the raspberry leaf wouldn’t be this light, but it seems like the raspberry leaf in Bird and Blend’s teas. Very agreeable and delicate, not overly savory or vegetal. I’m tasting a lot of vanilla which is nice, as there is supposed to be vanilla here. There is also only a hint of chrysanthemum in these full blooms. The rooibos is a nice base. I actually like the resulting flavor here! The second steep has more of a herbal flavor, not as special or vanilla as that first cup, but not bad.
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoons // 30 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 4 minutes after boiling // 6 min

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90

tap tap
1-2… is this on?

Ok, so it looks like Steepster is working again. I left (again) because I was so dang frustrated that it wasn’t working. But it seems to be functioning again, so I’m here for the moment.

Now, I already reviewed this tea once (Thanks Shae) but I’m doing do again because I learned a valuable lesson for this tea.

Don’t add sweetener.

I was thinking that “oh, I love this tea, but what about a touch of sweetness?” Nope, doesn’t work. All it does is kill all the nuance and subtlety of the flavor and make it taste like a store bought earl grey. And if I wanted store bought earl grey I wouldn’t have reached for Bergamot White Peony. I mean, it isn’t gross, mind you, but it isn’t good either. Sweetener doesn’t make everything better, although I will admit that, as I get down further into the cup, the flavor is improving.

I’m gonna go have a resteep and hope it’s better.

Song of the Moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfv7_iRHXv8

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 2 min, 0 sec
Cameron B.

Steepster is a bit on-again off-again at the moment. It’s fairly common to not be able to load tea pages for a few hours at a time unfortunately…

I’ve stopped trying to add sweetener to teas, because every time I think “oh maybe just a little bit of sugar would make this pop”, it makes it taste worse, haha! It was something I rarely did anyway, but not it’s not even an option for me.

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90

Bergamot White Peony

I woke up this evening to a wonderful surprise – TEA MAIL!
A wonderful box of tea from the awesome Shae

This is the first one I’m trying and the liquor of this is beautiful. It’s a bright gold color, as if tinted with dandelions.

The smell is like honey with bergamot. I know there is no actual honey in this but there is bergamot, so I can’t wait to try it.

Taste is… Oh my word that is heavenly. The bergamot is just perfect in this, being neither too strong nor too weak. It’s just right. The white tea flavor is delicious in this, being rich and complementing the floral notes of the bergamot. There’s a tiny bit of astringency here, but nothing overpowering.

I must say, I am very out of practice. It’s been too long since I had quality tea, so I am having trouble picking this apart. I will say it’s got a wonderful flavor and I am glad I have a whole pouch of this thanks to Shae, and I look forward to many more sessions of this going forward.

(BTW, I’m typing this into a word doc because Steepster isn’t working. Hope this gets fixed soon!)

Flavors: Astringent, Bergamot, Floral

Preparation
165 °F / 73 °C 3 min, 0 sec 3 g 12 OZ / 354 ML
Shae

I’m glad to pass this along to someone who can appreciate it. White teas taste like room temp water to me – I think I’ve only come across a handful that I’ve actually liked. I knew this was supposed to be a good one, so I’m glad in the right hands it turned out to be delicious.

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Samurai Travelling Tea Box – Tea #39

I love cola teas, so I couldn’t resist trying this one. What seems cool about it is that there’s no flavouring or sugar or really anything like that to sort of “help the cola flavour along”. It seems like the goal here is to convey it by just breaking it down to the basic parts and then reassembling again… if that makes sense?

Looking at the ingredients list, I see what they were going for but in terms of execution this is not really cola. That could very easily be from the age – but even still there’s no citrus in this ingredients list and as far as I’m concerned that’s an essential part of the “cola” flavour (cola = spice + citrus at its simplest) so even fresh I have a hard time imaging it would really convey the flavour fully…

What it does taste like is cinnamon – a very nice, bake-y and pastry sort of cinnamon though, like cinnamon infused pie crust or something in that vein. As a cinnamon profile, it’s really quite incredible and so I’ve chosen to just enjoy it for that cinnamon pastry kind of vibe. However, I can’t fully let go of that fact that was supposed to be cola and it’s not.

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QuaranTEAn Tea #2

Sipdown!

Stuck at home for the next week… figured I’d go through my teas while I clean/organize the house!

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85

Liked it. Even though I don’t like smoke the little it had was fine.

Preparation
4 g 2 OZ / 60 ML

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95
drank Focus #7 by Verdant Tea (Special)
6105 tasting notes

Darn. I did think that this might have been one that I liked, but that it had lost quite a bit of flavour – I am right. It was still okay, but clearly poorly stored. Oh well. One cup left.

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95
drank Focus #7 by Verdant Tea (Special)
6105 tasting notes

I actually like this particular blend… but it’s mostly because lavender is a primary flavour. I’m struggling to identify the base, but would guess an oolong? and along with the lavender, there’s a very familiar kind of… cinnamon toast-y flavour that I believe is reminding me of (I had to look this up) Chocolate Phoenix Chai (which I once really loved, but which has been gone for a long time). There must be a commonality in the ingredients. Perhaps it’s ginger, not cinnamon? But a very mild, gentle ginger. Whatever it is, it’s delicious and crave-worthy and suddenly I’m really enjoying this tea. Another missed opportunity to stock up (mixed feelings on that, as usual), but I’ll enjoy what I have! This was an unexpected delight this evening!

ETA: I have one more tea brewed up for tonight, but I don’t want to drink it because the aftertaste of this is so nice! Woe is me.

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74

Backlogged sipdown. I wasn’t really a fan of the “wellness-type” blends Verdant put out, of which this was one. However, some of them weren’t too bad, and this was one – it was smoky and interesting.

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74

Just aiming for a less artificially-flavoured tea last night, and happened to pick out this one. I’m not sure a smoky tea was the best choice for last night, but it’s pretty tasty this morning! Nice, sweet smokiness; I’m not picking out other flavours today, though I know this tastes different from the straight base tea (softer, sweeter). Like a gentle, warming campfire in a mug.

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74

An interesting tea. I wanted a (non-DavidsTea) black tea last night, and this was the first one I found in my “drink this/DT roulette” box. It’s a smoky tea, but very smooth and sweet – I think I’m picking up some jasmine? I’m not sure what else, though. Certainly not tasting coriander, despite the large quantity in my bag. It’s really not too bad, actually, as long as one’s in the mood for smoke. Since this is from Verdant, I’d assume the base is their “Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong” tea that I had a few days ago, but I could be wrong.

looks up tea info So I guess I’m right about the base, but wrong about the jasmine – there’s apparently elderberry and an essential oil blend that contains various things, none of which are jasmine. Ah well, that’s how I’m perceiving it.

Not a blend I’d want more of, but I think I have a cup or so left, and will certainly drink it. It also gets points for being quite unique – I think it was intended to be a wellness blend of sorts, but it’s not packed with all the crap that they often have, and it uses an interesting and good quality base.

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60

This is my half of a Verdant tea subscription that I shared with Sil eons ago… I don’t think I actually ever tried it until just recently, though. It wasn’t too bad – I’m not a huge pu’erh fan but it wasn’t objectionable. Just not a favourite. Kind of a collection of various flavours that I couldn’t really pin down, with an unmistakable base. Going to regift this one.

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I found this tea in one of my overflow drawers and felt it was overdue a try. Steeping in my ManaTea steeper and a large mug. (Easy steeping while I cross stitch).

This tea bares a wooden and smokey scent in both the raw and steeped forms.

Flavour is smokey with some astringency and a sweet after taste. Wood, leather and burnt bread notes.

It’s actually nicer than I expected. Like a mild Lapsang with a sweet finish. Very autumnal!

ashmanra

Sounds quite interesting!

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35
drank Cask Strength by Verdant Tea (Special)
2955 tasting notes

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77

…Gongfu?

This is from last week, I was having virtual tea with someone and I had finished off the first tea that I’d started with and needed to move on to something else. I was in this weird mindset of wanting to still brew Gongfu but craving something more flavoured so I grabbed this older Verdant blend, which I thought might work gongfu.

It doesn’t.

It’s a nice blend steeped Western style, but brewing Gongfu just extracted a lot of bitterness and astringency, as well as an off fermented fruit/raisin taste that I found off putting too. I gave it a few steeps of attempt, but then just wrote off the session.

Martin Bednář

Sometimes some teas seems great in western and “probably” even better gongfu, but it doesn’t work as expected!

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77

Not from last weekend but the one before that…

I’ve been doing a really good job staying on top of my tasting notes for Adventageddon, but the few times I’ve managed to sneak a non-advent tea into my daily assortment (admittedly not many times) I’ve done a poor job of getting those notes written in a timely manner. This was nice though; I don’t remember a lot of the finer details at this point, aside from the fact there was a fruitiness to the cup but then also this pine-y woody quality that reminded me – in a very positive way, of the smell my Grandfather’s wood shop used to have! I always felt a little uncomfortable going into the wood shop as a kid because there was lots and lots of tools and saws lying around in the open, including massive buzz/circular saws, but I used to love to stand in the doorway and just smell it. There was a moment with this cup that brought be back to be a seven year old in that doorway, and it was complete bliss.

Martin Bednář

Interesting notes for a tea, but actually why not? Freshly cut wood has got so nice scent!

mrmopar

Puerh from JingMai has those pine notes as well.

Shae

What a sweet memory.

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77

Super different experience from the last time that I had this; this time I couldn’t help but dwell on this sweet, juicy and floral note that I was getting from the cup that I can only describe as lychee. Really tasty, still had a roasted element from the oolong and a woody quality, but the surprising fruit note was the star of the cup for sure.

Flavors: Lychee

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77

Well, I guess I can’t claim that I had an unproductive day anymore since I literally just powered through over twenty tasting notes that I had backlogged from the week…

Phew; that took so long. It feels good to be starting fresh, though.

This was a cup that I had at work a few days ago; I found it less tasty than the first time I had it. It was definitely a little bit astringent and really woody tasting, and the combo made me feel a little bit like I kept licking a block of wood in between drinking cups of nutty, malty oolong tea with undertones of plum. Would have been nice, if it weren’t for that “wood licking” imagery…

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77

Acquired this one awhile ago from Starfevre and just not getting around to trying it…

It took me a REALLY long time to place what the dry leaf smelled like, but it had this very intensely familiar aroma tinged with nostalgia. I knew it smelled a bit like chocolate to me; not super high quality, but more like the waxy kind used in candies and such. However there was definitely something distinctly “other” and that was something I couldn’t put my finger on. Finally, a few days ago, it smacked me right in the face. The tea smells exactly like Glosette’s Raisins, with like maybe just a couple of the Glosette’s peanuts tossed in as well? I actually hated BOTH of those as a kid, but as an adult have developed a deeper appreciate for them. I still prefer the peanuts, though. Raisins are kind of icky…

Steeped up this loses a lot of that waxy chocolate/raisin sort of quality though and whats left is much more of a sweet but very nutty/toasty and mineral note heavy oolong flavour with an undertone of prune and stonefruit like flavour. I find it interesting that those are the fruit notes I’m tasting, given that there is actual fruit in this blend – and it’s something COMPLETELY different from prune/stonefruit. Perhaps whisps of chocolate at the top of the sip, but not anywhere close to the same way I was getting in the dry aroma of the leaf. It’s honestly somewhat medium to light bodied and not exactly bursting with flavour. Likely because it’s really old. The finish is a little bit metallic.

All in all, I’m still really enjoying it though – I like that darker oolong roastyness and nutty combo, and since I’ve been reading most of the afternoon it’s been quite comforting having something with this sort of profile to sip away at slowly.

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88

I had 2 pots of this yesterday, one original and a resteep. The original was just as good as it always is but the resteep left something to be desired, I guess it just doesn’t resteep well. It kept me hydrated in any case.

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