Eight Treasures Yabao Winter Blend

Before I made a cup of this, I made a cup of the previous Eight Treasures Yabao, just to fully experience the difference. The Summer version is so damn beautiful, so dainty & colorful, so fragrant, that I feel like a fairie princess while steeping & drinking it. It looks like Spring!

The Winter blend is heady with the aroma of a pine, juniper, & redwood forest. It smells kind of like something I could rub on my chest to help my breathing. It smells like something you should drink when you are under the weather, something you should drink to avoid being under the weather, & it is! This tea is loaded with herbs that support your immune system, that are anti-inflamatory, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, & detoxifying.

Call me a wierdo, but I love the unique taste of Burdock root. I always eat it in the fall. It’s a potent blood purifier & an excellent tonic for the kidneys, liver, and lungs. Juniper is also a great tonic for the kidneys, which tend to suffer in the winter. I drink elderberry regularly, especially in the fall & winter, for it’s antiviral properties. It’s great for the digestion & respiratory systems, and Holy Basil, also known as Tulsi, helps to keep the lungs clear & is a natural nervine.

So as far as I’m concerned, this tea is a winner!! Even if tasted like crap, I’d probably still drink it.

The good news: I love the taste!
It’s an unusual tasting tea, there’s a mild camphor/pine essence, with a bass note of slightly bitter & earthy burdock, balanced by the oatmeal taste of the Yabao & the sweetness of vanilla, & jasmine. It’s an amazing combination that is both intriguing & soothing. This is a blend that I hope to drink often.

Squeezed in a sipdown tonight! I accidentally made this with boiling water, my bad, hoping it doesn’t destroy the flavor too much. It smells amazing at least! I will miss this blend, but now I can stock up on the summer blend, which I liked a little bit better. This is still awesome though! See previous notes :)

ETA – It still tastes ok even with steeping with a higher temperature, it’s maybe not as flavorful but still quite tasty, maybe a bit more tart for some reason lol.

I kept enough of this to make myself another cup and decided to do so today. I gave it a rinse to try to wake up the juniper berries first.

It definitely worked! So much pine still though. I feel weird saying that because I have been all about pine/juniper notes in IPAs lately.

It’s not bad but I just like the non-winter blend so much more. This one does have a bit more of a savoriness to it that feels more like winter…like the weather today.

I figured I had to finish this one up because I hope today is the last wintery feeling day until far later in the year.

Thank you bonnie for your suggestion of adding a bit of laoshan black to this. I did try it straight again but it was just not happening. With a little laoshan black added I was able to drink and enjoy the rest of my steepings with this one. Will i get this again? Probably not but at least I can say that I’ve tried both regluar and winter versions :)

Another sample I brought along to have my mom try.

To me, it smells sweetly like juniper, and the taste is much the same, kind of like a juniper-flavoured white tea with creaminess. I’m not sure if yabao is growing on me, or it’s more pleasant in this blend, but I kind of like this one!

My mom thought it was nice enough; I can’t recall how she described it, but she didn’t catch the juniper. I don’t understand how!

ETA: On my fourth infusion of this one now. This one lasts forever!

I’m crazy in love with this tea’s aroma. Please make my room smell like this.

The berries and pine notes combine to make something that tastes almost like anise.

This year being my first ‘TEA’ Holiday time (I wasn’t even a tea drinker last November or December), I’ve been slowly purchasing favorite tea’s for my family. Now that you can get sample sizes from Verdant, I can get flavors to use as stocking stuffers. Little added goodies in my holiday boxes.
It will be so easy to send tea to California and to my Niece at Cornell University.
But, I just couldn’t help getting something for myself. You know how it is.

I couldn’t resist this Eight Treasures Yabao Winter Blend for ME!
I’m one of those people who loves the Yabao Pu’er!

This morning I brewed 2 pots of tea Western Style with the same leaves (aprox. 24oz). NO Rinse.

The wet leaves for the first pot smelled like roast chicken, and the second pot smelled less meaty and more like juniper berries.

The aroma of the liquor on the first pour was amazing! Lilies and jasmine, so fragrant that the vapor was like incense. I felt like I had stepped into one of the hot houses at Filoli Gardens (one of my favorite places to go in the S.F. Bay Area).
It felt like was close to the gardenias with the steaming scent of orchid and jasmine filling every scent receptor. Almost too much really. This was indeed intense!

I took a sip of tea which was sweet from the Yabao and Elderberry but I couldn’t taste any other flavors.
Being an experimenter, I poured some tea into another glass cup and added some honey which wasn’t very good, then milk in another cup which I didn’t like either and finally a little sweetening which was just OK.
I didn’t feel that I had a very good experience with this tea.
For all the quality ingredients, I wasn’t tasting what I should
have and I knew there had to be some reason for it.

I thought it over step by step.

Spring Water. Maybe my water was the problem because I had used tap water, and maybe I should have rinsed the tea leaves first.

So, I emptied the electric kettle, poured fresh Spring Water in and began again. Rinse, steep and pour.

Aha, this time the flavor was smoother, with Jasmine, Juniper, Yabao a little Lemon and the Tulsi was way off at the finish. (Not a taste but a coolness.)
The Vanilla taste wasn’t there at all. I think the Vanilla added a balance that kept the blend from getting acidic. As the tea cooled you can feel a creamy texture and the Elderberry aroma and flavor appear.

The second pot of tea was like moving out of the hot house onto the
garden path around the reflection pool…a quiet walk through cool gardens with the wafting scent of flowers, citrus and mint.

http://flic.kr/p/dq3Nhd

I learned a lesson that you can’t cut corners with tea! My oops!

This seems like an odd combination of flavours, but for me, it really works. It is like fireworks in your mouth. Sorry guys, I am really not very descriptive tonight and my notes suck.

I love Yabao. Its one of my favorite teas. I liked the first eight treasures and I asked for this as my sample.
I did it for the suggested 185 temp and brewed it for 2 minutes. Had a nice sweet cedar taste. The juniper berries was a nice touch.

I brewed it again and let it go for maybe 5 to 7 minutes. With Yabao usually the longer the better. Not with this blend. It became pretty bitter. But then again there was not much yabao in this. More jasmine green tea then yabao. Best to keep this short and sweet.

I got a sample of this with an order, and finally pulled it out for a try. It smells quite lovely, but really doesn’t taste like “tea” to me. I will have to try a longer steep next time.