1233 Tasting Notes
There is a great Japanese food store next to our layover hotel in YVR. I try to pick up different things while I’m there. I ran out of genmaicha so I figured I’d try this out. I like it better then their bottle version which I don’t think has enough of a brown rice flavor. The first few cups were meh. But this last one was good. Perhaps its because I had to get back a taste for it.
Preparation
Have to be real honest. While the dry leaves smell great, I’m not so pleased with the flavor. It reminds me of the smell of paint. I’m really trying to find more flavors but the more I do the more I think of paint.
It was so weird! I tried so hard to come back after eating something and getting different tastes on my tongue but… ug
Had a rather odd sensation just now as I took the steeping leaves from my cup. Somewhere in my brain there was an idea that if I licked the leaves I might be able to taste more maple. Must be what happens when you have a kid. Perhaps it was the sweetness of the maple scent that compelled me to think as I did.
I’m not very good at naming bases for black tea but I know I like this one. Woodsy. Slightly twiggy. I taste the maple coming through first and the black base finishing.
It’s a wonderful thing to be able to support a family that is devoted to something I love.
This is quite a bit more nutty then I expected and yet not nutty in the way I imagined. The grassy flavors come at you just as expected with slight surprises of earthiness.
I also quite enjoy the extended write-ups that Verdant Tea devotes to the various tea masters and their families and their involvement in the tea process. Exceedingly well done, Verdant Tea.
That said, I have so far only tried one of their most recent box from Laoshan. Must get steeping and drinking, but I find greens are not a daily thing for me.
I like all types of tea.
That said, these days, I find myself wanting black, straight up or flavoured, in the mornings. I tend more towards either gentle or medium body blacks. Though I do like the assertive ones, for example those which Mighty Leaf uses for their fruity blends, but I have to be in the mood for them.
Greens, oolongs, or whites in the afternoon, depending on my tolerance for caffeine at that point in the day. I find the Laoshan teas with their many steepings are an all day affair.
Rooibos, honeybush, or herbal blends in the late afternoon and evening.
As for flavours, mostly all good, though I am not a fan of mint, usually. Sometimes, however, it works.
Ah ok! Then you will definitely like their Laoshan black. I bet you would like Big Red robe as well. I myself am not a hug fan of black tea but I do enjoy the pure flavors in theirs
Most likely I will. And yes, the purity in the flavours of their teas is extraordinary in itself.
Somewhere I read the recommended order of drinking their teas in this particular box, though I forget where. From light to dark, pure to most processed. I intend to follow that order (unless I get muddled, of course).