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Cai Cong Anxi Oolong
5g, brita water, 130 mL gaiwan
Spring 2020, Master Zhang collection

私房茶 (private tea? my Chinese is pretty shoddy)/怡龙YL12-J40 (these were both on the packaging and the 2nd part likely indicates a specific line, but in my experience, many small packets of Chinese teas are packed similarly enough that if you can’t remember the vendor, it’s hard to find the same tea ever again).

Leaves and tea both more floral smelling than I expected. Brews a very nice clear yellow. Vegetal, sweet notes. Had gongfu steepings with breakfast (irreverent, but I’ve been generally disappointed with the other Verdant 5 for 5 samples that I’ve tried so far so didn’t bother too hard with this one) so probably didn’t catch everything. What a way to usher in the new year lol.

I was in a rush for an appointment and left the rest in a thermos. I’m disappointed to note that the infusion ended up having a very bitter mouthfeel, but I added more water to dilute it and we were back in business. So lesson learned there.

My aunt sent me a pack of very lightly roasted Tie Guan Yin where I wasn’t sure if it was actually Tie Guan Yin, and this was somewhat similar to that, but much clearer infusions instead of the muddy yellow I got from that, and this was much sweeter overall. However, with the initial thermos infusion, this turned out much more bitter than that one did, so I’m not sure why that is. If anyone else tries this tea grandpa style brew, I’d be curious to hear your results vs. gongfu brewing!

So far this is the only one of the verdant 5 for 5s (haven’t tried the Laoshan black yet though since i’ve heard it’s the best out of the lot) that I’d actually consider purchasing in the future once I run out of my current stash. It’s pretty mellow and seems like it’d make for a steady daily.

4/5 stars

Not sure what happened with this one. I didn’t read the reviews of this beforehand, but treated it as a green tea from the get go so it doesn’t seem to be an issue with my brewing temps (as it seems from a glance that other reviewers used even higher temps) but out of the 4/5 5 for 5 samples I’ve tried from Verdant now, this was by far the worst. From reading the reviews, I’m not even sure I had the same tea as other reviewers (perhaps the quality changed drastically in the last few years or a bad batch?). Even the last infusion from the leaves that I tossed into a thermos for a grandpa brew came out starting like a green and ending with a terribly bitter note. Palatable, but never something I’d willingly repurchase.

Reserve Laoshan Green Oolong
He family collection spring 2020
5 g, brita water, 176F, 130mL

Leaves: smell very green sweet matcha buttery type of feeling. A small amount of small leaves are crushed but most survived and are in little coiled shapes.

1st 10s: a little cloudy yellow infusion. Same smell but add a bit of roasted smell to it. Tastes rather unremarkable, a little bit of burnt matcha with a hint of sweet.

2nd steeping 10s 165F: similar to before but tastes more bitter

3rd steeping 7s 156F: same as before

Stopping here and tossing leaves in a thermos for grandpa brewing. In sum: smells and tastes like a burnt matcha, even with relatively low brewing temps. Passing on this one. Nothing particularly oolong like in the generic sense. My infusions never cleared up and were always a cloudy light yellow.

1.5/5 stars

update 5/2: found a small stash and drank through them and now i can say I find this revolting. Not sure what flipped the switch, but I don’t want this stuff ever again.

my school stopped stocking this but I used to like to brew this for the color alone. It’s a very pretty dark wine-like color. Smells okay. Taste-wise, all I can pick out is that it’s just sour and sometimes I’d be in the mood for it. But previously for a free school provided tea, whatever. Would I purchase it on my own though? probably not.

3.25/5

side note: For these teas, I’m not sure why they always say boiling water and 5 min steep because taste/appearance-wise to me, there was never difference whether I used 180F or 210F water, or whether I steeped for 5 min. or 2 min. Because the particles are so small, it steeps almost immediately anyway, which is pretty obvious as soon as you pour the water on top.

my school used to stock this but they didn’t this year :(

At any rate, I drank some almost every other day of the semester last year. Nothing particularly noteworthy (not that I’ve got other chamomiles to compare it to I suppose?), but calming and caffeine free, so I would drink this during the late nights stuck at my desk or the times when I couldn’t fall asleep instead of the strongly caffeinated black and oolong teas my parents sent me off with.

4/5

It’s not like I would drink it because it’s delicious, but it made the water much more bearable. and it’s probably placebo effect, but having it did make me feel like I was getting better rest sometimes

Also received as part of Verdant’s 5 for 5 promo. My packet was from Autumn 2020. This was the first time I’ve tried a Sheng Pu’er, and I really enjoyed it! It’s a cold, snowy-turned rainy day here, and I got out of bed feeling a little under the weather, so I decided to make some of this. I did gaiwan steeps of varying times (though I kept water temp. at or below 177F) poured into a big mug, so no exact tasting notes. But overall, brews like a nice clean green tea with a nice aftertaste and mouthfeel, and was comforting to have. Thanks to everyone who noted before on the lower temps! I would’ve liked this tea a lot less if it was bitter.

Probably not a tea I’d purchase again given nothing particularly stood out to me, but that could also be due to me not feeling too great today. But as part of the 5 for 5, I enjoyed it much more than the Shu Pu’er.

3.25/5 stars

Little Red Cup Co. Lapsang Souchong Tea

正山小种茶/拉普山小种茶

3.2g (bit over double the suggested amount from LRC since I wanted to gaiwan brew) tea, Brita filtered water, 120 mL gaiwan (figured out by now that overfilling my gaiwan was why I always kept spilling everywhere when pouring…), temp. right off the boil

dry leaves: like a burnt fire, but sweet haha. Wonderfully fragrant if you’re a fan of the campfire vibes!

3s flash steep: leaves: hay/straw, something sour, pine, smokey
Tea: smells fruity
Taste: sweet, then smokey and bitter (like a certain traditional Chinese medicine taken for stomach pain…), then lychee fruit aftertaste
I try my best not to peek at notes ahead of time, but I failed this time and I agree with the packet label that the lingering fruit note is very lychee-like. I guess this is a trade off with reading and not reading notes beforehand. I do believe that it can be easy to read notes into teas that maybe aren’t there sometimes (granted I’m not a tea sommelier of any sort), but then without seeing LRC’s lychee note, the best I could’ve offered was fruit of some kind.

7s: leaves: grassy, smoky, similar to earlier
Tea: more fruity smell now
Taste: bitter then sweet

14s: leaves: more grassy and medicinal
Tea: similar smell
Taste: a little sour (acidic?), bitter then sweet

25s: leaves and tea: similar to before
Taste: similar to before then somewhat more grassy but also more sweet aftertaste

1 min: usually wouldn’t kick it up to 1 min so soon, but busy day today. Leaves similar to before. Tea is increasingly fruity.
Taste: similar

I’m sure you could do extra steepings, but past this point I’m sure the differences would probably be more minute.

Overall, this tea is worth a try for the novelty of the aftertaste alone. It’s not immediately gratifying like the aftertaste of a good Oolong, but compared with the immediate taste of the tea, it is incredibly pleasant (nothing I can recall that I’ve tried compares to it exactly). I’ve never had a Lapsang Souchong before, so I’m curious if this is representative of the category as a whole. The smell of the dry leaves is very strong, and I personally like the campfire sort of vibe it invokes. Because the taste of the tea itself (excepting the aftertaste) is rather invoking of the stomach pain TCM I’ve had to take in the past (thanks mom and dad), I wouldn’t purchase any more of this tea, but I can definitely see why others like it! :)

3.75 stars/5 stars

edit: I had some leftover that I left sitting in a mug at my desk and wow this is fragrant enough to smell at my desk! Campfire in a cup indeed.

Pretty sure this wasn’t posting correctly before due to the Chinese characters from the name of the tea that I was trying to include (printed on the tea as well, but includes some classical Chinese characters that some browsers aren’t equipped to display). I’ll assume people would be looking for the Romanization on Verdant’s site anyway and leave that out for now.

2014 Loose Gong Ting Shu Puer Verdant

5.1 g, Brita filtered water, steeps with 132-140 mL water (finally caved in and bought a scale not too long ago…), water temp slightly off the boil

Spring 2014/春季 2014

Zhengyuan Dongsa Cooperative
Qianjiazhai, Mt. Ailao, Yunnan, China

Dry leaves smell: slightly fishy. I say slightly because I don’t think I’ll ever come across a pu er as fishy the time I ordered tuochas from some shady company where the brews turned out so revoltingly fishy and muddy (even after rinsing) that I had to throw out the whole package.

3s steep: leaves smell: grainy, like barley perhaps
Thick consistency, reminiscent of syrup.
Smell of tea: very slightly fishy like dry leaves and then the grainy smell.
Taste: …I’m not sure. There’s nothing prominent enough to note anything

12s steep: smell: more prominent grains for both leaves and tea
Taste: something medicinal and bitter. Still a thicker consistency.
Side note: wow these are some dark brews. This tea came with very small leaves and infuses very very fast

15s steep: smell: same as before
Taste: a barely there hint of sweet appears. Same thick mouthfeel. Interesting because up to this point, I’d been thinking I would have no notes and no tastes for this tea. Onwards!

23s steep: smell same
No new notes, same as before

35s steep: I’m going to stop mentioning smell from here on out bc I’m not noticing any changes. Will add on later if changes occur though.
Brew color visibly lightened for the first time.
Taste: sweet note a little more obvious. Consistency also not as thick for the first time.

45s steep: leaves have a hint of medicinal smell, reminiscent of the Chinese traditional medicines my parents made me drink when I was sick as a child.
No new notes

60s and 75s steeps: brew color lightened both times. No new notes.

2 min steep: no changes, tossing leaves into thermos for grandpa steeping. Not expecting anything from that though. Will not update this unless I notice any significant changes from the grandpa brew.

I expected better from the other reviews of this tea, but I didn’t like this very much. Outside of the barley, I did not pick up on any of the notes mentioned by Verdant (pasted below from Verdant’s website). I generally do not read too much into tasting profiles until I have made my own observations so I can minimize potential bias into what notes I notice.

“VERY SAVORY – pastry, roasted barley
FLORAL – vanilla
SPICY – sandalwood, fir tree bark
FRUITY – kumquat”

I’m not complaining since this was a free sample Verdant tossed in with my order of other things, but this isn’t a tea I’d purchase in the future. Most of my steeps turned out fairly bland to the extent that I wasn’t sure what to note about them.

1.5/5 stars

Qilan Wuyi Oolong （奇兰武夷山乌龙茶）- Li Family, Wuyishan, Fujian, China
Spring 2020/春季 2020 (including the details on the bag here since I can’t find this tea on the Verdant website and from the tasting notes from 7 years ago, I’m not sure if I’m drinking the same thing as others are)

Got this as part of the 5 for $5 offer from Verdant Teas.

5g tea (whole packet), Brita filtered water, gaiwan 140 mL (not certain on full volume, but I use a standard gaiwan, and this sounds about right), water temp a bit off the boil
Dry leaves smell: chocolate, roasted oolong smell
7 s: first steep: smell of leaves: grassy, stones, green
Taste: very vegetal— Something like spinach, with some light note of bitterness. Unexpected. Good mouthfeel.
10s second steep: smell of leaves: something grassy and charred
Smell of tea: sweeter than previous
Taste: more bitter, still vegetal, slightly unpleasantly reminiscent of medicine
15s 3rd steep: same leave smell
Taste: still some bitterness, but more lingering sweetness, lingering taste somewhat reminiscent of mint or cilantro
30s: same smell, tasting a slight note of raw celery
47s: not picking up anything else noteworthy so going to throw the remaining leaves into a thermos and grandpa brew

I usually enjoy Oolongs more, but this tea, while not unpleasant, was not particularly outstanding in any way. Usually I might go for more gaiwan steepings to explore the remaining notes, but I wasn’t blown away by it, and I didn’t care enough to pursure it further. It’s been a while since I’ve done a gaiwan session since I’ve been really busy lately (so I’ve stuck to grandpa style brews with the jasmine tea I’ve amassed), so it was nice to take some time to myself today to do this. One thing I might adjust if I had more tea was brewing temp to see if that would’ve affected bitterness more, but I’ve always done water off the boil with oolongs, and controlled for time as my variable.

3/5 stars. Personally will not purchase more, but not a bad tea, all in all. I wouldn’t recommend against it, but I’m not going to recommend for it either. There’s better oolongs to try out there.

edit: this did not hold up to grandpa brewing very well. If anything, grandpa brewing only highlighted the bitter notes and left nothing else.

I know there’s a lot of hype about this one and I was given a packet to try but it wasn’t my favorite. Smells pretty nice for sure, but it just tastes like drinking liquified red hots. Not my cup of tea.