I fully understand and appreciate the fealty to a brand or merchant. I think it is a natural human reaction since they have always come through for us before and there is nothing wrong with that. Verdant is all Chinese teas and that is not a bad thing. China is the birthplace and capital city of tea. Keemun is produced in the Qimun county in Anhui. India has, thanks to the British literally smuggling plants out of China, become another good producer of fine tea. There are other producing nations but those two are the heavyweights. Assam is a region known for black teas with a deep red hue, malty character and no astringency. I buy a couple of varieties from a local Indian market which is a good cheap staple tea. I am however particularly fond of two varieties sold by Upton Tea.
https://www.uptontea.com/assam-tea/a...-tea/p/V00043/
The other they seem to have sold out of and it has been replaced by a newer batch which I have not tried. It was a single estate tea (Mokalbari) and that is the tricky part with those. One batch from an estate may be the best tea ever produced and the next may be hog water
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Blends are more consistent but they lack a defining characteristic.
I have never bought from verdant so I am not familiar with their tea personally but they do have some keemun.
https://verdanttea.com/tea/by-farmer...mily-qimen-tea
Upton tea also has some good selections of keemun and the Republic Of Tea blend is always good as well.
https://www.republicoftea.com/keemun...-tea/p/v10007/
Those would be
some of my recommendations. My advice is usually be adventurous; buy small quantities of new things then buy in bulk the ones you like. That way if you don't like one it's the loss of a small amount of money and one lack luster cup of tea. One bad cup won't kill you but one really good one will open new horizons.
Edit: oh yeah. I have never been really versed on nor a proponent of the terms describing tea (i.e. notes of cedar, apricot, old tennis shoe or whatever ) as those terms are so subjective and the teas never really taste
like those things to me. But, I guess if you are trying to relate flavors that's the closest you can get so...:shrug:... whatever.
That said keemun teas are described as "winey," not to be confused with "whiney," or sometimes as "burgundy-ish." It is used in a lot of breakfast tea blends as is Assam.