Laoshan Chocolate Genmaicha

I really don’t remember just what the Verdant version of this tasted like. This is tasty. I seem to be getting a note I would describe as burnt sugar. The chocolate is there too. This is quite good. I would definitely buy more when I run out of this, which even though I didn’t buy a lot will probably take a while at the rate I go through individual teas.

I steeped this one time in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 200 degree water for 3 min.

It’s been a bit of a rough week fighting off migraines while attempting to navigate through the more pressing life things. Ugh. Massive construction in the neighbourhood hasn’t helped. Thankfully, so far, things are quiet and still today.

Beautiful depth of flavour here. The toasted rice comes through with the nuttiness of dense whole grains, such as wheat berries for example. The chocolate notes are more of the baked goods type, along the lines of toasted chocolate nut bread: chocolate and bready, but not particularly sweet. Nice work, Liquid Proust!

Oh this is a fine cup of tea. Thanks to Verdant for their great Laoshan tea and thanks to LP for great blending. It’s like having a cup of chocolate in the morning. I wasn’t getting too much from the rice but my taste buds are not too awake in the morning. Next time I try this, I’ll make it an afternoon tea.

How have I not rated this yet?

Anyway, I love the Laoshan Black/Oolong tea from Verdant very much. I think I’ve shared that thought many times. But this tea, it adds so much more to already superior teas. The base really comes forward in the cup, but the added ingredients make these two teas work stupendously well together.

The cocoa nibs add a little more of that chocolate note to the base. The rice gives it a slight nutty flavor, which progresses after a while. Unfortunately, I’ve stopped drinking the tea alone after the fourth cup, since, after all, it IS Memorial Day, and there was food going around after the first few cups, so I had a lot of other flavors going on with it (I’ll most likely write a second review later on).

I will note here, though, that if you’re looking for a solid tea for the morning, this is one I’d grab. It’d make a great afternoon pick-me-up, too. And as far as Liquid Proust’s teas go, anything made by this guy is quality—even my wife is starting to drink tea (or least try it). So, with that said, go get ya’ll-selves some!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGCaEw_A-4R/?taken-by=s.g_sanders1

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGCad5yA-5O/?taken-by=s.g_sanders1

Oh yeah, I’d totally go out and buy a large amount of the Laoshan Black, but it’s incredibly expensive, so it wouldn’t be the ideal ‘daily drinker.’ However, it’s on the long wishlist of “These will be the ‘guests only’ drinkers; that, or, ‘holidays only’ tea.”

https://www.etsy.com/listing/288562613/laoshan-chocolate-genmaicha?ref=shop_home_active_3

One whiff and I think f%$^. I need more of this. Why must good things always be temporary?

Verdant discontinuing their blends was a sad thing, but we all understood why they made that choice. It was interesting that they posted everything about them as well. When I inquired about reblending this I thought they would say no because LPT is a company, but they said they didn’t want the larger companies doing it and that I was fine.

I should be reviewing this tea, but I’m just going to write. Tea is something I’m really engaged with and over the last few months betweeen tea blending, group buys, apartment searching, driving to Cleveland and back, and a new job, I have been so busy that the most I’ve done outside of all of that was a TV episode or so.

This morning i woke up at 6am feeling refreshed; must of slept well. I decided to brew this for the second time. It’s an odd choice for the morning, but black teas are normally what I use to wake up if I don’t want matcha. I used a teapot which is odd for me now, but it brought back memories :)

This morning I’m going to put in some Halo 5 time after watching a 2 minute review of the upcoming new firefight mode. Super excited.

This tea is very breakfast acceptable which is nice and I have a whole mug of it here next to me :)