This was my favorite of the three. The dry leaves have a strong jasmine smell, I wonder if this tea is jasmine flavored rather than jasmine scented.
I started out with a gongfu session on this tea starting at 175 °F for five seconds which was not particularly flavorful so for my second infusion I brewed at 175 °F for thirty seconds and each subsequent infusion I added five degrees and fifteen seconds. While this tea did not last as long as the other two (only twelve infusions), it was rather nice. The jasmine aroma on this was quite pungent, but it does not linger that long. There was a nice vanilla element to the taste as well as lemon.
I also brewed it 175 °F for two and a half minutes which made a much more effervescent tea. This time the jasmine scent was not as strong and there was a distinct vanilla scent to it. The taste was considerably better than any I had during my gongfu session with it. I tasted jasmine, vanilla, pine and blackberry, the later of two were completely absent from previous session. I rather enjoy this tea and prefer not gongfu brewing since I found such complexity in it when I steep it for longer times. I am not sure if I would purchase this tea again, even though it was pretty much perfect, because it is quite similar to an oolong at my local
faux-Victorian tea house for considerably cheaper.
The Bai Mu Dan was quite interesting for a white tea, as I said before I am not overly fond of white teas, my comfort zone is greens to greener oolongs. Nevertheless this is a very visually beautiful tea and it brews quite nicely as well. For my gongfu session with this tea I began at 175°F for thirty seconds and in subsequent infusions I added two degrees every other infusion and fifteen seconds. This tea stayed creamy till about the eleventh infusion and there was a surprising peppery note. While this tea has a strong floral aroma it was rather subtle, I couldn’t identify the scent till the end, it was eucalyptus. I always fond Verdant’s notes on their teas to be slightly exaggerated, but I was quite surprised to find it was fairly accurate.
I did brew this at 175°F for two minutes and found that I enjoyed it more (which could be because I don’t have a strong enough palate for white teas). The Bai Mu Dan had a creamier taste because of the longer brew as well as slight lime after taste that I didn’t get before. As for the aroma, it was quite sweeter and more pronounced then before and there was a dry hay scent.
I rather enjoyed this tea, perhaps because some of the leaves look closer to green tea leaves then a white, but I found this to be incredibly balanced and I could not overbrew it.
I received my
Verdant Tea of the Month club package on Saturday and I was considerably more impressed with this month’s then I was with the last.
The Dragonwell was the weakest of the three teas ironic considering I am not fond of white teas. Regardless I found the dragonwell to be interesting, but somewhere in the middle of the Dragonwell spectrum. Verdant does not have a recommended western brewing instruction on this tea, which piqued my curiosity. Rather than my normal gongfu session for new teas I decided to skip it and go straight to my default western brewing. I steeped the tea for two minutes at 175 °F for two minutes and for the subsequent infusion 185 °F for three minutes. The tea from both infusions had the normal seaweed taste from Dragonwell that has been steeped long, but it was lacking anything else. So I decided to have short gongfu session with it (like I should have done from the start).
I started at 167°F for thirty seconds and every subsequent infusion I added 2-5°F and ten seconds. This time the tea was completely different. I tasted lightly roasted chestnuts, a little buttery, cucumber and something similar to grape leaves. It had a buttery smell that became sweeter and citrusy as I went on. Overall it wasn’t a bad Dragonwell, but it was not as complex as I would have liked.
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