Golden Moon Tea

Received this is a swap with Alphakitty last month. I’ve been saving this for when I can taste things fully again since my last allergy appointment. It’d seem wasteful to have a cup if I couldn’t get the full experience…

Brewed up a heaping 1.5 tsp in 8 ounces of water.

This turned out to be pretty tasty as a basic black tea. I liked that it wasn’t weak – there was a nice robustness to it. Didn’t get any fruitiness, at least from what I could tell. It did taste nice and round, if that makes any sense… No bitterness even with a 5 minute steep.

It wasn’t any better with the addition of rock sugar and I wasn’t about to put any creamer into it. I’m not sure if it would have tasted any better cooled, which is sayin’ something – I drank it pretty quick hot! :)

I’d definitely drink this again should the opportunity present itself.

Thank you for sharing this with me… Azzrian?
I try, but I am terrible at keeping my sample piles separate. Not enough room and somehow they get all mixed up! ack!
Anyhow, this was a lovely tea. Similar to a rose congou, but the base is a bit different. Not as harsh I’d say. In fact, I found it rather smooth. and very rosy. More than I was expecting.
This I think, is the most memorable rose tea I’ve tried.
There are so many rose teas in my tasting history by now that they are more or less all the same. If I did a side by side comparison, I’m sure I could find differences but they are pretty miniscule.
I’d like to see a variation of a rose tea one day. Chocolate rose maybe? oooh, perhaps this is a mixing opp! :P
Rating: 86

Last month Amanda sent me a sample of this and I ended up really liking it – so much that I broke down and bought a half a pound of this offering from Golden Moon. Took advantage of a free shipping promo so I could justify it’s purchase! :) I really love that there isn’t any pepper in this blend, but it’s rather cinnamony and spicy from the cloves and cardamon.

So this time I prepared it as a concentrated chai syrup so that I can just add it to milk when the mood strikes. Here’s what I did:

Brought 2 cups of water and 1 1/3 cup of sweetener to a rolling boil in a saucepan. Let it boil for about 3 minutes to let the sugar & rock sugar combination fully dissolve. Then I added 6 tablespoons of the Kashmiri chai dry leaf, letting it steep for 5 minutes. Strained the leaf from the concentrate and let cool in a swing top glass bottle. When cool, refrigerate.

Now I can have a delicious iced chai latte with a fraction of the work!

Thank you Amanda for swapping this sample out!

I’m very cautious of chai in general. I like the warmth that it can give you, but not necessarily the spiciness. It’s the only tea blend that I religiously check the list of ingredients before swapping/ordering. If it has pepper in it, it’s a deal-breaker.

There is a certain tea vendor’s chai that I really used to like and it had pepper in it, but it was the very last ingredient. Then for some ungodly reason, when I went to reorder the blend a year later, the company changed up the ingredient list and pepper was listed at least 4 ingredients higher. Oh and did I mention when I went to reorder, I bought a POUND of it? So now I’m stuck with lots, and lots of a chai that I no longer like. Ugh! And I’m oh-so-slowly getting rid of it by mixing it with a similar but unpeppered chai. (If you want a coconut chai, PM me and I’ll send you some – probably even more than you’d want!)

Anyway, THIS tea – I was very excited by just smelling it! It’s warm and cozy like my favorite scarf and sweater on a Fall-ish day. I put the sample away, but its been calling out to me for a few days now.

I wish I could share the brewing parameters, but quite honestly I didn’t measure the milk & water. All I can say is that I used 3 grams of tea and 4 tsp of rock sugar. The rest was left to chance. I did brew it in milk first for 3 minutes. Then brewed the leaves again in maybe a third cup of water for another 3 minutes. Having done that, I’m quite happy with the way this turned out! It’s delicious – I really like the way the cinnamon, clove and cardamon mingle in this offering. It really doesn’t taste spicy, but more reminds me of a biscuit or cookie.

It’s going on my shopping list! Thanks Amanda for the sample and saving me from another potential chai-tastrophe!

I haven’t slept at all. Just when I thought I was going to get some sleep, one of the two female test drivers in Formula 1 was in a freak accident, the car hit the transport truck while she was driving. And a witness said the helmet took the brunt of the impact, ambulance services say life-threatening injuries and I am trying to keep myself calm by drinking this but it just feels like it’s going to come back up.

I’m not really religious but if you are, please say a prayer for Maria de Villota, or at least keep her in your thoughts that she will be okay. All I can think about is how Dan Wheldon died in a freak accident last year and I’m just terrified.

The tea though, it’s helped ease things a bit. At this point it’s just something to comfort my nerves, but it’s pretty good anyway. I’ve never been much of a Ceylon fan but I could see myself drinking this every so often. Its smooth, there’s a little bit of a honey taste, but it just doesn’t stand out like other black teas do. But when you need tea for the sake of tea, this is a real winner.

I bought a couple of samples of this when I placed my first Golden Moon order a little over a week ago. Never having tried it before, I didn’t know if I wanted a tin of this hanging around.

In anticipation of my order arriving I was reading up on the teas that would eventually find their way to my front door. I found a recipe for tea eggs using Lapsang Souchong ( http://steepster.com/discuss/14-cooking-w-slash-tea?page=5 ) and knew I had to try it as soon as the tea order arrived.

I tore into the small sample package and scooped out the tablespoon’s worth of tea. Regret of not buying a full tin washed over me – this is deliciously smokey; as in bacony and barbecue-y.

High hopes for the tea eggs were in order. 6 hours later, I tried the first one. The egg had a slight smokiness to it! YUM! I could see myself going through the trouble of using tea eggs as smoked deviled eggs sometime.

I have to try the other sample of this properly, as a beverage. Regardless of whether or not I like drinking it, I’ll probably acquire a tin of this if nothing more than to cook with!

Finally back to tea! My mom came to visit this weekend and she loved the iced Rainbow Sherbet tea so that was pretty much all we drank when at my apartment! I have so many samples and things I need to try, and it should finally cool off for a little bit. I’ve got my patio door open right now and it’s so nice. I’m hoping it’ll rain soon. I just planted some flowers and herbs out there and I’m really excited about them.

I got my mom to order Golden Moon’s black tea sampler and split it with me…hoping maybe if I leave her with enough tea she will drink it on her own. I took this and the French Breakfast hoping she might like Darjeeling as much as me. I’ve always wanted to try this tea so I’m so happy to finally have it.

In the bag, it smells like molasses, but steeped it takes on more of a honey scent. I let it steep about a minute longer than intended but no harm done. Tastes sweet, and I even get notes that remind me of Darjeeling but in a richer black tea. In fact it just tastes really sweet, I can’t even imagine adding sugar on top of it. It tastes perfect as it is!

The aftertaste reminds me of my orange blossom honey. I am really getting citrus from this rather than berry.

Since I have some milk, I added it and it really cut all the flavors out, so I had to add the sugar. Now it is definitely reminiscent of caramel and I do get a bit of berry. I definitely prefer it without the additions though.

Missy got her gaiwan for Mother’s day today, so we thought we would give this another try. Maybe our gringo brewing just didn’t do it justice?

Nope. Still not tasty. I’m going to go ahead and chalk this up as a ‘I don’t like Sencha’ party, and never try it again. At least, not anytime in the near future.

Ho hum. I don’t know if I’m a green tea fan, really. Or maybe I’m just not an unflavored green tea fan.

I don’t quite feel fair giving this one a number (thought really, I’d probably put it in the mid-60s, and that’s higher than its average at the moment).

Mainly, my experience with green teas that aren’t flavored or uber sweetened is minimal. I like having… mint, vanilla, jasmine, something in there with the green tea, and that really seems to tie up the package nicely for me.

This? It’s very vegetal, with some sweetness to it. The smell is truly reminiscent of dinner vegetables, and I’d place the flavor somewhere near cabbage. But tasty cabbage. An earthy, mealy, wholesome kind of vegetable flavor. It’s not bad, it’s just not desirable, if that makes any sense whatsoever. Oh man, but don’t let it get cold. Blech.

And it could very easily be that I’ve been ruined by my love of genmaicha. I taste this, and I feel myself thinking “Hey, you know what would spruce this up some? Toasted Rice!”.

Steeped as instructed – love sandalwood so much. This was just NOT okay.
Bitter astringent – wonder what I did wrong. It seems like the flavors were there … but I fear I messed it up somehow. I mean I could taste the POTENTIAL … hummm

I messed this one up - forgot how chintzy the Golden Moon sample packets were and did one cup’s worth of dry leaf in a two-cup pot before I caught my goof. Therefore, what I got was ultra-light with a little hint of grassy sweetness instead of the mellow, pineappley vibe the description teases me with. Pooh.

Golden Moon, be proud of your tea, yes, but put enough in your samples I can actually decide whether I like them or not! (Thank you for the opportunity to comment.)

Intense Jasmine fragrance. Surprisingly, it doesn’t overwhelm the green tea underlying it. The two combine very well. The tea is light, fragrant without being overwhelming and does not have any sort of “chemical” harshness that I’ve detected in lesser Jasmine Tea’s (from artificial flavoring??). 3 minutes @ 200deg

Inspired by a Steepsterite who recently posted about Earl Grey Lemonade (but I don’t remember who!), I made a mug of this and mixed it into the last cup of or so that was left in my jug of “Santa Cruz Organic” Lemonade. It is chilling now, I’ll probably try it tomorrow. :-)

A bit perfumey for me, and seems high in caffeine. Yet despite this, it seems a bit “thin” in body, even with the addition of milk & a touch of vanilla honey. Maybe I will give it another minute next time. I’m not sold on it yet. Maybe I’ve lost my taste for Earl Greys. I usually feel like I’d rather be drinking Paris.

Of the very few Golden Moon teas I’ve tried, this is the first one I’ve tried that I’m truly enthusiastic about. I’m definitely getting the molasses undertone referred to in the product description, especially after it cooled. This one, I think, will be versatile enough to ice down when it’s hot outside and coddle with a little milk when it’s cold outside.

Hummm….Perhaps I’m just not a Ceylon fan. Today was the second time I had this tea. I can’t remember if I added anything to it the first time but I remember a very bright tea flavor but I just wasn’t wowed. This time I thought I used plenty of leaf, but after adding some milk it just seemed completely overpowered. Too mild for a breakfast tea for me – and I can just imagine hubby complaining about it being tasteless. Could be an afternoon tea, but I just have so many more better options than this for the few times I manage to get in an afternoon cup of tea.

Another entry in the Golden Moon Single-Leaf Club. It is my first white tea so I would not even attempt to rate it. The leaves are quite large. I followed the recommended steeping time and temperature.

I normally drink breakfast teas, heavy on the single-estate top grade Assams so this is quite different than those. Very vegetal – can’t say if it is leeks or not, but vegetal. The flavor lingers long after drinking it. I know white teas are supposed to be sweet, but I am not really picking this up at all, perhaps because it doesn’t compare to the honey or molasses of the assams.

Interesting. I can see why some might like it. Not quite my cup of tea. Now I’m really looking forward to the Golden Bi Lo……