Eight Treasures Yabao

It’s been a long & busy day. Lots of black teas in the morning, lots of running around in the afternoon, & then I played for a wedding this evening. I just got home, unloaded my harp & gear, & am ready to settle down, but I wanted something with a little lift, as I don’t plan to sleep for awhile, just to chill.

The description of this tea, & the photo, did not originally appeal to me. It’s a little to happy, confetti, pastel party time looking. I know, that sounds ridiculous…. When I found out the Verdant blends were getting ready to change, a part of me said, “You know, you have to try them all, at least a sample”. “ok”, I said, because I was sort of looking for an excuse to place another verdant order anyway.

I’ve been kind of out of sorts for a few days, so when I opened this tea & took a whiff, it was aromatherapy for me. Sweet, cotton candy marshallow dreams, with jasmine, vanilla, & other yummy flavors. And it is a much more beautiful tea than the photo on the website lets on, very fairy-like (& I like my fairie stuff), very happy looking, which is what I needed this evening.

After steeping, it is a really nice, mildly flavored cup of lightness, like a nice deep relaxed breath. I feel like it’s so well balanced that none of the flavors are really in the forefront, everything is nicely blended. I’m probably going to wish I’d ordered more of this (I think I got 1 oz), but it’s not like I don’t have enough tea around here (if you only knew). I will savor this, probably as a bubble bath time tea, a tea to drink while journaling, & I’ll be sure to have a cup in my sunroom when it snows.

I have been considering a verdant order lately… There’s just so many new teas out by them that I am soooo tempted. In preparation, i was going to have the laoshan black chocolate Genmaicha tonight in case I loveee it (very likely) and want to add it to my pending order lol. But it’s just too nice our for a cozy tea. Instead, I made a cup of this, my favorite. Gosh, i just love this tea. I’ve said it too many times already haha, but it’s just so wonderful. :) see previous notes.

Good golly Miss Molly, this is delicious! That was my first thought upon the initial sip, and it hasn’t changed much.

The appearance of this tea is very pleasing to the eye. There are the big silvery, fuzzy buds mixed with dried goji berries, green tea leaves, marigold petals, rose petals, citrus peels, and dried elder berries.

The dry smell of this tea is wonderful. It’s fresh and crisp yet creamy, with cedar and pine notes and floral notes. It’s like a forest on the edge of a wonderful flower garden. Wet the leaves smell mostly of cedar, pine and floral; while the infusion smells of cedar, rose and jasmine.

Taste is wonderful. Cedar and pine notes with rose and jasmine floral notes. It’s creamy yet is light. It’s sweet and sparkling. There is a sparkling feeling on the tip of the tongue at the beginning of the sip and moves to the back of the tongue and touches the throat at the end of the sip and lingers for the aftertaste. I get the goji berry and citrus notes mostly in the aftertaste.

In further steepings the tea takes on mostly cedar and pine notes with the sparkling quality and still retains some creaminess. It loses the floral notes by the third steep, being predominant in the first steep. It gains some spiciness in further steepings mostly in the aftertaste.

I steeped this gaiwanish-style. I don’t have a gaiwan, which is why I say gaiwanish. I used a 5 oz cup with a infuser basket with 205F water. The first steep was only about 5 seconds and now I’m up to about a minute.

I can’t recall what steeping I’m currently on, somewhere around 8 I believe, and I don’t intend on stopping. This is one tea that I will definitely be reordering. It is absolutely wonderful and I suggest everyone to try it if it is geared toward their tastes, but don’t ask me for any, I am not sharing this treasure!!

I’ve had my eye on this tea for ages—in fact, it was the first Verdant product to make me go “OH GOD I need to order from here immediately.” Sadly, the second tea that almost pushed me over the edge (Thai Ginger Fire) is now discontinued. But hey, at least I finally got my paws on some of this! That $10 off coupon was just too tempting.

I made this two ways: I cold brewed some leaves (buds?) last night and then steeped them Western style this evening. I wanted to do fancy gaiwan style but I had to do a photoshoot and there were lamps all over the table where the tea setup would go. Oh well, I got a full 2 ounces of this so I definitely have tons to play around with! I actually drank the hot tea before the cold brew, so I’ll start there.

Hot: This smells like pure, heavenly jasmine. Given that it’s the first ingredient, not surprising! I was a bit worried because it smells like JUST a jasmine tea, but the floral scent was hiding a lot of depth. Yes, there’s jasmine—sweet, lightly perfumey and perfect—but there’s a whole lot more going on as well! There’s a soft sweetness and an underlying berry taste (probably from the goji berries, but I don’t have enough experience with them to go “oh, this is goji!”), and a strong plant-y presence. It’s not grassy or even vegetal, it tastes like… plants. Like fresh leaves! It’s really interesting, especially with the jasmine, and it gives the tea kind of an outdoorsy feel. Like one should drink this on the porch of a cabin in the woods, overlooking golden fields as the sun goes down through the trees. Lastly, there’s a bit of a bite at the end of the sip—grapefruit, though it took me a while to identify it as such. It’s got that hint of acidity that brings everything together!

Cold Brew: This was done before the hot, so I suppose it got the majority of the flavor…. not that the hot tea was lacking in any of that! This is quite different cold, more softly floral and grassy. The grapefruit does add bitterness, moreso than in the hot tea for sure. But it’s cut by an almost creamy sweetness, possibly the vanilla? I didn’t get any berry taste this way (which is odd, they sat in water for 12 hours!) so I think it is definitely the vanilla beans. And oddly enough, while the floral taste hot was all jasmine the rose comes into play more this way.

I honestly don’t know which way I like it more—both bring out different flavor profiles, and I adore them both! This tea is definitely a keeper. Like, an “I must have this in my cupboard at all times, I’ll eat ramen for a week to afford it” kind of keeper.

I had this tea in my travel mug today.

I went on a drive to a few cities over to a “create your own lotion/bath stuff” kind of place. It was pretty funky as you can combine the essential oils they had to scent your lotion. I ended up doing one tea inspired scent for body lotion “Strawberry, Cucumber Melon, Honeydew” and a salt scrub that was rosemary, peppermint, eucalyptus. I tried doing a Moroccan mint and failed.

Anyways, this tea in a tumbler.. BLECK! Just did not work. At first, it was fine on the drive to shopping, though despite looking fantastic in my tumbler, the floral got too strong and soapy for me. I had to dump it out and drink some raspberry iced tea stuff during lunch.

Lesson: do not oversteep 8TY.

Sipdown, 162. I used the rest of my sample of this one as a cold brew.

Unsurprisingly, this one was quite good as a cold brew. At the specs I used (about 3tsp, 12oz water, 8 hour steep), it was very light and refreshing, with enough flavor to make for a tasty drink. I found the cold steep with way less vanilla and more florals, but all the notes were there, just subtly interacting. I realized once I was most of the way through my bottle of it that it reminded me strongly of some of the gewurtztraminer white wines I’ve had… rose and jasmine notes, with light citrus and goji berry, which is almost standing in for the grape here. In particular I had a dry gewurtztraminer once and this is very similar, but without any alcohol, obviously. Quite lovely, and definitely an iced tea I’d like to have again. Maybe I’ll eventually pick more of this one up!

Sipdown! 814. Thanks again to Azzrian for this one.

Similar impressions to last time… mainly the yabao/junipery flavour, paired with some floral/jasmine. The aftertaste is creamy and a bit fruity, perhaps it’s the goji berry. This tea has sat around for quite a while though, so it’s entirely possible that some flavour has disappeared, even though it was pretty fresh for the first go round.

Yabao is not my favourite type of tea, so this wouldn’t be one I’d gravitate towards again though as usual, I’m happy to have had the chance to try it.

What the heck is Yabao? I had to look it up. First impression of the wet leaf smell was cat pee. It is probably really more of a kiwi smell. This has nowhere to go but up! The first sip was rose and a spicy almost metallic note. I added sweetener (sorry, I know it is Verdant) Now it is jasmine and honeysuckle with a hint of vanilla. I taste marigold very quickly at the beginning of each sip. I glanced through others notes and see this is well loved. I am not drawn to it. I would drink it if offered. I bet it would be great iced while rocking on a front porch swing.

Enjoying this cold brewed in wine glasses with the husband’s best friend. It’s gorgeous and looks like a beautiful blush wine, stunning, stunning pink. It retains quite a bit of its fragrance and is simply delicious, still reminds me of lilies, Pierre says its the perfect ice tea. I wonder if thesr leaves can be rebrewed hot. If I win the Tea Cats contest, I’m ordering 4oz of this sooner rather than later. My entry is the Crouching Kitty, Copper Dragon ;)

This is my first Yabao anything, and I had no idea that this was supposed to be a pu-erh blend, to be honest. I just threw it in my cart during the sale because I quite frankly had all too much freedom at the time.

Upon opening my (thankfully sample) packet, I pondered why the dry leaf smelled like a garden weed. And once I steeped this up, I still got garden weed.

I’ve been letting it cool for about ten minutes now, afraid to go near it. Actually, I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of any jasmine + honeysuckle combination. Anyone familiar with Lush’s Flying Fox? Yeah, that smells like mothballs and/or wet ashtray to me due to the jasmine and honeysuckle.

Cautiously picking up my mug, I just took a whiff and BAM! There’s Flying Fox in my mug. Each sip tastes like it too. I sadly don’t get any rose, or velvety vanilla. No berries, either. I do get some earthiness underneath all the floral cacophony, however.

Seriously not my cup of tea, but you live and you learn.