Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I love Verdant Tea. I don’t know of anybody who doesn’t. Their love, passion, attention to detail, and most importantly, their tea is just simply amazing. Tea that you can steep again and again and enjoy for an afternoon. I have tried several of their teas and have loved the flavors of each one.
And this one is no exception! This Spring Harvest Laoshan White (which I’m not finding on their site) is a gorgeous white tea that has resounding notes of a green tea mingled within each glorious sip. Brewed up like a white tea, I allowed the tea to steep for about 4 minutes. Took my first sip and just took a moment to enjoy.
This tea has a gorgeous vegetal feel with notes of a floral touch here and there. Simple but so wonderful. Each infusion brought me a slightly different profile but for the most part, this tea really has a nice solid vegetal feel sweetened by a glorious floral note.
Another really well done tea from Verdant Tea! If you haven’t tried Verdant Tea, I highly recommend you do! They have a great starter pack for only $5. A great deal!
Chocolate Chamomile Curiosity Brew Black Oolong from Verdant Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black/Oolong
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Tea Description:
This blend is inspired by the connection we see between fine chocolate and fine tea. Our Laoshan Black and Wuyi Big Red Robe have strong natural notes of cacao that we wanted to bring out and play with. The end result is a rich, sweet and sparkling brew that brings out the best in both the tea, supported by the cacao nibs. Marigold provides a richness that complements the sweet flavors of chamomile, cinnamon and fennel, while the mint gives just enough of a clean sparkle to counterbalance the flavor of raw cacao. Enjoy this curious brew hot or cold and add a touch of buckwheat honey for a real treat.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Thanks to my SororiTea Sister TheLastDodo for the sample! I’ve actually been quite curious about this one for a while (pun not intended), but Verdant isn’t a company I’ve had much chance to explore and I’m wary of blends with chamomile so getting the chance to try a small quantity of this one was just perfect!
The dry leaf smells faintly of milk chocolate, and has even fainter fennel and mint notes as well. I know from the ingredients list that the mint in this blend is Spearmint; but based on scent I wouldn’t be able to differentiate.
Steeped this one up hot; it’s a lot softer than I expected and very, very smooth. The chocolate is the focus here and it’s accented quite nicely by the cinnamon and the fennel which are subtle but add a delicate, sweet spicyness. The natural malt from the Laoshan Black is delicious; and the spearmint creeps in right at the finish to add a lovely, refreshing coolness. Also, thankfully, I can’t taste the chamomile!
All in all, this was a great tea! It had a rich flavour, but not an in your face one and with the chocolate and mint pairing it made me think of a really fancy, well executed tea version of an After Eight chocolate. Mmm!
Nurture #4 Black Tea from Verdant Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Tea Description:
Intelligent Nutrients’ Nurture #4 is warm, cozy and balancing. We are using the Li Family’s lightly smoked Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong black tea from the Wuyi Mountains as the base for a smoldering base to pair with certified organic Nature #4, and draw out the natural sweetness of the tea with elderberry and coriander. Like sitting by a crackling fire, this comforting blend brings warmth and balance.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
From the time that I first opened the package to the last drops dripping from my gaiwan into my cha hair, I was practically seduced by the flavor. I love the smell of this tea! To put it bluntly, it smells like musky hippie perfume that all those Tibetan souvenir shops always sell in one form or another. I know, not the most glowing description ever written, but I freaking love that hippie perfume. It’s slightly sweet and smoky, with perfume notes that evoke ancient biblical spices. Frankincense? Myrrh perhaps? I cannot for the life of me put my finger on it, but I am so intoxicated by the smell.
The large, long and lightly twisted leaves are dotted with coriander, and if you can look hard enough, you can see tiny dried elderberries hiding out, same color as the leaves. I gongfu’ed this tea and was delighted by the changes in flavor profile each infusion brought to the table. The new copper penny colored brew presented different combinations each time I steeped it. The first steeping I smelled a scrumptiously peppery aroma. I tasted the peppered aroma on my tongue, as well as that hippie perfumery.
The woody notes transitioned me into the next infusion, where I got a slight lavender essence, and upon smelling the top notes, I found a warm welcome of bread and malt notes. The smoke was an afterthought, until the third time around. I half wondered if there would be any smoke to it at all. But it came out to shine in the third round. It was as if someone had just blown out a match. Not so sting to turn you off anything smoked for the rest of your life, but just a hint so that I could taste the other fascinating notes. This time I got a vanilla orange spice to compliment the hint of smoke.
Sipping and enjoying this tea sent me on a sensory overload trip. I was transported to a different time and place. I know that most people upon hearing the word ‘perfume’ being used to describe tea will most definitely run for the hills. But there is so much more to this brew than the hippie cologne. Each time I took the kettle and dowsed the tea, it showed me a different card hidden in it’s sleeves. If I had brewed it any longer, it may have tried to pull a rabbit our of my cup. This is truly a strange brew.
Yu Lu Yan Cha Black Tea from Verdant Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Tea Description:
In 2012, we were pleased to offer the very first experimental harvest of this incredible, innovative tea from Wang Yanxin. Her first experiment yielded a completely new kind of black tea that combined the best chocolatey notes of Laoshan Black with the crisp texture and honey aftertaste of Jin Jun Mei. Last Spring, Wang Yanxin and her friends in Xinyang and Laoshan outdid themselves with the newest harvest, and we’re honored and privileged to bring in Yu Lu Yan Cha for the 2014 Autumn Season.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Oh. My. Goodness. The aroma of this Yu Lu Yan Cha Black Tea from Verdant Tea is ahh-mazing! The scent wafting out of my teacup in front of me smells sweet and chocolaty. Like dark chocolate – rich and decadent. My mouth is watering as I’m waiting for the tea to cool so I can start drinking!
To brew this tea, I used my Kati Tumbler, measuring 1 bamboo scoop into the basket and pouring 12 ounces of boiling water into the tumbler. I let the tea steep for 3 minutes.
Oh, chocolate-y bliss! This is such a delightful tea. The chocolate melds with notes of malt, and the malty notes add just a hint of caramel-y sweetness to the chocolate. So indulgent!
Beneath the top notes of chocolate, I taste notes of sweet potato and cream! It makes me think of mashed sweet potatoes that have been whipped with butter. A hint of vanilla in the distance.
As the tea cools a little more, I am picking up on notes of orange toward the tail. It’s a little brightness and a hint of sweet tangy flavor that is quite welcome after the rich flavors of chocolate, malt, sweet potato and vanilla.
The description from Verdant Tea suggests some Darjeeling-esque vegetal tones but I didn’t really pick up on those. Perhaps I was too enamored with the chocolate notes to notice. There was also a suggestion of honey in the flavor and I guess I do pick up on that, but it’s layered with the chocolate and becomes almost seamless with that flavor that it’s difficult to pick out on it’s own.
This is a spectacular tea – if you’re a lover of rich, chocolaty black teas, this is one you should add to your collection!
Earl Grey Black Tea from Verdant Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black & Oolong
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Tea Description:
We start with our most popular tea, Laoshan Black for a chocolatey base, and build a crisp flavor with Yu Lu Yan Cha and a long sweet aftertaste with roasted Wuyi Oolong from the Li family. We accent the sweet richness of the teas and meld them together with a touch of vanilla, and finish with the fine organic bergamot oil. The result is decadent, creamy, rich and subtle.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This is one of the more unique Earl Grey tea blends that I’ve tried, and it comes as no surprise that this blend should come from Verdant Tea – because they always seem to take a very unique approach when it comes to classic tea flavors like Earl Grey.
That’s one of the things I absolutely love about this company – this is a company of artists! They think outside the box when it comes to traditional favorites. Sure, they could have taken one of their superior black teas and added bergamot oil and said, “there you have our Earl Grey.” But, they didn’t stop with just one of their superior black teas, they chose two – their Laoshan Black and their Yu Lu Yan Cha – and then they added their Wuyi Oolong just to kick it up a notch (or two!)
Wait a second. Oolong and Black tea? OK … so since Wuyi Oolong tends to be a darker Oolong, I went with 195°F and 3 minute steep time for the first infusion.
The dry leaf smells amazing. The bergamot notes are strong, but I can also detect those sweet notes of vanilla in there too. And then I smelled the chocolate-y notes of the Laoshan Black. These chocolate-y notes were very THERE as the tea steeped. My mouth was watering from the aroma that filled my kitchen.
The brewed liquid – surprisingly – smells more of the Laoshan Black tea than it does bergamot. I was a little worried … but just a little, because this is Verdant Tea, after all, and I hoped they wouldn’t disappoint me.
When the tea is very hot, the Laoshan Black tea is a very dominate flavor. After allowing the tea to cool to a drinkable temperature, though, the other flavors began to emerge.
Oh my! This is lovely! The Laoshan Black tea with its distinct chocolate-y flavors remains a dominate flavor profile in each sip. (Yeah, that means I get chocolate happiness with every sip!) And I like the way this tea melds with the flavors of bergamot and vanilla.
The vanilla tones are subtle at first, but as I near mid-cup, the vanilla flavors are developing. It’s creamy and sweet, but unlike some of the Earl Grey Creme teas that I’ve tried, it’s not a dominate flavor. It doesn’t “soften” the bergamot, it complements the flavor profiles of the Laoshan Black and the Yu Lu Yan Cha Black teas, encouraging those chocolate-y and malty notes to come forward.
The Yu Lu Yan Cha Black is a tea that I will be reviewing at a later date. I was actually going to be writing that review now, but, when I went to the Verdant Website, I noticed that the Yu Lu Yan Cha Black is currently out of stock and the Earl Grey was still in stock, but in very low quantities. (In other words, if this tea interests you, you should go forth and buy it now before it sells out.)
The Wuyi Oolong offers a very soft toasty, nutty note that offers a very harmonious flavor that marries perfectly with the chocolate and malt notes of the black teas. It also offers a nice – almost buttery – texture the cup that melds nicely with the creamy notes of the vanilla.
The second infusion is as delightful as the first – although it is a little different from the first cup. Most notably, the Laoshan black tea has mellowed a little, allowing the other flavors some “play time.” This cup is smoother and creamier than the first. I’m tasting a sweet potato note as well as notes of fruit from the Oolong. I am not tasting much from the bergamot nor the vanilla, but this is still a very tasty cup of tea!
As lovely as this tea is, I have to admit that the bergamot flavor is not as strong as I would like it to be. I like a bright, bold bergamot note and that is something that I’m just not getting here. I do get a nice tangy tingle of bergamot in the aftertaste and this flavor dances on the palate long after the sip. I like that … but I do find myself wishing that there was more of that tangy bergamot during the sip to contrast with the sweet chocolate-y flavors of the Laoshan Black, the hints of toasty flavor from the Wuyi Oolong and the malty, sweet notes of the Yu Lu Yan Cha Black.
That said, I really enjoyed this blend and it’s a tea that I’d be happy to drink any time. It’s a really delicious tea with lots of layers of flavors to discover.