Golden Moon Tea

I was in the mood for something oolong so I gave this one a try from my sampler.

The leaves them self have a very nice and pronounced nutty and fruity smell . Resulting infusion is a light golden-yellow liquor that has a nice nutty, fruity and slightly smokey and earthy smell. The taste is quite the same, Mostly nutty with notes of fruitiness and earthiness and also lightly smokey and astringent. I really liked the nutty taste that this tea has and going to be sure get more

I’m drinking it cold now. But it was good warm too. It’s quite gentle. Soothing.
Perfect weekend tea…

This is interesting, but not for me I think. I can smell the sandalwood, and there is an oddly sweet honey aftertaste, but it’s still too bitter in the mouth – too much like a Darjeeling – for me. Milk helps a little, but it still tastes kind of weak and bitter to me at the same time.

If I wanted a smooth honey-like black tea, I’d go for either GM’s Honey Pear or Life in Teacup’s Yunnan Golden Buds over this.

1.6g leaf
4oz boiling water
1st infusion: 3 minutes
2nd infusion: 5 minutes, noticeably weaker

It’s very dark. Smells like earl gray. Imho it’s always a good thing when something smells the way it’s supposed to :)
Tastes quite smooth. Bit bitter. Strong on bergamot. I went for a wake-up tea this morning and i think this could do it.
Not bad…

Mmmmm Chai.

This stuff was just tasty. Made it using the usual stove top method. brought 1 cup of water and 1 T. of sugar to a high boil then added my tea, Reduced the heat to medium and let simmer for about 10 minutes after that I poured some of the tea into 1 cup of milk and stirred it around to raise the temperature a bit so it wouldn’t coagulate on contact with the hot tea. Then I poured the milk into the tea and kept it on medium heat, constantly stirring it to prevent coagulation until it reached a steady low boil. Then I strained it into a warmed teapot. The infusion smelled amazing. Mostly cinnamon smelling with hints of other spices as well. The taste was just as amazing. A nice spiced flavor to it but with hints of the flavor from the tea as well. it’s very equally balanced and very pleasant. Defiantly something I will be getting more of.

Leaves smell nice…
Tea smells like oolong…
Tastes like both and it blends in really nice. I like this one. A good oolong. Sweet and smooth…

I came on here looking forward to clicking the old “Remove from Cupboard”, but apparently never added it in the first place. This is a great tea so it isn’t as if I am glad to see it go. I AM glad to be clearing out some of my oldest teas, and I am happy – no, ECSTATIC, to say that my tea shelves are not looking as messy. A lot of tea is a blessing. Too much tea is a guilt trip. And yes, I have given away tea over and over again! Sometimes by the boxful!

This is heavy on the vanilla and it always tastes a bit like root beer to me, although sometimes I think it is more like cream soda. Make it strong, sweeten and add spoarkling water and you have a lovely summer refresher.

I will rebuy it one day when I have cleared out the cupboard a bit more, probably.

I am adding this to my cupboard, because I received a beautiful washi paper tin of this from JacquelineM last week! EEEEE!

Tea party is always a little…well, probably not what you expect. For example, for reasons that are too involved to explain here, we are required to say “Speaking of naked…” at least once during the conversation. Last week, it was discovered that two people in attendance love Taco Bell, so we agreed to have Taco Bell for the beginning of tea party!

What do you serve with Taco Bell? It is really hot, and I thought, "Perfect! I will serve Vanilla Jasmine iced and lightly sweetened, and it will be like having a root beer, but we still will not have caved and served soda! "

My first student’s mom got to enjoy this tea hot with me while she waited for her daughter.

I iced it for tea time and it was so good! My guest really liked it and said it reminded her of root beer. I have also heard it compared to cream soda. Both are pretty close to the taste you get. This tin will be gone very soon now that we know how good it is iced!

For the inquisitive, you may have the explanation. I lent the movie “St. Yves” to my guest a long time ago. She is retired and she and her husband live alone, but out of habit and as a parent I did warn her that there is a scene with brief nudity but nothing too raunchy. Later in the tea time, she interrupted conversation with, “Speaking of naked….” and proceeded to talk about the movie “The Aviator.” My daughters were so startled to hear her say that, they burst out laughing and couldn’t stop. It is rather unexpected from a dear, sweet, great grandmother! She is anything but grandmotherly though, being a real techno geek who likes to drive FAST!

Thank you, Jacqueline! Everyone who comes to tea at my house regularly feels like they know you already!

It is tea party day! We just did cookie plates – store bought – due to fatigue and being busy, busy. At least they were good cookies, though! Like Raspberry Pim’s.

This was the second tea I served but I am reviewing it first because I think it was my favorite today. My youngest daughter made all the tea as usual, and remarked about the dry leaves smelling just like root beer. That is what I thought of it, too, until someone said it was cream soda that it smelled like. Yes! And the taste is very similar. This is very good tea and went well with our sweets.

I had a nice workout at physical therapy this morning and it is finally turning a wee bit chilly here, though that probably won’t last long. I didn’t have time for brekkie before I went, other than a glass of milk and I was in the mood for something different. For some strange reason, our loaf of bread fell to pieces yesterday when we took it from the pan, but it was DELISH! I cut some cubes of Dubliner cheese, warmed some of the leftover whole wheat buttermilk bread and made a pot of tis to go with it, sans additions. The first time I tried this, I had never had a GOOD jasmine tea, only bad ones. Now that I have had some really good ones, I can enjoy this one more because I know how to better isolate the vanilla and jasmine flavors. This is lovely, and I feel so blessed to be here sharing tea with my girlies on this rainy morning. Thank you to JacquelineM who sent me this tea!

Sandy’s back! And the first tea we shared after her long trek to New Zealand and back was Vanilla Jasmine sent to me by JacquelineM! It arrived just a few hours before Sandy did. Since she didn’t get to try it with me the first time J sent me some she was eager to taste it. It didn’t disappoint! We shared fresh buttermilk bread and ginger nut cookies from McVities out of doors in the warm windy day, watching the thunderstorm blow in from the safety of the bistro tables. Here’s to tea friendships, present ones and virtual ones!

Thank you, JacquelineM!

I hadn’t read any reviews when I tried this tea. I opened the tin and held it in front of each daughter who was home. The second one said, “Root beer!” I just saw in the tasting notes that other people got cream soda from this, and I can definitely see that.

This was MY tea party favorite today! It was delightfully interesting. This is a HAPPY cup of tea. This tea is for drinking while you sing “Feeling Groovy” by Simon and Garfunkel. Or “Walking on Sunshine”. This is a bright and happy tea! This is grab-an-unexpected-peck-on-the-cheek tea. But it isn’t loud. It is gently happy!

The vanilla and jasmine are very well blended and balanced. I don’t get the overpowering feeling that I have been forced to eat a bouquet of syrupy flowers and I don’t get synthetic vanilla vibes. This is natural and fresh tasting.

The tea leaves itself smell very nice, A combination of fruity, flowery and sweet. The resulting infusion is a light golden color, it looks really nice. The taste really nice. It has a mixture of floral, fruity, earth and very subtle sweetness with just enough astringency to top it off. I really enjoyed it and would buy more.

The loose leaves smell of a nice caramel. Not like caramel candy but more of a smokey caramel. Brews up to a nice pale yellow color. The taste is nice crisp and light, buttery and earthy but slightly sweet from the caramel and sugar. I can taste hints of the caramel here and their but not too much. All in all it was a nice tea but not too sure if I would buy it again.

Second steeping: (Steep time: 4 Minutes) Less of a sweet taste with more of a buttery taste. Not much else to say.

I at last received my Golden Moon Teas Sampler :D

The leaves themselves had a very nice coconut smell, although I was a bit concerned that this tea would be overpoweringly coconut flavor. This wasn’t the case. This tea infused up a nice light green color with a nice buttery sent with light undertones of coconut. The taste was light and crisp. The buttery taste of the Pouchong complements the light tones of coconut almost perfectly. It isn’t overwhelmingly coconut at all. I really enjoyed this tea and will be ordering more next time.

Really smells like roses. Quite surprising.

MMMmmmmm yumm it’s really yummy. I didn’t know that roses taste so good :)
It’s a strong yet gentle flavor. Very overwhelming. Very good black flavored tea. Maybe even best one so far. Definitely best one with flower-flavor. Rose totally beats jasmine for me…
I’d buy this one again and i’d buy it as a very nice gift too. Thumbs up Golden Moon…

I’ve been feeling gross lately, and I went for the white tea sampler :)

It smells silver needle…ish. I almost wish they were a little more specific with what type of “white tea” it is. hmmm not bad. I think i might have steeped it too long. The color came out pretty dark, and it has a slightly bitter flavor to it. I’m getting some of the chrysanthemum flavor, which i’m not a huge fan of. This is a good cup, but I’ve drank so many better white teas before.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this tea; I don’t drink a lot of Darjeelings. I decided to be conservative when brewing it, so it only got about 3 minutes with cooler water (190) for the first steeping. Brewed in a clear glass carafe, it has a pale brown color, tending more towards yellow than red. It is a clear, sharp (vice translucent) brew that is light and clean in the mouth. A good tea without much outstanding, good or bad.

I adore Art of Tea’s LS, and I keep that one on hand now. Also love Alberta Street Chai. Very excited to try this LS and see how it is; thanks, Meghann, for sending this sample my way!!

It’s a bit sweeter than Art of Tea’s. It doesn’t seem as fall-leaves-burning tasting, either, rather just plain smoky. And the smokiness tends to linger as an aftertaste. It’s good, but I prefer Art of Tea’s LS with its richer smokiness.

I’ve been really avoiding this sample. But I figured i need to get it out of the way. I’ve never had a pu-erh before, so this will be interesting.

The smell is pretty strong, but it’s hard to place what exactly it smells like.

Hmmm, not sure how i feel about this. It’s got some smoky flavor, but it kind of tastes like dirt. seriously, like dirt. It has some sweetness to it that reminds me of badly flavored bubble gum… which is leaving an aftertaste in my mouth. I think i’ll somehow manage to finish this cup but I don’t know if i’ll even bother with a second infusion—can pu-erh be steeped multiple times anyway? I’m assuming it can be…

It’s good. Pretty strong too, which is what I needed the other night. It’s got a subtle maltiness from the assam, which was nice. Still, this didn’t jump out at me as being anything super special the way GM’s Sinharaja did. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very solid tea. Just nothing out of the ordinary. I probably won’t buy a whole tin of this but I enjoyed it and it definitely hit the spot the other night.

Despite being quite sweet and smooth, I was actually a bit disappointed by this tea, and find its English sibling to be preferable. It tastes like a mildly better quality version of a fairly standard black tea, very simple and understated. Which is not to say simple is undesirable, but in order to make me buy a basic blend like this again, it should be notable in some way — let’s just say I prefer Purcell’s “Fantasy for 3 viols in D minor, Z. 732” to Debussy’s “Clair de Lune”?

It’s funny, because when I started drinking this, I didn’t necessarily think of it as an English Breakfast blend (?!) — possibly because of all of the different types of tea mixed in. Both steeps from my sampler were without sugar or milk, and quite delicious. It stands out as predominantly sweeter than most blends to me, fresh, with a few smoky undertones. Never got bitter, quite refreshing, and held up for the two steeps very well. That being said, I don’t know if this is heavy enough for me to drink in the morning; it may just be a little too flippant English dandy for my tastes!