Verdant Tea

This Bundle includes all of our reserve-level fresh-picked green teas - 9 different pickings to try in total for 225g of tea or about 45 brewing sessions. There is nothing out there like stunningly-fresh hyper-seasonal green tea. When Laoshan Pine Needle Green or 1st Picking Dragonwell are finished, they are at their absolute peak of aromatic complexity, textural nuance and sweet aftertaste. This tasting kit sampler is a celebration of that stunning beauty- a once-a-year chance to dive deep into what makes the spring harvest so magical- especially coming from some of the most renowned and award-winning tea farmers in their respective villages. All winter long the He Family’s tea bushes in Laoshan and Li Xiaoping’s tea bushes in Dragonwell are storing up nutrients and sugars to burst forth in vibrant buds come spring. In the early season, these first delicate buds are packed with months worth of the plant’s flavor and intensity. To share this special powerful experience, we reserve all harvests ahead of picking, pack up every bag fresh the moment it is ready in its final packaging to seal in all it's aromatic beauty, and book the fastest (and most expensive) overnight air shipping to get the teas here within weeks of picking. By contrast, typical green tea on the shelves worldwide can be years old. Teas this fresh are something else entirely, and worth tasting at this time of year. All nine teas are equally beautiful brewed hot and cold brewed or flash-chilled for incredible iced tea this summer, and with 225g to taste, you’ll have plenty of tea to explore what makes Laoshan and Shi Feng Dragonwell so incredibly special.

This classic bundled tea + teaware set includes six teas, one travel tea set, and $10 Tea Cash free gift voucher code to use on your next purchase!

This special bundle includes four 25g offerings and a 27g cake of white tea from across China for 127g total (about 25 sessions). China is going through a white tea renaissance of sorts - a pivotal moment in the history of an incredibly unique kind of tea thanks to surging popularity and innovators across the country bringing new techniques together with ancient tradition. On the one hand, old-school white tea craft is all about locking in the freshest most aromatic flavor possible from buddy da bai varietal leaf. On the other hand, modern white tea pioneers are taking that fresh flavor and aging it, pressing it into cakes, and even scenting it or blending it with other ingredients. This tasting kit is a chance to explore both traditional white tea and modern explorations from all across China. You’ll taste the delicate young spring buds of the Wu Family’s wild-arbor groves all the way to Yunnan white tea cakes and white tea jasmine.

This bundled "make your own" chai tea kit includes one 25g bag of chai spice and one 25g bag of loose leaf Laoshan Black tea base. 

To make chai concentrate for quick and easy chai at home, boil 2 cups of filtered water and add 3 tablespoons of chai spice. Simmer for 30 minutes uncovered to reduce the liquid. Add 2 tablespoons of base tea and simmer for 4 minutes. Remove from heat, and allow to sit for eight minutes. Strain, and stir in two and a half tablespoons of honey.

Use immediately, or chill in the refrigerator. You can even freeze ice cubes of chai for spiced cocktails and mocktails!

This special sampler includes four 25g samples from larger  cakes normally unavailable in smaller sizes for 100g total (20 brewing sessions). Get to know both classic and obscure sheng and shu pu'er from workshops all across Yunnan. Exploring the world of pu'er can be difficult if you need to invest in full 357g pressed cakes before getting to try them. This sampler is a chance to try both single origin and blended workshop cakes and get to know what you like most. From cooling, tingling foresty sheng pu'er to cozy rich caramel-spice shu, you'll get to see how much variety there is in pu'er. The cakes sampled are all 'best of their class' examples, some with substantial aging, generally from smaller workshops dedicated to direct farmer partnerships. If you've been looking for a way to get a real deep dive in pu'er, this is it! 

This bundle includes five caffeine-free wild-foraged herbal teas for 125g total. The He Family in Laoshan is bringing green tea craft to wild-foraged caffeine-free herbals picked within the Laoshan Ecological Preserve in extremely limited quantities. This kit is an introduction to the way that tea craft brings nuance, depth and complexity to plants beyond camellia sinensis, and offers satisfying diverse and fully caffeine-free flavors perfect for any time of day. The He Family is dedicated to sustainable agriculture, and meticulous hand-finishing craft in the workshop. This kit is an invitation to see their craft in action, from rich sweet jujube to fruity and creamy huai hua blossoms.

This bundle includes two 25g offerings and one 100g cake of white tea for 150g total (about 30 sessions). The Wu Family has been growing tea for generations, with bushes scattered across the mountainside between groves of bamboo and evergreens. With white tea’s recent surge in popularity, the family is rediscovering groves planted generations ago left for years untended, and picking them without introducing pruning or intervention. The Wu Family's white tea craft is all about non-intervention. There is no firing process, no heat applied at any stage. The fresh buds are rushed into a special drying room with continuous circulation to lock in the fresh vegetal floral complexity you'd get tasting a fresh leaf picked in the field. Mr. Wu combines this commitment to non-intervention with a meticulous background in engineering, crafting special fans to control air circulation and get the freshest most aromatic tea without heat or sun exposure.

This bundle includes four 25g bags and five five gram bags of Anxi oolong tea for 125g total (25 sessions). With one of the highest elevation, most pristine perfectly-situated plots for Tieguanyin in the world, it would make perfect sense for Master Zhang to devote every inch of land to this famous and in-demand varietal. Yet, Master Zhang does the opposite. Over the last decade, he has reclaimed the majority of his Daping mountainside for bamboo, evergreens and wildflowers. The precious rocky terraces he has left, carved into steep hills, he devotes not just to the famous Tieguanyin, but to dozens of rare, unknown varietals.

Master Zhang fosters these tiny groves of rare tea to preserve biodiversity and have a local “seed bank” of sorts, allowing hearty individual tea bushes to grow and thrive in Daping so that other farmers and colleagues could grow new plants from cuttings, and study the way their famous terroir changes with each varietal.

The benefit for all of us is getting to dive deep and experience rare out there flavors, textures and aromas- all unique expressions of Master Zhang’s craft and terroir. Every tea in this kit expresses the "core" sweet minerality of Daping, but from unique and incredible perspectives not often tasted in a region so dedicated to Tieguanyin.

This bundle includes five 25g bags of oolong tea for 125g total (25 sessions). Oolong is the most technically-demanding and time-consuming tea in the world to produce, and our partners take on the challenge relying on their own hands and their senses, not machinery, meaning sleepless nights and 20 hour days in the workshop to finish their tiny micro-batches of varietal-driven oolongs that honor their specific microclimates, from Wudongshan to Daping Village.

This sampler brings together iconic oolong teas from our partners across China to share a glimpse at the magic and complexity that comes out in the long turning and fluffing process that defines oolong teas and gives you a sense of how many styles can exist within this single category, from dark roasts and aged oolong to fresh floral vibrant green oolong.

This bundle includes three 25g bags of aged oolong tea and one 90 gram cake for 165g total (33 sessions).

Taste through the decades with this selection of hand-picked and hand fired oolongs from Master Zhang in Daping Village and the Li Family in Wuyishan. Our partners have opened their reserves of aged oolongs, including selections decades-old. Fine aged oolongs are carefully re-roasted yearly to control for moisture and maintain optimal conditions for flavor texture and aroma to keep building complexity over time. As Zhang Rongde explains, "Tea may be dried, but it is still living inside. In roasting, you need to have experience. You need to understand the tea, the leaves, the fire. Only then can you make good tea."

This sampler shows off how differently teas can age. You can expect a diverse range of flavors, united by an inexplicable depth and commanding texture only possible through perfect finishing and patient aging.

This bundle includes 25g each of five different Wuyi oolong teas for 125g total (25 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 rare and 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 five Wuyi oolong teas - including famous cultivars and less-well-known varietals.

This black tea sampler includes six 25g loose leaf black tea bags picked, finished and packed on small family farms that make some of the best teas in the world, run with the sustainability and beyond-organic practices that can only come from one generation tending land that they will pass down to their children. The rich deep complexity of the finest black teas comes from stringent picking standards for the ideal tender bud and leaf mix, and from slow careful oxidation to bring out more nuance in small batches. This tasting kit is an introduction to the incredible diversity of flavor that our partners offer with their black teas from malty chocolate-driven Laoshan Black from the north of China to traditional and complex Wuyi black teas. Through craft, varietal, and microclimate, our farmer-partners are proud to represent the best that China has to offer.

This special sampler features five 25g bags of golden buddy looseleaf tea. There is nothing like tender downy tea buds, hand-picked in cool early-season weather and hand finished by passionate small family growers. Buds have a unique flavor, and an intense sweetness from the stored sugars and the extremely limited sun exposure. In traditionally crafted black tea this flavor translates to honey, sweet potato, toasty bread, and other rich deep caramelized notes with a thick commanding texture. This tasting kit is an exploration of all the ways buds bring flavor and texture to tea from three different regions and three different farmers dedicated to sustainable farming and meticulous craft.

This bundle includes four 25g bags of Crassicolumna tea for 100g total (20 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 bundle includes six 25g offerings of single-origin tea for 150g total (30 sessions). 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 five different styles of tea including one green tea, one Wuyi tea, one Anxi oolong tea, one Dancong tea, and one pu'er. 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 green tea sampler is an intro to hand-picked, organic cultivation tea from small family farms, including 4 unique fresh seasonal picks. We believe that green tea should be as fresh as possible. That is why we work Mrs. Li in Dragonwell and the He Family in Laoshan to buy before the harvest, seal tea in their final bags within days of picking and rush ship each small batch as they are finished. Our partners work hard to manage biodiverse beyond-organic farms, hand pick their tea and carefully hand-finish in small batches to lock in the rich sweet complexity that fine green tea is known for.

This bundle includes six 25g offerings of single-origin tea for 150g total (30 sessions). 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 five different styles of tea including one green tea, one Wuyi tea, one Anxi oolong tea, one Dancong tea, and one pu'er. 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 four 25g bags of Crassicolumna tea for 100g total (20 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 bundle includes three 25g bags of Qianjiazhai tea and a full 100g cake for 125g total (25 sessions). The Zhenyuan Dongsa Cooperative of Qianjiazhai is a loose-knit coalition of families across the remote mountaintops of China’s oldest tea forests dedicated to sustainable stewardship of the wild tea plants, and careful foraging from trees that can be over a thousand years old.

Master Zhou founded the cooperative to refine the finishing craft and picking techniques across Qianjiazhai and bring more well-deserved respect to one of China’s most important but also most unknown tea regions. This tasting kit is an introduction to the incredible diversity of flavor, texture, aroma and aftertaste that wild-foraging in an ancient tea forest can bring.

In this kit you’ll taste the careful heat-free sun dry craft of Qianjiazhai’s sheng pu’er and the fermentation of their shu pu’er, while also tasting the rare near-tea relative camellia crassicolumna, naturally caffeine-free and incredibly intense and aromatic. This kit is an invitation into a little-seen side of tea and its ancient wild origins.

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. You’ll get to taste Laoshan Green, the first tea they ever mastered, along with newer styles such as the wildly-popular Laoshan Black, the new and exciting Laoshan Green Oolong and Laoshan Roasted Oolong, and even an experimental herbal tea.

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.