Verdant Tea

Six kinds of tea & Six passionate growers- these are the iconic classics that represent what we and our partner growers stand for: true sustainability, transparency, and the taste and aroma that come from the impeccable terroir and craft of the best growers in China.

This tasting kit combines teas from six of our partners, spanning growing regions across China and representing six different styles of tea including one green oolong tea, one Wuyi black tea, one Anxi oolong tea, one Wudongshan Dancong oolong tea, one white tea, and one Yunnan sheng pu'er tea. Each tea is sourced directly from the people who grow and finish the teas themselves, for a representative and unblended taste of each family and craftperson's terroir and unique point of view.

Thank you for supporting Verdant Tea's project to connect tea lovers with the real people behind the teas we all love!

This bundle includes six 25g bags of oolong tea for 150g total (30 sessions). Celebrate the stunning, creamy, aromatic fresh autumn harvest from Master Zhang with this new sampler focused on all the very latest oolongs! Zhang Rongde has devoted his life to creating a sustainable biodiverse future for Daping Village, travelling the world to study with master of every tea region and returning to Daping with a vision to bring Tieguanyin and other local varietals to a new level. His tea fields benefit from sweet mountain spring water, ample natural forest cover, rich wildlife and perpetual high mountain mist protecting delicate leaves from the sun.

You’ll be able to taste Master Zhang’s award-winning and standard-setting Tieguanyin, incredible rare varietal oolongs, and experimental finishing styles - all from the fresh 2024 autumn harvest. While Master Zhang brings out different aromatics in every tiny hand-finished batch, this collection will give you a full sense of the regions deep sweet minerality, thick intense backbone, and lingering sweetness.

When it's cold outside, we all need our cozy go-tos. This kit is about holding both hands around a beautiful mug and taking in the steam from some of our favorite teas. Whether you are looking for a gift for someone just getting into tea, or searching for the perfect companion to a good book or movie night, this set delivers. Beautifully glazed and fired in a traditional Longquen celadon kiln, the covered mug is meant to keep your tea warm between sips, and to feel good in the hands. The classic blue-green is a gorgeous contrast to brewed tea. We paired this mug with three of the absolute most classic and famous teas we are lucky enough to bring in: fresh, rolled Tieguanyin oolong with all its creamy saffron orchid notes, true Shi Feng Dragonwell (the iconic Chinese green tea!), and Jin Jun Mei - a stunning black tea made entirely of downy buds.

This stunning, vibrant tea set includes a gaiwan and four tasting cups, all meticulously hand-thrown, carefully air-dried, carved down exquisitely thin, high-fired, glazed and re-fired for an exquisite, fully non-reactive tea set ready for professional tasting. The whole set comes in a travel case so you can take your gallery-level Jingdezhen porcelain on the go!

This extraordinarily-limited set is inspired by the Song Dynasty scholar’s garden pavilion studio: a contemplative space away from the bustle of the house to write poetry, practice calligraphy, and critically, drink tea. Each piece was chosen for their exquisite but unassuming nature - a set of tea ware that puts the tea first, but if you look at and handle each cup, the teapot or the board itself, their beauty shines through. The pot is a special kind of Ru - a tricky, difficult to pull off white glaze. This is not your classic porcelain. Ru has a softness and inner glow that comes through in the light. It feels completely different, but in a subtle and understated way. The cups are fully hand made pieces, thrown by hand and painted by hand to a staggering level of fine detail. The thinness of these pieces piece and what the artists were able to achieve is unreal. Jingdezhen porcelain is on another level. It is no wonder it is the material of choice for professional tasters since the firing temperature means a more perfect vitrification and better reflection of aromatics. Finally, the tea board itself is made with lovely yew wood and a striking aromatic resin. This board smells like a forest when it is hot or covered in tea, bringing a piece of the outdoors to your daily brew. All together, this is a set for truly enjoying every sip.

This set is a celebration of the Aloeswood incense - the cornerstone of Xiang Dao, or Incense Ceremony / Koh-do. Aloeswood has the ability to transport us like no other - an evocative quality that engages the senses and memory, inspiring a sense of place: a deep forest, a summer garden. This quality makes aloeswood perfect for pairing with gongfu tea for a truly contemplative experience. This set includes our three favorite aloeswood blends: Da Xin Tang’s reserve-level Honored Path (a Vietnamese aloeswood), their sweet comforting Cloud Song (a blend of Vietnamese and Singapore incense), and our new custom blend commissioned with Xin Yue workshop (a mix of Hongtu and Qirou aloeswood). Explore all three to compare how different origin and blending techniques can yield stunningly different aroma experiences. All three sets come with incense holders. The Hongtu and Qirou set includes a carved wooden incense holder. All three are wonderful examples of aloeswood incense, only possible to bring in thanks to long cultivated friendships with each workshop.

This special set includes all seven cakes commissioned to celebrate ten years of friendship and partnership with the Qianjiazhai Dongsa Cooperative for 700g of tea in total.

We met Master Zhou and the Li Family of the Dongsa cooperative ten years ago and are blown away by their tea and by their dedication to sustainable stewardship of the wild tea plants in Qianjiazhai. These are some of China's most remote tea mountaintops, where the cooperative carefully foraged from trees that can be over a thousand years old.

This kit shows off their new white tea, their single tree and Zun series sheng pu'er, and a selection of their wild tea ancestor Crassicolumna cakes, all wrapped in our commemorative ten year anniversary paper, with designs commissioned from renowned artist Lisa Nankivil and inspired by each tea. 

Put these teas away in your pu'er cellar and watch them grow in depth and complexity for years to come, or taste through them all now and get to know the wild flavor and powerful cooling aftertaste of China's oldest tea forest.

Bai Mudan, or White Peony tea from the Wu Family represents their most balanced expression of the wild mountain terroir, with both flavorful leaves and tender downy buds for a tea that shows off whiet tea’s iconic sweet smooth texture and a deep wild forest quality. The Wu Family finishes these leaves under a special shaded air circulation process developed by Mr. Wu. This year, they pressed a Dragon Pearl individual steeping size Bai Mudan to protect the leaves even better in transit. Each 25g pack contains four pearls.

This tea is wild-foraged by the Li Family of the Dongsa Cooperative within the Mt Ailao National Forest Preserve. The silvery buds and twisting golden leaves are picked from ancient tea trees between one hundred and eight hundred years old scattered between other evergreens, and wildflowers on the rocky mountainside. This incredibly labor-intensive tea to harvest is actually allowed to sun-roast and oxidize without applying heat in a wok. Because more moisture is retained in the leaf, this black tea is a fantastic candidate for aging like traditional sheng pu’er. Only a high-elevation remote place like Qianjiazhai can count on enough sunlight in the spring for this old but rare finishing technique. The result is a tea with the sweet malt of a black tea but the staggering complexity and herbaceous undertones of a sheng pu’er. The loose Maocha is lightly steamed and then meticulously rolled and shaped one pearl at a time by Master Zhou without the use of molds or machinery to preserve the delicate complexity of the tea.

Jie Feng Studio creates exquisitely soft Ru glaze pottery, full of depth and light crazing. This clever brew mug packs into a protective travel case to bring on trips, take to work, or carry outside to the park. The mug includes a lid and strainer so the tea stays hot while steeping and so that the strainer has a neat place to rest between infusions. The strainer holes are incorporated into the form to avoid the need for a plastic strainer mesh. The gorgeous creamy blue grows deeper over time, contrasting against the crackling as the piece absorbs tea for a beautiful luster. This particularly fine Ru shows off a crystalline depth and subtlety that sets it truly apart.

Sleek, modern and perfectly elegant, this is the ideal mug for da bei brewing. Simply add your favorite tea leaves directly into the cup and top off water throughout the day, letting the leaves sink to the bottom. There is a beautiful lid to keep your tea warm between sips so you can enjoy it while you are reading or relaxing, which also doubles as a rest for your favorite permanent tea filter. Hand-finished and fired in a traditional Longquan kiln, this celadon is highly vitrified like glass, making it a non-reactive material that helps bring out incredible aromatic depth in your tea.

This bundle includes 25g each of six different Wuyi teas for 150g total (30 sessions). 

Wuyishan is perhaps the most famous tea growing region in the world, and our partner Li Xiangxi and her family cultivate their award-winning oolongs in a perfectly-situated gorge along the Longchuan river within the Wuyishan Ecological Preserve, a pristine environmentally-protected region where biodiversity is key, and tea grows alongside wild bamboo, evergreens, and flowers.

Part of that biodiversity is about encouraging not just the widely known varietals like Rou Gui or Qilan to grow, but also making space for more difficult to find varietals not often seen or known outside of Wuyishan. Li Xiangxi believes that each varietal bring its own unique style to the pure expression of Wuyi minerality, and this sampler is a testament to those unique perspectives. Taste through six Wuyi oolong teas - including famous cultivars and less-well-known varietals.

This bundle includes six 25g bags of Wuyi tea for 150g total (30 sessions). This special limited-offering tasting kit is a chance to do a unique taste-off showdown of three of Wuyishan’s most sought after varietals, crafted by the Li family as both oolong and black tea for six unique offerings. The purpose of this kit is to show off the intense influence of craft on finished tea, even when that tea is the same varietal grown by the same family in the same place. Mei Zhan, Bai Rui Xiang and Rou Gui are all famous Wuyi teas traditionally finished as oolongs. Indeed, all three have brought the Li Family best in show awards year after year. Recently, the Li Family has begun to apply their masterful traditional black tea craft to famous "oolong" varietals at the family workshop in Tongmu, yielding exciting new ways to taste and feel the terroir of the region. This kit will let you compare oolong and black tea finishes on the same varietals while these unique limited harvest offerings are available.

This bundle includes four 100g mini cakes for 400 total (80 sessions) Crassicolumna is an ancient, wild near-tea relative to the modern camellia sinensis plant, native to the tea forests of Qianjiazhai deep in the mountains. Naturally caffeine-free, Crassicolumna is packed with captivating deep spiced flavor and texture. It has the complexity of pu’er, but a wild flavor all its own.

The iconic Houkui style, inspired by Taiping Houkui, these leaves are picked from a more remote, pristine and perfect terroir than their famous namesake. This flat pressed style is all about the beauty of the leaves unfolding and the drama of presenting the tea before brewing. Houkui green tea has always been a famous tribute tea, even in modern business gifting or new year gifting since its value is so stunningly apparent even before the first sip.  The finishing style yields a rich brew that almost leans towards the sweet green flavor of a fine Japanese Gyokuro, but with the restraint and minerality that can only come from hand picking in the rocky mountain soil above Guixi.

In every batch of hand-picked tea, some leaves are too large and thin to continue forward in the finishing process. These leaves are normally sorted out and until recently, most farmer families would keep them to drink for themselves. These "Huang Pian" or Golden Leaf batches are tiny, since only a few leaves in every batch come out. In recent years, people in China and around the world have realized what farmers already knew - Huang Pian is delicious! Sought-after as a pu'er, and sometimes a black tea, Huang Pian Oolong is still uncommon, especially in Wuyishan. The Li Family decided to save all of their Rou Gui Huang Pian and carefully carry it throgh the whole oolong process, including yaoqing and a very light and careful roast. The results are juicy, sparkling and delicious. 

This 2023 Zun harvest is offered both dragon pearls (25g bags of 4-5 pearls) and in two pressings: 100g cakes and 357g cakes. This is the Zhenyuan Dongsa Cooperative's "Zun" harvest - a designation chosen by the cooperative that means ‘reverence’ of the ancient Qianjiazhai tea trees themselves. "Zun" also points to human collaboration with a living tree that has existed long before us and - hopefully - will continue to exist for generations to come. The Zun harvest uses the first early spring growth from only the old-growth (500-1000 year) wild trees above the Li Family’s home high in the mountains, and accessible only on foot. The wild nature of this tea’s provenance come through as a flavor texture and aroma experience that is both reverent of its source, and worthy of reverence for its commanding beauty, full of honey sweetness and dried fruit with the support of wild mountain herbs and intense textural depth.

Wild Tongmu Jin Jun Mei is an experience unlike any other black tea. This is a very quiet and very contemplative tasting experience. Li Xiangxi and her family normally only pick this tea by commission because it is so difficult to produce. We were lucky enough to  commission a half kilo of this tea. Li Xiangxi wanted to share this tea because it is the clearest, most perfect expression of the flavor of her family’s mountain plot in Tongmu. It is an unmatched textural experience that evokes the mountain spring water, dramatic rocks, and bamboo forest.

Yang Ji Tian Yuan Workshop is a small producer befriended by Wang Yanxin on her lifelong search to find under-represented labels doing more interesting work than the big brands. Their access to wild arbor old tree leaf material means they can put together truly unique blends. This 250g mini-cake is such a stunning, elegant example of their work, given over fifteen years to age. Notes of licorice, cinnamon, cherry, toasted rye, sandalwood incense, and a velvety cooling aftertaste.

Lacquer arts in China date back over three thousand years to the Shang Dynasty. This spectacular piece draws on ancient tradition, combining lacquer with classic Ru Kiln ceramics. While the oldest lacquer wares are made from turned and carved wood, dipped in countless layers of resin, the problem in bringing this ancient craft into tea culture is lacquer’s dislike of boiling water. Feng Zi Studio takes up the challenge, by making the gaiwan material their stunning Ru, leaving the inside lacquer-free so that the cup can withstand generations of use. The lacquer layer is built up over many applications, creating a soft smooth feeling, and a beautiful contrasting color to the blue Ru glaze. The brilliant maple leaf imprints against deep swirling greens is a nod to the Song Dynasty Jizhou leaf imprint ceramics tradition. All three pieces of the gaiwan feature a lacquer side and Ru side for stunning contrast. The gaiwan shape itself is perfect for any tea and the thick walls keep the brew insulated as it steeps, making your tea more aromatic and rich.

Zhao Yonghui’s fully handmade lucky turtle makes for an auspicious teatime companion. the golden mottled clay is built up with intricate texture through layers to evoke a turtle shell, all in a way that will take on gorgeous deep patina over time.

The Shi Piao is one of the most beloved and most referenced Yixing forms of all. As a meditation on the perfect geometry of triangles within triangles, some shi piao pots can be quite austere, but potter Lai Xiaohong gives this piece a vibrant and organic sensibility with the mottled clay and her playful pot handles. Lai Xiaohong excavates and blends her own clay, yielding yixing pots that grow deeper and more lustrous over years of use.

The famous Shi Piao form typically follows very rigid guidelines, with the geometry of the triangle mirrored through the handle, pot body and feet as a nod to daoist concepts of three representing the universe. This Shi Piao is bold in taking a playful approach with soft, beautiful curves and a delicate flower adorning the top. Award-winning artist Lai Xiaohong is well known for her hand-excavated and blended Di Cao Qing clay: a rich, dense and mottled clay that Lai Xiahong blends from minerals settled in her trough after months of careful aging. With this fine material, the pot will grow deeper and more lustrous with every use.

Lai Xiaohong is well known  for her bird carvings. She has spent decades mastering expressive gestural motion and character in these creatures, which evoke little dragons as much as they do birds. This pot's bird is perched on the rock, watching to see what you will brew. The pot itself is built from Di Cao Qing Ni: a rich, dense and mottled clay that Lai Xiahong blends from minerals settled in her trough after months of careful aging. The fine material will grow deeper and more lustrous with every use, seasoning in contrast with the carved areas. The unique modern pot body and lid show off Lai Xiaohong’s gestural fluid style.

This teapot by award-wining potter Lai Xiahong shows off her beautiful clay: blending golden duan ni with Di Cao Qing to create a shimmering lilypad that adorns the lid. Lai Xiaohong is well known for her hand-excavated and blended Di Cao Qing Ni: a rich, dense and mottled clay that Lai Xiahong blends from material settled in her trough after months of careful aging. The fine material ensures this pot will grow more lustrous with every use.

The Shi Piao is one of the most beloved and most referenced Yixing forms of all. As a meditation on the perfect geometry of triangles within triangles, some shi piao pots can be quite austere, but potter Lai Xiaohong gives this piece a vibrant and organic sensibility with the mottled clay and her playful pot handles. Lai Xiaohong excavates and blends her own clay, yielding yixing pots that grow deeper and more lustrous over years of use.

The famous Shi Piao form typically follows very rigid guidelines, with the geometry of the triangle mirrored through the handle, pot body and feet as a nod to daoist concepts of three representing the universe. This Shi Piao is bold in taking a playful approach with soft, beautiful curves and a delicate flower adorning the top. Award-winning artist Lai Xiaohong is well known for her hand-excavated and blended Di Cao Qing clay: a rich, dense and mottled clay that Lai Xiahong blends from minerals settled in her trough after months of careful aging. With this fine material, the pot will grow deeper and more lustrous with every use.

Lai Xiaohong is well known  for her bird carvings. She has spent decades mastering expressive gestural motion and character in these creatures, which evoke little dragons as much as they do birds. This pot's bird is perched on the rock, watching to see what you will brew. The pot itself is built from Di Cao Qing Ni: a rich, dense and mottled clay that Lai Xiahong blends from minerals settled in her trough after months of careful aging. The fine material will grow deeper and more lustrous with every use, seasoning in contrast with the carved areas. The unique modern pot body and lid show off Lai Xiaohong’s gestural fluid style.

The famous Shi Piao form typically follows very rigid guidelines, with the geometry of the triangle mirrored through the handle, pot body and feet as a nod to daoist concepts of three representing the universe. This Shi Piao is bold in taking a playful approach with soft, gentle curves and a “scholar’s rock” adorning the top. Award-winning artist Lai Xiaohong is famous for her hand-excavated and blended Di Cao Qing Ni: a rich, dense and mottled clay that Lai Xiahong blends from minerals settled in her trough after months of careful aging. This pot will grow even more lustrous with every use.

Artist Lai Xiaohong loves drawing inspiration from nature for her hand-built Yixing tea pots. This piece honors the twists and turns of old gnarled wood, all set against Lai Xiahong’s take on the beloved Shi Piao form pot body. Made with a deep beautiful Zi Ni clay, this pot will grow even more lustrous with each use.

This teapot by award-wining potter Lai Xiahong shows off her beautiful clay: blending golden duan ni with Di Cao Qing to create a shimmering lilypad that adorns the lid. Lai Xiaohong is well known for her hand-excavated and blended Di Cao Qing Ni: a rich, dense and mottled clay that Lai Xiahong blends from material settled in her trough after months of careful aging. The fine material ensures this pot will grow more lustrous with every use.

This teapot by award-wining potter Lai Xiahong shows off her wonderful clay: blending golden duan ni and Di Cao Qing to create shimmering river stones that adorn the lid. Lai Xiaohong is well known for her hand-excavated and blended Di Cao Qing Ni: a rich, dense and mottled clay that Lai Xiahong blends from clay settled in her trough after months of careful aging. The fine material ensures this pieces will grow more lustrous with every use.

For enjoying fine tea on every adventure, from picnics and hikes to road trips, this bright cheery sunflower set is ready to go. Hand-painted sunflowers adorn three cups, and a gaiwan with built-in removable strainer that can rest on the gaiwan lid flipped over between steepings. The set is protected by a tea towel folded between each layer, and nestled into a beautiful carrying case in stitched vegan leather with carrying strap that snaps on and off for easy packing. The porcelain itself is highly-vitrified fine porcelain from the masters at Peng Yuan Qing Hua studio, perfect for reflecting all the nuance and aroma from any tea.

A detailed and expressive baby dragon swirls in the clouds, adorning each piece in this tea set.  Peng Yuan Qing Hua studio shows off their skill with spiraling clouds, tiny dragon scales, and red highlights to complete the dragon motif. This solo tea set includes a small gongfu tea pot and a large tea cup. The high-fired porcelain itself is carefully hand assembled and detailed after forming each shape on a lathe. The vitrified porcelain is perfect for any tea, and brews up a very true aromatic profile. Pair with your favorite pitcher, or pour directly from the small pot into your cup.

We are so excited to finally be representing such a talented family in world-famous Qimen after a ten year search for the right partners. The Cheng family takes their work seriously and the proof is in the tea. Their classic Qimen is packed with sweet, honeyed notes, floral complexity and beautiful malty undertones thanks to the careful picking and slow, small-batch hand-finishing process that Master Cheng uses.

This Fresh Green Tea Bundle includes select reserve-level fresh-picked green teas and  classic spring harvests - 6 different pickings to try in total for 150g of tea or about 30 brewing sessions..

This bundle includes five 25g bags of Laoshan tea for 125g total (25 sessions).

The He Family were some of the first to plant tea in Laoshan, one of China’s newest and northernmost tea growing regions. Laoshan is a mountain village on the ocean, subject to cold winters that give the tea a flavor unlike any other on earth. Mr. He has established a cooperative to promote his award-winning vision for sustainable beyond-organic agriculture and rigorous technically demanding craft.

This collection represents the most classic and iconically representative teas the He Family produces. It is an invitation from Mr. He, Qingqing and the whole family to get to know their passion and their unwavering commitment to make Laoshan one of the most famous tea regions in China. 

While every tea in the collection represents a tremendous diversity of flavor, the whole collection circles around the iconic rich malty soybean profile of the region and the rocky texture of the mountain soil.

The sweet potato is the most iconic fixture of Shandong province, and grows in every family garden in Laoshan village and up the mountainside. For decades, villagers have harvested semi-wild sweet potato from within the Laoshan National Park between rocky outcroppings and gnarled trees. As Laoshan tea becomes more famous and brings a better standard of living to the region, sweet potato has become a less critical crop, but this tea honors the tradition by applying tea finishing technique to foraged sweet potato leaf. This year's Sweet Potato Leaf tea is a collaboration between the whole neighborhood (the He Family District) and the He Famiy's workshop. Working together, several families picked Laoshan sweet potato leaves, then used the He Family's guidance and technique to oxidize the leaves in the sun, wither and roast, similar to black tea processing. This year, the cooperative had to roast the sweet potato leaf five times just to stop oxidation, making this a notably slow and time consuming tea to produce. Only several kilos were made this year, and we are lucky to offer the majority of the harvest while it lasts.

This bright pink herbal tisane is blended with hibiscus, schisandra berry, goji berry, licorice, coriander, strawberry and rose.

Rocking out to your favorite song with the windows down and nobody around to hear. Dressing up in your finest just for fun.

Ultra Pink - ultra bright. This is a no-holds-barred full on berry blend packed with juicy goodness, and a color to match. 

This bundle includes four 100g mini cakes for 400 total (80 sessions) Crassicolumna is an ancient, wild near-tea relative to the modern camellia sinensis plant, native to the tea forests of Qianjiazhai deep in the mountains. Naturally caffeine-free, Crassicolumna is packed with captivating deep spiced flavor and texture. It has the complexity of pu’er, but a wild flavor all its own.

This spiced chai herbal tisane is a blend of cinnamon, ginger, black peppercorn, tulsi, dandelion root, cardamom, goji berry, fennel, elderberry, cacao nibs, burdock, galangal, clove, saffron, vanilla, and hinoki cypress oil.

This is chai spice after a fifth voyage around the world, having picked up inspiration at every stop along the way - finally world-weary and ready to set up as a hermit deep in a Hinoki Cypress forest and enjoy the balance it could only pick up with sixteen ingredients acting together in just the right way.

Brew this on its own, or add your favorite tea - a roasted oolong, like a rich Wuyi oolong, or Laoshan black tea. Give the blend even fuller texture with a touch of honey.