Golden Moon Tea

Sampler grab bag today. Did not care for this tea. I don’t know exactly what the turn off was, it just didn’t work for me. The smell of the dry tea was excellent, nice toasty coconut. The brewed tea didn’t seem to have any coconut smell, but a nice green tea smell. The tea tasted of green grass and raw coconut. I was expecting a nice and nutty toasted coconut, so it was disappointing.

I am not an Earl Grey person. Never have been. I brewed this tea because it was part of the sampler and I wanted to give it a chance. But I will not rate this tea because I have no understanding of Earl Grey teas – beyond the fact that I usually don’t like them.

HOWEVER, I will say that this tea smells heavenly, and that it was even sort of pleasant.
And I did finish the cup – which is saying a lot for a non-Early Grey person

Ummm this smells reaaaaaly smoked. Idk. Not so optimistic about liking this one. But worth a try. My first smoked tea.

Don’t like this smell and I so don’t wanna try it. Takes a deep breath.
OK well it’s more drinkable than pu-erh. Tastes smoked which is weird – but better than it smells. But I must say id rather eat smoked cheese which this reminds me of than drink this tea.

Wouldn’t buy it. Smoked goes better with food… Imho.
Seeing that it has good ratings from the pro tasters here ;) I will skip mine.

I guess this is a love it or hate it kind of tea…

When I bought a tin of this tea at The Fresh Market, I had forgotten that I had tried a sample once before. My initial reaction to it was that it was a bit strong for my liking since I don’t add milk or sugar, but it was good.

But today was tea party day! It used to be Wednesday afternoons but we have switched to Monday lunches for the past six months or so. Today I served chicken salad sandwiches. I tried to copycat the Honey Nut chicken salad from Sprouts. I used oven roasted chicken breast with poultry seasoning, shallot salt, garlic salt, pepper, mayo, a hint of mustard, honey, Craisins sliced in half, sliced almonds chopped medium fine, and chopped pecans. Dessert was a Chocolate Marscapone Tart that youngest made. This tea….HIT THE SPOT. The tart was rich and chocolate-y and I expect not many teas could have stood with it, but this tea did it with no problem. The flavor was dark and rich and cut right through the tart and asserted itself in the best way.

I GOT A NEW TEAPOT! Thank you, Sandy! It came all the way from New Zealand and arrived in perfect condition. It is red, holds one litre, and has a nice big infuser. I wanted to celebrate the new pot by making a BIG pot of something.

I chose a tea JacquelineM sent to me. There was enough for a whole litre! I drank it with my student, her mom, and her little tiny sister and we all enjoyed it very much! Lovely vanilla flavor. Thank you, Jacqueline! This was a nice treat for all of us!

FRUIT LOOOOOOOPS!!!!!!!!! That is exactly what this tea smells and tastes like (IMO). I found an Earl Grey that I like! Thanks LiberTeas!

In advance I’m just sayin Lord help me! :)
Pure Jasmine tea is always a danger for me.
But lets go open the bag…
Haha while cutting the bag open i cut my finger with scissors. Thats soooo not a good start :)
Smells like jasmine – for me ewwwy…
Tastes not so bad. Somewhere in between of good and bad. Jasmine flawor is quite strong but green tea flavor is there too. The black vanilla jasmine was bit better tho. Better combo.
Am not rating it again. It would be round 50ish if i did… Wouldnt buy it.

Updating: new review at http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/1665/tea-review-golden-moon-tea-english-breakfast/. (If you’ve ever been to Branson, Missouri from October to December you’ll get the reference…I hope….)

I have a longer review ready for itsallabouttheleaf.com, but this one disappointed me a little. It’s good tea—nothing I’ve tried from Golden Moon is less than excellent quality—but seemed a little too nondescript for a breakfast tea.

It suited me today. In that jasmine/weird way :)

OK, so it has that jasmine smell i kinda hate in tea. So far I either hated or loved jasmine flavored teas. Just something about jasmine and me. Hope it’ll be on the good side but I honestly doubt it. I hate the smell of this tea…
OK I don’t hate it. I love the initial taste in my mouth but I slightly dislike the aftertaste. It’s very subjective tho so i wont rate it. Tastes like good tea but there is an issue of jasmine aroma for me :) But I’d even rate it on the good side…
And yeah all the aromas – jasmine, vanilla and black tea blend in quite nicely.

Chocolate, rasberries, and, fleetingly, some melon…thats what I smelled when I opened the sample envelope. A few minutes later, all I could smell was chocolate and rasberries, so I wasn’t holding out much hope for melon. I was a bit surprised though, the brewed tea has nothing of chocolate or rasberries, but a clear melon taste and a good melon smell. A very light tea, as you’d expect from a white base, even with 4 minutes of steeping. This one delivers what the name implies.

I’m taking abuse in defense of tea! I opened the Golden Moon Lapsang Souchong sampler this rainy, dreary morning. I couldn’t imagine a better type of day to “get this one out of the way”. Opening the package brought back the smells of camping with the Boy Scouts in the East Texas Piney Woods…and abuse from my office mates for stinking the place up! I make no pretense, I don’t like smokey teas; I expected this tea sample to be a trial. So now I’m eating smokey humble pie. This tea is much better than anticipated…the smell is worse than its bite! I’ve adjusted though…no breathing in when taking a sip. The tea is mild and carries the smoke lightly and well, but thats about all I can say. I don’t get much in the way of nuances from the tea itself. Campfire tea!

This is so much more mellow than I remember which is awesome.
Subtlety sweet as long as you don’t add sugar.
I’m not getting any tea under the flavor though… :(

My first Pu-erh! I was looking forward to this one coming out of the grab bag (ok, I helped it…). I had no idea what to expect. The leaves were ugly, that’s the only description that comes to mind. I followed the directions, 3minutes with boiling water. I got the darkest tea I’ve seen, excepting the obvious brewing mistakes. It was very smooth, earthy, woodsy. Had a bit of weight to it in the mouth, almost like coffee. It is not a tea I would describe as “bright and sparkly” in the cup. I don’t know if I liked it. I didn’t dislike it…I need to do more pu-erh’s. different, definetly different.

I’m in the mood for a chai, but I’m not sure if that’s because I knew this was one of my last two Golden Moon sampler packets. The dry leaf smells really good, plenty of warm spice – and with temps here now in the low 70’s compared to the high 90’s of just a few days ago, it almost feels like I need some inner warming.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a chai without milk or cream and sugar, but for the sake of being anal about these tasting notes, I’ll have at least a sip of it as is. Good thing! After five minutes in just-boiled water, it’s not near strong enough for my taste. Back in the pot with you! A few minutes later I check on it again and it’s much better, though still somewhat meek. Time for the additives.

Now I’m feeling sorry for this tea! I really think it has the potential to be good, but I don’t think I handled the steep very well. Next time I’ll stick to simmering the tea in milk for a good long time to get all the flavors out, as I’m finding this just too weak. I’ll leave off rating it until we meet again.

GM Sampler #1. got this from the GM sampler on “Select” last week (or so) and this is the first out of the grab bag. I used the whole sample in a large mesh ball, boiling water and about 1 minute steeping. The dry leaves had a pearish smell, sort of like dried pears. The brew is light red/brown, plenty so given the short steeping time. The taste is, as I read someplace, all the flavor of honey without any of the sweet. Not something about which I am particularly enthusiastic. There is a definite pear flavor, again missing the sweetness that should accompany the flavor. Not quite a medicinal flavor, but it could go that way in a hurry. I’ll give this another try tomorrow, perhaps with some sugar, although I suspect that would make it worse, and as an iced tea…where I suspect it could be good.
Edit: Next day…I left the leaves overnight, intending to brew them again this morning to take as iced tea, to work. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it…you know that comment about the medicinal tincture? Well, they went there overnight in a BIG way. Chemical, medicinal, artificial in some way bad. Tossed them and thats that.

This one is really making me question my understanding of Oolongs. The dry leaf smells innocuous enough, and the liquor is an unassuming clear medium-brown. Surprises await though, first in the scent. I’m getting a mix of, strangely enough, popcorn and mulch in this one; could that be right? The first sip confirms it. I’ve never had anything quite like it, and can’t figure out if it’s just an acquired taste that I haven’t yet acquired, or if there’s something amiss with this particular batch. After a few sips, the aftertaste is particularly unpleasant, so I don’t think I’ll be finishing this one off. Too bad! I’m going to leave off rating this one, as I really think it could be an off batch.

This tea has terrified me since I 1st heard about it, but I decided to try this Fri. afternoon after getting into Seattle since it was only $2 and the profits of the coffee shop go to support New Horizons Ministry.

16oz of unknown temp/1 bag (bag?!) for approx 5min. Clean

Very light chai, but it was balanced by the light dirt like flavor of the shu base. I did not hate it- in fact, when I get my sampler I wanna try this w/ milk.

Backlogging a good balanced vanilla mint tea that is sweet without overpowering and the green was decent to. This was pretty good.