Yabao Snickerdoodle

I’m back at my parents place with wifi now, so I can log more than hot toddy recipes lol. I am having a teapot of this in my new pot tonight, I added some honey and while it’s sweeter, it’s still mostly yabao haha. And the new little bamboo strainer smelled weird tonight lol, I think it’s the water used for washing here, very sodium rich well water. We don’t drink it anymore at least, we have city water in the cooler. Anyways, decent cup, but eh, I think I need more variety in my teas again…I’ve been drinking the same bunch for about 2 weeks…I need some 52teas and more davidsteas….and more of my Verdant teas haha. Sorry to whine haha, I miss my big collection! See previous notes on this tea.

meh. 1 minute steep is stupid. i will rant more about that i’m sure. Drinkable but as not a fan of yabao…esp silverbuds yabao, i wasn’t hoping for much. it’s ok but i’ll have to play a bit more.

It, umm, smells like I’ve stuck my face in a spruce tree out in the forest. Cold, icy, woody, frozen tree pitch. I haven’t had the yabao before, so I’m not sure what part is giving me this scent.

When I think of snickerdoodle, I think of a vanilla cookie that has been rolled in cinnamon sugar then baked. Is that not what a snickerdoodle is? That’s not what this tea is.

The tea tastes like the forest. All bundled up on a crisp winter day, pushing through the forest, looking for the perfect tree. It’s quite herbal under there too, almost medicinal. Quite earthy, as well. And I feel the warmth of the ginger.

So. Weird.

Tea Review: This is a day of Memorial and Celebration for many people around the World. I was up early, before dawn.

It’s not odd to drink a wonderfully light and celebratory tea to toast a great Grandfather of us all. I wrote much about my own feelings on my blog and if you like, you can read it beginning below.

This blend takes the Yabao that many have tried already and adds Holiday magic to zing it up!
In classic (now after several years I can say ‘classic’) Verdant fashion, the ingredients are blended in such a manor that no one ingredient screams out ‘Ginger’ or ‘Coriander’ or Birch Bark’.
If anything, there is a softness that I amped up a little by steeping longer than the recommended 1 minute.

Yabao tastes like light nutmeg to me. (It tastes like cardamom to David Duckler but what does he know, he’s a young man!)

Yes this is very ‘snickerdoodle’. BEWARE… our tastebuds are on overkill with cinnamon, peppermint and strongish flavors this time of year (love the goodies).
Yabao Snickerdoodle is light on the palate. I HIGHLY suggest adding sugar or mild honey to your tea (as well as steeping longer, and please don’t underleaf…LISTEN to GRANDMA!).

I would say (am saying) that I sipped a grand white wine or two in my day that were in the same league with this tea. Nutmeg, vanilla and ginger… sparkling sweet and delicious. (Murphy’s California)

Cheers to Mandeba!

Story
I woke long before dawn to watch the news feed from South Africa this morning.

It is the day of Memorial for Nelson Mandela.

What shall I say? Some of you are not going to like what I say…
I warn you…

Yesterday, I tried to explain to my granddaughter Schey what it was like during the days of Apartheid and Civil Rights.
It’s not easy for young people to understand what it was like in the 1960′s-1980′s but I’ll keep on telling my grandmother stories no matter what.

As an interracial couple with two young children in the 1960′s and 1970′s, life for my husband and I was often dangerous. I worked in Civil Rights for many years in local projects, then as a Vista Volunteer in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia.

I was living in the Nation’s Capitol when both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were killed. Riots followed.
Shortly after the riots, my husband and most of the young Black men in the area were drafted. (This was during the Viet Nam War)
It was too dangerous, the Army said, for me to go ‘Down South’ with my husband because of the Klu Klux Klan, so I flew home to California until he was transfered a year later to Texas. (A Hard Place in 1970).
…the rest is on my blog…
www.teaandincense.com

I was intrigued by this one. I have enjoyed the yabao blends that I’ve tried before, and I am in love with a reserve yabao. The dry leaf of this, to me, smells powerfully like root beer. I mean, I guess it makes sense with birch root and sarsparilla in it.

Brewed up I definitely get more cookie-ish scents from this. I am surprised that there isn’t cinnamon added to this since I really associate cinnamon with snickerdoodles. The tea is smooth and creamy, and I get a kick of ginger. Otherwise all the flavors do some nice melding together. I did my first cup at Verdant’s parameters (1 minute) but left the infuser in the pot for two more minutes (for a total of 3 minutes) for the second cup. Mostly it made the ginger spicier, haha. I like the yabao, I like the spices, but I’m not in love with this blend. But I will happily drink up the rest of it.

I cancelled my blends box last month because I was going to save money for this month but when I saw the spoiler on Facebook for this month and I saw this one!! I HAD to order!
I drank this one all morning and all day. This morning I whipped up some French toast waffles and had this along side me. I was so hoping to have that cinnamon-y snicker doodle-esque flavor. But wow! Coriander and ginger! So powerful the first steep. The second steep was creamier and I got more of the cookie flavor. The coriander and ginger weren’t so strong but still there. The third steep the coriander and ginger were almost gone. It was a very very like clean steep:
While this wasn’t at all what I expected it was a nice experience. The second steep was definitely my favorite of the three. The first steep was steeped 1 minute, 2nd was 3 minutes and 3rd was 6mins. I highly recommend over leafing a tad bit and longer steeps. This one definitely needs a little sweetness to bring out the cookie flavors. I might have this one one more time and then probably add this to my stash that is being sold in a discussion:)

Perhaps I under-steeped this one, because although pleasant, it was unremarkable to me.
I make home-made snickerdoodles with cream cheese and roll the balls in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar…I tasted no cinnamon, and if snicker doodles? …very generic :-/
Sorry Verdant…

Trying this out since it came in my club. It smells very spicy and the back of my throat is already protesting the dry smell. It seems exactly like the teas that I hate very much. Waiting for the water to heat up.

Have to close this note to look at the ingredients to see what it is that I’m smelling besides ginger. The Verdant website doesn’t show it.

Edit: I don’t know where my previous edit went. Boo. I think the spice is sasparilla because I can’t recognize it and I’m not familiar with that one. It is very spicy. I’m hoping the sugar I put in wil gentle this blend.

First steep was 2ish minutes. The blend is sweet but the ginger and yabao itself put a shudder down my spine and there is an unpleasant pricking at the back of my throat from one of the spices. Warming sensation from more than just the warm water. Trying to drink this quickly because I do not like.

Thinking I won’t go for any more steeps due to the headache onset almost immediately after I started drinking. Not the tea for me.

Gah! I lost my tasting note. I was saying this was mild but yummy. I don’t feel like retyping the whole thing. I used 1 tablespoon, boiling water, 3 minute steep, 7 minute second steep.

Thanks for a sample of this a while back, BrewTEAlly Sweet! The Yabao flavor profile just isn’t for me… though it’s less easier to ruin than a raw pu-erh. I’ve had the Yabao on it’s own a couple times before. I love the idea of adding spices, and it does make the flavor better for me. Not too spicy so it doesn’t overshadow the Yabao. The flavor is light: honey, sweet. Does it taste like a snickerdoodle cookie? If any tea did, this one would. I would imagine adding some sort of sweetener would help that aspect. I was hoping for more sarsaparilla flavor. The second steep had just as much flavor. I’m happy to have tried this one! It’s annoying I couldn’t find this one on Verdant’s site. I thought they have them all archived. I wish they had a search option.
Steep #1 // few min after boiling // 2-3 min steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4-5 min