Golden Moon Tea

Decided I’d spice things up a bit and go for a GM sample. Picked this one, and steeped it with some rock sugar. The smell of it is pretty strong, kind of smelling prunes? some sort of strong fruit smell is definitely there.

First sip tastes kind of bitter and strong. I’m thinking i should listen to the package and get some cream/milk. Since I only drink skim milk i added a tiny bit of heavy whipping cream and sugar. The taste is much better.

It’s definintely not my favorite sort of taste, but i’d imagine if i put more sugar it would get more sweet. The cream definitely made a difference on the bitter taste though.

It’s a good tea, and I could see it being great on a really cold day, but it’s just not for me.

In case you have not noticed, most of my recent infusions have been ones I am doing in a travel mug on my ridiculously long drive to work – which means my tea is infusing for way longer than necessary and being drank while the leaves are still submerged in the cup. As one of my first entries (on a Dragonwell – I think Teavana’s) explained, this is how I usually drank green tea, over-infused so as to get every ounce of tea flavor out of a single infusion. Today is no exception.

I really want to finish the Golden Moon sampler. I have but a few samples left – I chose this one because I really needed to relax today and this usually does the trick. The little tiny pearls are perfectly curled and rolled into little balls, none of them are broken or damaged, no torn or flailing leaves, very nice. The aroma off of the un-infused tea is jasmine and green tea, so far so good.

Added the sample pack to my travel mug, filled ¾ with hot water and the rest with cold water (I do this so that the tea is not brewing so hot because it is going to infuse for so long – this is not correct practice, I know this, but I do not want to scorch it up front and have a wasted cup of tea while on the road.) The pearls took about ten minutes to completely unfurl into long green leaves with a light honey colored liquor, the fragrance is strong Jasmine. The flavor initially is green with some Jasmine. After a bit longer on the infusion, the tea shifts in flavor to be less vegetal green and more Jasmine. By the end of the cup, it is mostly Jasmine, no real other flavor playing any role here.

Overall, I like this tea, you cannot have it every day, but that is true of most people and most Jasmine teas. The floral aroma and smell is just too powdery and overwhelming to enjoy every day. When I need to relax and have something special, I could definitely see me reaching for a cup of this, it was very good, but too strong for every day.

GM Sampler of the day. After blasting GM about their ingredients in their Kashmiri Chai, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the Pu-erh Chai, the cardamon pods were actually whole and full of tasty seeds. The smell of the dry tea was very un-chai-like; a faint hint of cinnamon and a sort of basement mustiness. It brewed quickly to a dark fruitwood brown. The taste was very mild with a hint of cinnamon and none of the spicey kick of other chia mixes (I’m talking about clove, black pepper, & ginger spiciness). The underlying pu-erh tea was a perfect complement and I enjoyed this combination better than I did for both GM’s pure Pu-erh sampler and Kashmiri Chai.

A note on how I drink Chai’s: I treat a Chai mix like any other black tea and generally drink it without milk or sugar. For those that I have experience with, more than a single sample batch, I might add a touch of sugar to help bring out the spices. But initially, its straight up, served black :-)

I’ve been looking forward to trying this tea for quite some time.

It’s a little underwhelming to be honest. The leaves smell sugary; like catching a whiff of butterscotch candy. The flavors are light but prevalent. The oolong base is just ok. It could have used a little more oomph. I wish they would have used a slightly darker oolong. Sugar and caramel flavors on top of a light to medium roasted oolong would have been divine. I bet it would taste like a toasty crème brulee. Mmm.

This is a decent tea, but it didn’t knock my socks off. Maybe I played it up too much in my head. Big thanks to Ricky for letting me sample it! My wallet just gave a sigh of relief.

Ok, so I finally had time to get back to tea tasting.
Unfortunatly, I don’t much care for this one. I’m still new at the different tea varieties so maybe it’s that I’m not fond of ceylon. To me this tastes closer to coffee then other teas. (and I really don’t like coffee). I do get the “fertile rainforest” tastes but I don’t care for it. I tried it plain and then with cream and sugar but this follows the trend for me that adding sugar and milk doesn’t help me with teas I don’t like plain. Anyway, not for me. I’m curious though if it’s just because I don’t like ceylon as everyone is saying this is the best ceylon…

I got the tea canister I originally rated at this shady tea store. Shady, meaning there were teas that expired a year ago on the shelf still. It didn’t have any dates on the package I bought, so I have no idea how old it really was.

When I tasted this tea with the sampler, it was so much different, and brighter! This tea needs to be as fresh as possible to enjoy!

Lesson learned…don’t go to tea shops with dust on their tea boxes!

Buttered Popcorn Tea. That is what this lush tea could also be called. I had it iced today, and it was just lovely. Slightly sweet and creamy goodness. Toasted coconut, yum. I am going to get this GM sample deal everyone has mentioned. I would buy this tea again!

The dry leaves gave a quick vanilla shot when I opened the package, but either I got used to it or it faded quickly, as the rich vanilla smell dissipated in a few minutes. The tea brews a nice toasty brown and the vanilla smell is clear, if a bit sharp. The taste has a definite vanilla flavor and finish…sort of like a vanilla cake with a little excess vanilla. A good sipping tea.

Edit: 2nd steep…smells good, like baked goods with vanilla, but not much tea…sample was wrung out.
Edit #2: Over ice, Wow, this is great over ice. Nice refreshing vanilla aftertaste! Rating boost.

I light brown even after 5 minutes of steeping, this tea can best be described as “light”. A light color, a light taste, a light weight…light.

OMG..this isn’t tea, its perfume. Two sips and I couldn’t carry on.
I gave it to a friend to try…He couldn’t drink it either. His comment: “It reminds me of soap…”.
He had the 1st steep, I had the second…I can’t imagine what the first was like….

I like this tea in the summer on very hot days. Easy to in pitcher amounts, the coconut provides a smoothness not found in other tea.

Thirst quenching and delicious.

Let me first say, this tea is delicious…close your eyes and just drink it. But, I’ve got to bust Golden Moon’s chops for relying on “spice oil”. You see, I’ve had this type of Chai from a company (who’s name I dearly wish I could remember) who used the real, whole spices to make it. GM’s attempt is more like camouflage for the “spice oil”. I searched the tea sample and found 1 1/2 cloves, five “bits” of cinnamon, four empty cardamon pods, and one cardamon seed. The cardamon pods are big and noticable, but useless…they’re like putting in corn cobs, all filler and no value. The rest of the spices were real but, in my opinion, were window dressing for the real flavoring, the spice oil.
This made a nice, drinkable tea when steeped as a black tea, and the windows were well dressed ;-)

From my first glimpse of this tea, I knew it would be something special. I expect to see small bits and fines with blended teas; however, this tea had large leaf fragments (1-1.5 cm). Salt and pepper, with the promised “golden tips” and the regular black tea. Very visually appealing. Taste was excellent as well; being a mellow, malty flavor with no tannic bite. This has to be one of the best Irish Breakfast tea’s I’ve had.
Got a second steep from it…not much to write about there, as the sampler was a bit wrung out by the first steep.

Soil-y, plant-y spices!
Potent cardamom aroma. Heavy (almost minty?) cinnamon aftertaste.
I can definitely taste the earthy pu-erh. Tastes like (how I imagine) rain-soaked granite and slate to be. Just to wax poetic: Like ancient stones set in a verdant fog-covered meadow. :P
Upon cooldown, there’s an almost sandalwood-like flavor. Reminiscent of an antique sandalwood filigree fan. Like wisps of a sweet oriental perfume.
A happy little green cardamom pod bobs in the liquid. Cute! :)

The sugar is becoming more noticeable as the brew in my cuppa cools down. This is my favorite oolong because I like the sugar and caramel notes:)

I made a pitcher of this tea and finished the last cup with lunch today. The sugar was the dominant player and it was so tasty and satisfying after lunch. SOOO, good in fact that I made another pitcher tonight so I can have this tea with lunch again tomorrow. Love this tea cold, the caramel and the sugar play off of each other as they both linger on my tongue. THIS is fast becoming my favorite tea!

Thank you TTB1.2 for this nice selection!
The smell of the dry leaves is of sugar, a nice natural sweetness though, not a fake over the top sweet.
Today I brewed this up in my Dr. Tea glass teapot. I just love watching the leaves unfurl:)
The smell of the tea… I know that smell, can’t put my finger on it. Sugar cookie dough? No, but I do like this smell. Very soothing, calming.
First infusion yields a mild tea with a delicate taste. I LIKE IT! I am very surprised by this since my past attempts with green oolongs were down the kitchen drain before I could say YUCK…but this oolong is different. I will post again as my day goes with this tea. Stay tuned to this Bat channel for updates….

For someone who’s been drinking an obscene amount of light-ish teas lately (you bet I’ve been getting the most out of my sugar caramel oolong sample), this was a big smack in the face when I opened up my sampler packet. Holy cow, is that stuff smoky. I’m sitting in my bedroom with my cup, and the atmosphere smells like campfire and singed cedar wood. Surprisingly enough… it’s not so bad.

It smells and tastes like liquid smoke; my eyes are actually tearing a bit as my cup is depleted. But I love the smell of a smoky campfire. (Side note: Ever have toast over a campfire? AMAZING.) As the tea cools it’s less potent, but I kind of fear to go back into the kitchen. My mother may wonder what I’ve been cooking, thanks to the smoky after-smell.

Not something I’ll be running out to buy, but wouldn’t pass it up if offered.

Got this yesterday, but i had to go to work. So I had to wait until today to try it. Smells amazing! Really minty with a vanilla sweetness to it.
The tea is not as strong as i thought. Has a nice minty smell to it, with a vanilla creamy aftertaste. I really like this tea though. Will be sure to try it iced.

This is nice enough, but maybe needs to be drunk plain to really shine. Using the full 3.6g sample for 12oz of tea, it tastes a little weak with milk and sugar. I’ll use less water on the next steep and try it plain, because I’m really not getting anything special from this one as is.

I finished up the last bit of this earlier. I probably should have finished it a few months ago though as I think a bit of the flavor has gone by the wayside. Oh well, it was still pretty good.