Nearing the end of my verdant sample collection here.
Dry aroma fits the description on the site to a T: Cocoa, wood, and caramel.
The wet aroma (following the wash) is very… interesting. Very strong aroma, you can smell the roast very apparently. It smells a bit like dark roasted coffee, with wood and cocoa notes. A rather spicy aroma as well, kinda like nutmeg?
First steep. The flavour is way different than the dry aroma. Very spicy with a light roasted taste in the background. A bit of wet wood as well, and slightly earthy to boot. Nutty as well. Drinking more in the steep, I can definitely taste minerality like wet stone as well. If I were to sum up this tea on the first steep, its a spicy, earthy tea. Also quite a bit of caffeine content, which is a great companion to a research article that I am writing concurrently with this tasting note.
Second steep is much like the first, if not a tiny bit stronger.
Third and fourth steep carry in style. Less flavour as steeps progressed, but spicyness and minerality is retained.
Overall a pleasant and ‘spicy’ tea, was not expecting this at all from a dark roasted oolong. I do have to say there was no fruity flavours as verdantly famously misadvertises with most of their teas, but despite that this tea is a very nice roasted wuyi oolong and it is not astringent at all. A pleasant tea to sip for a bit of relaxation, tipped with a bit of tangyness.
Flavors: Caramel, Cocoa, Coffee, Mineral, Nutmeg, Roasted, Spicy, Wet Earth, Wet Rocks, Wood
