Verdant Tea (Special)

Spring cleaning day at home, mostly because we have someone coming to stay with us for a week so our house had to look presentable. Now that it’s mostly done, I am relaxing with this tea from the Verdant Reserve club package from March.

I typically like Taiwan high mountain oolongs, but I don’t typically looooove them. They should be among my favorites (I love floral, green oolongs) but they are typically maybe a little too green for me. Of course I was still very excited to try this one from Verdant. The dry leaves are tight little balls and smell fresh and green and floral, and an interesting, almost licorice note comes out when the are warmed. After a brief rinse, the leaves smell vegetal and floral, like I would expect from a Taiwan high mountain. The flavor of the first steep is like sugar snap peas and very sweet corn, with a floral aftetaste of light lilacs.

Later steepings were much more vegetal, light leafy greens with florals dancing around the edges. The leaves have expanded so much that I am no longer getting that much liquid out of the pot.

This is a very good example of a Taiwanese High Mountain oolong. Like I said before, I tend to like these teas but not love them, and this one fits the pattern. A pleasant and very spring-y tea that makes me look forward to upcoming nicer weather!

Sipdown, 115. Another sad sipdown, this one sadder because it is never coming back into my stash. At least, this particular tea; if I ever come across a light oxidation tieguanyin again I will have to look into it. I did manage to get a bit more of this from the wonderful Sil, so I got a change to drink some more. The scent of this one teases the complexity of it’s taste. When first brewed, the aroma wafting over was relatively roasty and much like a normal, traditional TGY, but as it’s cooling to drinking temperature the sweet, floral notes are coming out. Mmm, I agree with my previous tasting notes on this about the flavors. Bready and a bit sweet, not very roasty but a little “bakey”, and freshly green at the same time. A lovely oolong.

Sipdown, 146. Quick, I need a sipdown because my Verdant reserve club box is out for delivery!

This is one I am sad to see go (but it was also the only sipdownable tea I had among the reserve club packages at home). It is an aged TGY, but so unique because there is no roasting involved! So it still has the greenness and the florals of a green TGY, but it also has a thick, hearty breadiness. I get some sweet green apple notes, kind of like an apple bread. I am spending the afternoon gongfu brewing this one, and very much enjoying it. Hmmm, I wonder if any of this is left on Verdant’s website?

Western-style brewing this one to see at from all angles. This is such an interesting tea. When steeped western style, it smells much like a lightly-roasted Dong Ding oolong. But the flavor is so different! There aren’t really any roasted notes in the flavor. It is sweet and juicy and lightly floral. My first steep was so tasty that I drank it down pretty quickly! The second steep (6 minutes) is pretty similar to the first but brighter and juicier. I still haven’t decided whether I want to buy more of this one or not, but it is really quite delicious.

The second tea I am having gongfu today. I was very intrigued by this tea from the March reserve club. Tieguanyins are probably my favorite type of oolong, but I usually am not super into the aged varieties. But this one was interesting because the description mentions that it was never roasted, and was not taken out and roasted each year like many aged tieguanyins.

The resulting tea has hints of floral aroma along with a sweet breadiness, like a sweet challa or tsoureki (Greek Easter bread). There is definite sweetness in the flavor as well, and it grows in the aftertaste and as it cools. Mmm, sweet bready notes, though a somewhat surprising lack of butter, which I might have expected. In the second steep some tart, juicy appley notes come out to play, and now I get something like an apple pastry. Definitely a unique tea, and I am definitely enjoying it. No roasting for me!

This tea (#82) is still amazing. Sweet and floral and delicious. I do love Verdant’s green TGYs, and I swear their bags must be magical or something because all of the teas that I have stored in them stay tasting fresh so long. This is pretty old at 2 years (ancient for a green TGY!), but still tastes nearly as good as the day I bought it. I would say I should drink these down faster but I don’t seem to need to.

I don’t usually begin my morning with an oolong, but when I do, it’s a reserve TGY.

This is so lovely, as always. Floral and sweet like fine honey, lightly buttery, crisp and clean. I drank this one eagerly, and just now looked into the bottom of the cup for the dregs but found nothing. Ah, over too soon.

So my desire to try my TGYs back to back was strong enough to brew this one up this afternoon. Might even bust into the Autumn Picking later, although the reserve club oolongs are at home.

There is a desire to hoard teas like this because they are so valuable and once they’re gone, they’re gone. But really, when you think about it, that’s not really the case. Yes, this particular tea will be gone, but there will be another picking next year, and exploring them year to year is a much better way to think about your teas. Anyway, that’s just my philosophical musings for the day.

I actually think I prefer the Early Picking TGY to this one, even though this is the higher grade tea. This one is slightly less floral in the immediate sip, although the florals are certainly present in the aftertaste. There is less creaminess to this one, more greenness. Slightly less buttery. Although all of those things are certainly present in this tea to an amazing amount, so that’s not to say that this is lacking in those qualities. Just that the Early Spring Picking has that much more of those qualities. I’m interested to keep sipping through some of these TGYs that I have, since I have quite a few!

I apparently forgot that I brewed this one western style the first time I tried it. Oh well, western style again! I will still have enough for a good gongfu session as well, thankfully. The last time I had this I was operating under the mistaken idea that I preferred the autumn picking of Verdant’s usual Tieguanyin over the spring picking, when in fact I actually preferred the spring. So I cam in to this thinking that I would inherantly like this better as a a spring picking. Just goes to show you what preconceptions can do to your tasting experiences.

This is really an astounding tea, now that I really taste it. So floral, so creamy, so honeyed, it is the essence of spring in a cup, pretty much. This tea is everything about why I love the fresh, green tieguanyins so much.

Also, apparently I blew past my 1000th tasting note this weekend. I remembered that it was coming but then completely forgot about it once it came. So here’s to 1005!

I drank this one western-style this afternoon too, again to figure out if I want to order more of it.

I was also super thrilled to see this one in the reserve club package from February because Tieguanyins, particularly the newer style green ones, are pretty much some of my favorite teas. The scent of the dry leaf was really wonderful, green and floral and buttery. And its so bright green! I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an oolong that bright green.

This one was really, super green. Incredibly floral, while also buttery and a bit creamy. Sweet like fresh, crisp sugar snap peas. It is definitely a spring picking and you can tell. Really, quite beautiful. But really, this reminded me of a Taiwanese high mountain oolong more than a Tieguanyin! Very very lovely and a joy to drink. However, I think I typically enjoy the autumn pickings a bit more than the spring ones because they tend to have more butteriness to them.

I’m drinking the end of this tonight for a double sipdown. I’m doing a gong fu session alongside the original Laoshan Black. Feeling grateful for all of the good tea I have been able to drink. :-)

This was the second pot of tea I brewed for Casey and I today. He really liked the Laoshan Black and requested a similar tea. Casey strongly prefers this to the original. I’m still not sure. It is certainly sweeter and smoother, but the aftertaste is somehow a little vegetal to me. I have enough for one more pot of this, and I do hope that Verdant produces special versions of Laoshan Black again.

Sometimes tea is a mindful, humble, meditative practice for me, and sometimes it is a hedonistic act of self-indulgence. This afternoon it was the latter. I brewed a big pot of this precious tea western style and ate some chocolate-covered raisins with it. I had no one to share it with, so I watched some Futurama. It was a perfect Sunday treat. Now back to work :-(

I brewed this alongside the original tonight, and I can’t decide which I prefer. As I was first drinking this, I was finding it harder and harder to go back and taste the original. I almost decided to stop brewing the original so I could just enjoy this. But in later steepings, my preferences reversed.

The original is bolder and more dark-chocolatey to me. This one is smoother and more subtle. The only more unusual note I pick up is that of mashed sweet potatoes. I’m looking forward to drinking this one again.

I still love this tea. I brought my little packet of this to our local Chinese restaurant. (I wasn’t sure if this was a rude thing to do or not, if someone knows what the etiquette is, please comment.) Anyhow, I was with Casey and I dropped three of the little twisted bundles in each of our cups. The restaurant provided us with hot water, and we refilled our cups perhaps 5 times each. I think this tea had a calming effect on me, as I am more relaxed tonight than I have been in weeks.

The scent of the dry leaves is heavenly. I was enjoying their smell so much so that I almost didn’t want to brew it- it is sweet and fresh like the finest jasmine perfume and not cloying at all.

The wet leaf also smells great. I smell the jasmine, some pleasant vegetal note (I’m almost entirely pulling this out of my asterisk, but I will say bok choy), and (seriously) banana cream pie.

Ok. So, smoked teas aren’t my favorite. Also, you should never take my tea ratings as being what I think the objective quality of a tea is. My ratings are just for me, and they’re a measure of how much I like to drink a tea.

It’s smokey, of course. This was actually more smokey than I expected after having another “subtle” Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong from Aroma Tea.

In the first steep there was the aroma of hard cinnamon candy, but I couldn’t find it again after that. There was also the aroma of molasses. There are lots of woodsy/forest smells. This tea has a bitter note mid-palate which I have tasted before, but I have a hard time describing. It’s something similar to the flavor of that delicate layer of “skin” that covers a walnut.

I wish I knew what kinds of vegan food to pair with a tea like this. While I like this tea, I don’t like it enough to save it for drinking on its own.

Ahhh, tea. I’ve been on one of those weird streaks of non-tea-drinking for whatever reason, and it’s nice to get back to it. And with this tea (#76)! It’s been too long since I’ve had LB in any form. Sweet and creamy and chocolatey with a bit of honey and molasses. Yum.

Mmmm, drank this one yesterday afternoon, steeping it a few times. I can’t believe how sweet and chocolatey this tea is. Are you sure there isn’t added sugar in here? Of course not, just luxurious beautiful curled black tea leaves. I love Laoshan Black, but this reserve version is mind blowing. Sweeter, silkier, more chocolatey. I wonder if Verdant will have another 1st picking harvest this year? I do have a couple of ounces of this to hoard, in any case. :D

I have fallen into that mode where I get so focused on drinking samples and having sipdowns that I don’t drink up the teas I have more of, which are usually my favorites. Well this afternoon I decided F that, it’s my birthday, and I’m going to drink some tea I love. A lot of people have been drinking Laoshan Black today so it was already stuck in my head, but I have the option to take it to eleven.

I actually hadn’t yet broken into the 2oz of this that I ordered… I can’t believe I have two whole ounces of this, but of course it is the only two ounces I will ever have. So glad to treat myself to this one today. Soooo smooth and honeyed. Grains, malt, chocolate, and a bit of spice, like a mexican hot chocolate almost. Deeeelish.

Sipdown, 234, but this one is coming back into my cupboard soon. Yes, I bit the bullet and ordered 2oz of it, which is the max you can order.

This cup convinced me. I didn’t have that much of it left, so I decided to do a western-style in my 6oz pot. Sooo delicious and chocolatey and sweet. Man the aftertaste was sweet on this cup. Way more expensive than most people on here would pay for a tea, but to me it is worth it.

Guys, I am steeping this one western style. I know it’s almost sacrelige, but I don’t care. I love the original Laoshan Black steeped western style, and I want to compare this one. Of course, with David’s western steeping instructions for Laoshan Black I have now almost completely used up my package, but I wanted to know how much I loved this one before deciding whether to take the plunge and purchase more of it (available for reserve club members only).

This smells of chocolate and caramel and honey. I think 1 tablespoon of leaf (for 8oz) was a bit too much for this one… the leaf is not as wirey as the original Laoshan Black, more compact, so more of it fits in a tablespoon. Well I will certainly have some resteeps of this. Nevertheless, even the overleafed first cup is delicious, which is not something I can say about most teas if overleafed. Chocolatey, lovely. I might have to steep up a cup of the original Laoshan Black to see how they compare and if it is worth it to me to splurge on the first picking. Decisions, decisions!

I was so super psyched to see this tea in the Verdant Reserve Club box this month. Laoshan Black is one of my all-time favorite teas, so a super-special version of it? Awesome. I wanted to try it right away but I’ve been so busy I haven’t been able to get to it until today. An I certainly wanted to make sure I had the time to savor and appreciate it. I am steeping this gong-fu today.

The dry leaf is beautiful, and smells like chocolate and toasted caramel. This being so limited, there is not much of it, so I intend to savor every drop. Thus, I am certainly drinking my rinse. And what a rinse! It is very pale golden in color, but so flavorful already. Incredibly sweet, with a flavor that reminds me a bit of roasted, honeyed, cocoa-dusted nuts.

My second steep (only 5 seconds) is considerably darker, a lovely amber color. It is out of this world. It smells kind of like cayenne chocolate, or at least chocolate with a little spice, and caramel. There is still a lot of sweetness, and now there is some rich graininess and molasses notes along with the chocolate.

Third steep smells even more like spicy chocolate, but this time it smells like spicy milk chocolate instead of spicy dark. Interesting because there is no hint of spice to the flavor, but for whatever reason my mind thinks “spice” at that aroma. This steep is where the chocolate is at. I mentioned it before but in the previous steeps it’s just been flirting around the edges, never taking the main stage. But here it is, in this steep!

I just realized that I am brewing this weaker than suggested (I used only 4g in my 6oz teapot), but I wanted to stretch my leaf. It is still amazing!

After many subsequent steeps, I think I have tapped them out. I totally lost track of how many I got, but it was almost more than I could hold. :D In a related note, perhaps I am getting better at this whole gongfu thing.

This tea is amazing and it makes me sad that this one small ounce-ish is all that I will have of it.

Loose
Appearance: large, crisp foresty green leaf, olive, ruddy tones
Aroma when Dry: honey, herby, syrup sweet
After water is first poured: wheat
At end of first steep: sour vegital, wheat undernotes
Tea liquor:
At end of steep: clear
Staple? possible
Preferred time of day: late afternoon, evening
Taste:
At first?: crisp, chewy, creamy vegital notes
As it cools?: notes sweeten, blend, thicken, honeyed herb textures surface
Additives used (milk, honey, sugar etc)? No
Lingers? yes, creamy brothy, sweet leafy notes, high on the palate

Second Steep(4min):
At first: light creamy sweet brothy vegital notes
As it cools?: starts getting brothy