Golden Moon Tea

Review up in plenty of time for St. Patrick’s Day:

http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/1685/tea-review-golden-moon-tea-irish-breakfast/

Another one for future full review on www.itsallabouttheleaf.com. General first impression: While rolling around possible adjectives for this tea, stout and robust didn’t make the list at all, but there’s still enough character for it to stand up to the “breakfast” category. No milk needed, but a.m. additives don’t weaken its taste or personality.

Slightly lowering the score of this one :) It’s good but its not 86-good.

This one really looks and smells great. Kinda sad to see the ratings it got before me. But I yet have to try it. Maybe I’ll like it more…
I’ve used just a half of the sampler to make it.
Color is deep yellow. Smells interesting. Bit different than most green teas. Idk how to describe that difference tho :)
I actually quite like the aftertaste. It’s delicious, smoky and full. But the first feel is more watery and slightly acid or something like that. I like the contrast of the first taste and aftertaste. It’s not bitter at all.
It’s different. I like it. Quite a lot.

This cup of tea is decent today. I needed something different.
A bit drying in the mouth, but the flavor is smooth & definitely coconut. I’ve been trying to stay away from Golden Moon ever since my disaster experience with their honey pear. A good, drinkable tea. I don’t think I’ll purchase this, but it’s pleasant tonight.

Smells like good black tea. Color is nice dark brownish.
Tastes quite common for a black breakfast tea. I assume it would be really good with milk and honey. Anyways quite tasty but not really wow-ing.

Mmmmm!! Great combo of flavors, and very well done!

The dry leaves have a strong smell of honey. The honey is still there in the tea, but the pear flavor is more pronounced. It’s really smooth and not at all artificial tasting. Definitely needs sweetener to bring out the flavors. Just add it gradually. I over-sweetened my first cup and kinda ruined it :(

This is a very uniquely flavored tea. It’s somewhat light while still being a nice treat, just like a dessert of honey and pears would be.

Very tasty, sweet and smooth. I love the way this smells as I’m pouring it into my cup. Relaxing and mellow, it balances very well after a meal or between meals. Both fruity floral and a tiny bit nutty at the same time.

Good strong black flavor, may have slightly oversteeped (5 min: the bag says 3-5 min.) because it’s a little bitter. Would be good with a little more water or shorter steep. Has a slightly fruit and honey aftertaste. Could go in the morning, too. On second steep, slightly flowery-unidentified spicy flavor, creamy and goes down smooth and mellow. Pretty good.

Very interesting, I bought it in a sample size when exploring new teas from Golden Moon. It tastes like a mild black tea, steep 2-3 minutes. Earthy, cinnamon hints, like a non-sticky, less sweet cinnamon roll. Good breakfast tea, no bitterness. The dry tea smells a little like enriched potting soil, a rare aged tea. It goes down smooth. It’s listed as a green fermented tea.

I love this tea when I’m in the mood for black. It’s initially milky, with a smoky hint, later full bodied caramel with toasty aftertaste. I could sip this all day, and I love to re-steep my teas. I let it steep a little longer than most.

I’m not a fan of flavored teas and this one has a strong coconut flavor, not too sweet, but weak, I couldn’t taste the tea. It smells nice, though. The bag says it is made with green leaves, I couldn’t tell green or black.

This is my favorite Green Tea lately, as long as I don’t over-steep it. It has a mild, mellow green flavor with a hint of white, smooth & pleasant. Not bitter or overly grassy for a green tea.

Great tea, mellow white with just enough licorice (actually star anise) flavor; nicely balanced, neither overpowers. Sooths the stomach and tasted as good on third resteep as the initial steeping. I got it from a Golden Moon sampler, so I only had enough for one afternoon.

Made this sample last night. Really soothing hot, but OMG much better iced IMO!
The vanilla is perfectly balanced and the mint is just right, not so over the top that you feel you are drinking mint chewing gum, it feels pleasant in my mouth. I have never been a fan of green tea, but this combo with the black tea is a win win for me. The pleasantness of a green without the grassy notes and the comfort of a black tea without the bitterness. I wish I had sampled this before I placed a GM order, but there is always next time:)

This is excellent. A nice, dark, flavorful tea with such a smooth taste.

The dry leaves smell sweet, which a “bready” quality. They actually remind me a little of banana bread for some reason. These are nice, long, full dried leaves that expand and unfurl to release some great flavors.

The tea tastes nice without any sweetener, but since I prefer my black teas to be on the sweet side, I added just a touch of sugar. The dark tea has a raisin-like taste, but without being particularly fruity. After a few sips it gets sweeter (maybe it’s because the tea is cooling), with a taste like the burnt sugar crust on creme brulee. And it does this all without being overly sweet.

I’m sad I only have a sample. After I finish all my Golden Moon samples, I’ll probably order 3 pr 4 of my favorites. This is definitely on my short list.

Thanks to mrawlins2 for sharing this tea with me! It is delicious hot and cold:)
Placed my order with GM tonight.

It tasted and smelled likes something familiar but it took me a whole cup to put my finger on it… root beer! Or cream soda. Problem is, I really don’t like either. I’m guessing this was the vanilla coming through because I hardly detected any jasmine.

The root beer/cream soda taste was more pronounced with sugar so I tried the second cup without. I preferred it without sugar but it still smelled like the offending soft drinks. I’m sure a lot of people would actually love a tea that tastes like cream soda. I personally just didn’t care for it.

This was my first out of the Golden Moon sample so it was pretty disappointing to start with a tea I didn’t like. I still have 30 other teas to try though — I was bound to not like a few anyway.

Smells really nice. Quite gentle maybe of honey…
Tastes similar. Quite sweet. And quite flavory. Nothing overwhelming or impressive but its very smooth and drinkable.
Not a bad black tea…

This tea was an interesting experience. I literally worked through the night last night finishing a piece of fiber art for a show. I was so tired I could barely see and needed some black tea to get me going. This tea had just come and I was very excited to get it so I brewed a pot and sat with it awhile (I had earlier made Stash’s Vanilla Cream and disliked it so much I threw it out. That will be a separate review!).

Well, it’s not that I didn’t like this Golden Moon tea, it had a wonderful minty flavor but I couldn’t taste a bit of vanilla and I ordered it for the combination of vanilla and mint and really wanted to taste the vanilla.

Because I have been researching teas for a book I have a process when tasting tea. I use a large Bodum Press, more than I can drink at one sitting. I have a couple of cups and save the rest for iced tea if appropriate. I never use milk because I really want to taste the tea. I do use a bit of Truvia, the new sweetener made from Stevia but much milder, but that’s all.

Then the stages from hot to lukewarm to cold. Tea tastes markedly different when hot just out of the pot through the various stages as it cools down. I didn’t like it hot. The black tea tasted very strong and the mint was there, but no creamy vanilla taste at all. Not that I could taste. As it cooled to a lukewarm, which I let it do intentionally, the complexity of the flavors started to come forward, a hint of vanilla and something creamy, but barely there. Today — I had saved the rest in the fridge — I tasted it again, after letting it sit out a bit so it was cool but not real cold which also seems to mask the subtleties of the flavors, and I was amazed at how good it really was. The more it cooled the better I liked it.

I will have to give this tea a few more tastings, but it has more to offer than when it was first out of the pot. Sometimes I think you need to give a tea a few tries to see what it really has to offer!

This reminds me a lot of Mighty Leaf’s Bleu Peacock. Like, a lot. Caramel flavored green oolong. This is probably a little smoother, a little sweeter on the aftertaste. They’re similarly priced (Bleu Peacock is $3.25/oz. This is $4.21/oz), so I’d probably buy this instead for variety when my bag of BP runs out, but I don’t drink it that often so… that could be awhile.

Nice, but nowhere near as awesome as the Coconut Pouchong – it doesn’t have the synergy between the oolong and the flavor.