Golden Moon Tea

I have been very remiss in the brewing of this tea because I am working on three (!!!) papers, but even though I have been throwing in the water when it’s somewhere around 190, and pouring the tea when I’m between thoughts, it is still delicious. Sweet date that tastes like a special treat and good tea flavor. No need to mess with sweeteners or milk which would take me from my work. I’m already on infusion #3 and it’s still enjoyable and helping me think :) OK, back to the grindstone for me!

The dry tea smells fantastic – earthy yet sweet.

1st steep – 3 min. First sip = love! To me, it tastes like a less over the top version of the Honey Pear, and gosh darn, I prefer it! It’s more of a dates rather than pears, and burnt sugar rather than honey, and much more subtle. I remarked in one of our discussions that I didn’t know if an oolong had a place in my cupboard – scratch that! This is definitely getting the full tin treatment!

2nd steep: 4 min. Less flavoring taste, and more tea taste. Soft sugar and date notes. Still gorgeous.

3rd steep: 5 min. Still a nice cup of tea, but I think it’s done after this one. Very soft dates and oolong, no sugar but the dates give it some sweetness.

So, for those keeping score – so far the Kashmiri Chai and Sugar Caramel Oolong are in my OMG MUST BUY WHOLE TIN category (Sugar Caramel Oolong ousting Honey Pear)! They are both so unique and delicious to me :)

I’m having this today since it’s a Chinese tea, and it’s Chinese new year. It’s a lovely cup of green tea, though as @teaplz said, it seems awful close to a white tea. I, too, was surprised to see the hairs on the leaves and the twig-like look they developed in water.

The tea (and wet leaves) has a great smell to it. It’s almost floral. As the tea gets cooler it becomes more obviously green, though still not as sharp as a typical Chinese green. It’s a great cup!

Update! here are the photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lauren_pressley/tags/snowsprout/show/

Mmmmm!

So I figured that since it’s the weekend, I should make a tea that I can’t possibly make on the weekdays with my new schedule. What tea better to make than a chai. Not only a chai, but a pu-erh chai?

So for this one, I used the traditional takgoti recipe for chai (1 tbsp chai, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 cup milk (soy), 1 cup water) and did the traditional simmering thing. First off, let’s talk about the dry leaves, which are gorgeous. There’s large chunks of cinnamon bark here, and my sample had a single, seagreen cardamom pod. The smell was spicy, rich and earthy. Just the way I like it.

One of the most wonderful smells is chai simmering on a stovetop. Seriously. Everyone that walked into my kitchen kept MMMing and AHHHing. It’s pretty cold here in NYC, and the smell was just immediately warming and comforting.

I should note that I used Very Vanilla Silk soymilk in this one. I would have used regular vanilla, but I was out of it. Besides, Very Vanilla is actually creamier, less nutty, and tastes like a melted vanilla milkshake. So I figured it’d pair nicely with the earth accents of the chai. Anyway, this one simmering smelled deliciously of cinnamon and cardamom, with a delicious pu-erh base.

Before I poured the milk in, the water/sugar/tea combo was ridiculously dark. The leaves almost disappeared in the murkiness. It was pretty interesting. Once the milk was added, the chai was significantly darker than your run-of-the-mill black chai. More like chocolate milk instead of caffe au lait.

After letting it sit for 9+ minutes, I strained the concoction and poured. The first though I had with sipping this was, boy, is this rich and sweet. Seriously sweet. I think I might need to lay a bit lower with the sugar next time, since Very Vanilla is pretty sugariffic. But anyway, the sweetness here was delicious. Then the spices came in, with soft accents of cardamom and puffs of cinnamon. The finish was rich and deep and pu-erh, which was welcome and wonderful. I don’t think the pu-erh is overwhelming here as well, but serves as a backbone to the spices instead.

Even my mom liked this one, and she pretty much intensely dislikes the taste of pu-erh. She said that it was “warming and welcoming,” which is entirely true.

I didn’t really get any of the citrus that GM points out in their tasting notes, but sweet, rich, spiced, wonderful goodness is all here. Chai is its own drink. It’s tea, but it goes above and beyond tea to this rich and delicious concoction. I think this method of preparation has to beat the pants off of just adding milk to a regular cup of chai-like tea. You don’t get the combination of delicious flavors, the uniformity of a unique beverage. Mmmmmm.

I also put a little in the fridge to cool. This bit after it was ice-cold tasted more strongly of pu-erh, with the spices taking a backseat. It was enjoyable, but still not as wonderful and amazing as the hot mixture.

Perfect, perfect, perfect to sip on a cold day. And for watching the Winter Olympic Games! The Opening Ceremony was definitely meh at points, but Gretzky on a jeep in the van being chased by rabid Canadians was absolutely hilarious.

Mmmmmm. I be happiness right now.

I am overly enthusiastic about my Golden Moon tea sampler and decided to try another cup. I’ve been wanting to try this Honey Pear tea for a really long time.. and it was the first Golden Moon tea that caught my eye. Well, I opened the package and I didn’t really smell pear.. it was more of an odd smell mixed with cough medicine? The actual brew smells like some kind of fruit (not really pear) and something artificial. There is also something that I can’t put my finger on.. is that the honey?
The actual taste is slightly sweet (the fruity taste) but with a bitter note. I wouldn’t say that this is necessarily pear or honey. It’s a rather odd combination and I’m not too fond of it. Every once and a while, I do taste a tiny bit of pear or a little bit of fruit… but no great honey pear combination. I’m really disappointed because I hoped to have a really flavorful and funky cup of tea. It’s funky, but not as flavorful as I’d hoped.

EDIT: A few hours later.. I started to feel sick and I think the cause was this Honey Pear. Maybe it was that I was too excited to try all of this new tea and had too much at once… but I can’t even think about this blend now without feeling sick. Yuck.

I was in the mood for this tea tonight. I typically don’t crave floral black teas, but it just seemed to fit. I like the scent much more than the actual taste. It smells like a rich jasmine tea paired with a lingering creamy vanilla.
The beginning of the sip is sweet and floral (where’s the vanilla?), but then seems overwhelmed by the tea base. The finish is dry and astringent and it washes away any memory of initial sweetness. Sad.
I still have a few more Golden Moon samples to try and I just don’t know if I want to drink them. I have been disappointed with their tea cup after cup.

My very first Golden Moon tea to try! This is the next victim in my (never-ending) quest to find the perfect and best vanilla tea. I loved the smell of the tea when it came out of its pouch. When it first hit water, I would say that the Jasmine overpowered, though there were slight hints of that vanilla.

While this was good, I couldn’t really taste a bunch of the vanilla. It was more like the Jasmine first and then a light.. semi-sweet finish. This is a solid, unique tea that is just enjoyable, for me. I don’t think that I’ve found my true Vanilla tea just yet, but this is an interesting treat!

Finished up the rest of my stash today and I under infused…it’s bark was worse than it’s bite so to speak…a little weak with flavor but the scent is truly smoky.

I can’t say as I am a huge fan of the smell of this tea in general – not just this specific one – just LS in general…but since I hadn’t tried Golden Moon’s I thought I would try it. It’s not bad but I am glad I tried it via TTB and not have to buy. It’s mellower than some LS I have tried and it’s a bit more smooth tasting which I am very happy about…so based on that back and forth I will slap this ‘ok but not bad’ rating on it. If I had to drink a LS…this one would probably be a good go-to.

GM Sampler | Tea 6 of 31

Darjeeling | http://bit.ly/cHh5kY
Toutes les Choses | http://bit.ly/cHWS3X

This tasted like darjeeling, which means that it was bitter for me. Whenever I get a black tea that has this high, sharp, bitter taste to it with a fruity fwip of flavor afterwards, my brain goes to darjeeling now. A former round with a sample of SerendipiTea’s Darjeeling Autumnal from Auggy taught me that if I hit the right parameters [although it could have partially been the tea itself] darjeeling doesn’t have to equal BITTER, but this one had it. It wasn’t as loud as I tend to get with Darjeelings, but it was there.

As it cools, as I’ve come to expect, the bitterness falls back and the sweetness comes forward. Then that grape taste that I’ve come to identify as the muscatel is much more apparent in the tea; not just on my breath or in the aftertaste. I probably would have been tempted to wait and drink the whole thing cooled, but IT IS COLD HERE, Y’ALL.

So the moral of the story is that this was decent, but I won’t be ordering it. I probably should have steeped it shorter to compensate for my apparent sensitivity to bitterness in tea, but I used the packet up and reading the other reviews doesn’t make me think I missed out on anything phenomenal. There’s really not much else to say, as it was relatively straightforward.

[Sorry, I couldn’t resist doing it one time. Here’s the actual Darjeeling picture: http://bit.ly/bIf03p .]

I loved Coconut Pouchong by Golden Moon Tea! The coconut was awesome! Not overpowering or barely discernable, but just right. Additionally, the tea was nice and sweet requiring no sweetener. For a more detailed review: http://teaescapade.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/coconut-pouchong/

I thought this one, prepared stove top, would be a delicious cap to a great 4 day weekend, but I left it steeping on the stove for three times as long as usual because my husband and I were playing around with the drawing application on his ipad! Oh dear sweet tea leaves we were up ALL NIGHT!!! It was full bodied and tasty, not bitter or unpleasant in any way, but strong as anything!!!! Now I know – if I ever want a wake me up chai, steep for 30 or so minutes after the 8 minute simmer. PHEW!!!!!!

If there was ever a cold, miserable, rainy night which needed a cup of stovetop Kashmiri Chai to make it better, this would be the night!!!! That milky gently spiced cup of comfort was just what I needed to take the chill from my bones! Delicious and smooth. Just the right amount of spices. Even though it’s a caffeinated tea, I feel relaxed. I’m even yawning! It must be the warm milk. Time for bed and a novel!

Prepared stovetop with milk and honey. A great treat after one of those weeks. I can feel my shoulders dropping as I sip. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

I was craving this one last night. I still had my chocolate covered graham crackers (so easy to make! Take 4 graham crackers and put them on parchment paper. Melt 1/2 c chocolate, chocolate chips, chocolate squares – whatever you have on hand – and smear/drizzle onto your grahams. If you wish you could add chopped nuts whilst the chocolate is still wet (but I did not – but I’m thinkin’ pecans!) let them cool a bit, then put them in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes to set.)

So, yes, the Chai! I made it stovetop (1c milk, 1c water, 4 tsp Kashmiri chai, simmer 9 min, let sit 1, strain into two cups with as much honey as you enjoy sitting in them) and got out my serving tray and put two cups of this delicious elixir on it with a chocolate covered graham cracker each on a pretty china plate. It was soooooo good together. A childhood treat made adult and delicious for mere pennies! The creamy gently spiced Chai went so well with the Chocolate graham – just one each! They are very rich. Heaven after a long busy workweek.

One of the things I adore about this chai is that it is so gently spiced that it doesn’t seem just Wintery – it is something I can enjoy all year around. Not only are the spices light (no pepper!) but the mix of green and black teas lighten it further. One of my Big Tea Loves, one of my Keepers, one of my Order the BIG Bag teas :)

I just made a mug of this (stovetop, simmered in milk then a dollop of honey) and sat on my deck barefoot in the beautiful cool spring sunset time. What a perfect way to enjoy this tea. This is my third spring since moving here amongst the grass and space in this little town, and I can’t believe that it has never occurred to me to do that! That’s what happens when you live in the city too long – your instincts go! It has taken all this time for our city raised dog to own the outdoors too. I hope the summer is slow to come, and I get more spring nights to enjoy gently spiced warm heaven outside.

Ok – I think I now have this down to a science.

4 tsp tea in 1 cup milk, one cup water, simmer 9 minutes, turn it off and let it sit for a minute. Strain into two cups which each have a tsp of honey in them. HEAVEN! Have to nudge this up to 100. Most delicious chai I’ve ever tasted.

I made this with milk instead of water – simmer tea in milk for 7 minutes then strain into cups that contain a teaspoon of honey. It was AMAZING! It wasn’t a knock you over the head chai, but a gently spiced cup of warmth and comfort. I absolutely loved it.

P.S. I simmered this but have no idea what the temperature was – so take my “water temp” with a grain of salt. I just kept the milk at a light simmer.

Well as a blizzard slams NJ, I took off of work, I did not want to drive in these conditions, end of story. Anyway, since it is breakfast time and I can have a full breakfast on my day off, I will have some Breakfast Tea. I chose this one because it was on top.

The leaves are small and black and give a distinctly black tea smell. Ceylon. They do not smell unique or intriguing, just like black tea. I’m fine with this. Brewed 4 minutes hot, with no additives. As I have said, I traditionally take breakfast tea with milk and sweetener, but I chose to try this on it’s own first.

The initial aroma of the brewed tea is what I expected, it is black tea: with the subtle earthy aroma with a hint of natural sweetness, maybe honey. Smells wonderful. The flavor however, goes so much further beyond the smell, it is earthy and rich, it is smooth and sweet without any sweetener, there is a full-bodied flavor going on here without any effort at all.

This tastes like the ideal you hope to get out of every black tea they serve you at a restaurant; it’s like an older, now-stale bag, you know what you want to taste, and what you want to taste is rich, smooth, full-bodied range of pick-me-up and start-my-day tea. This is EXACTLY what you are getting from this French Breakfast tea, hearty yet delicious black tea. I am so glad I added nothing to this, I may have to go back and try all of the other breakfast teas I adulterated by adding milk and sweetener.

Also, as a note, expect a full array of ratings today, the day is young, and I have no where to be. Until then!

I liked it but I didn’t love it. The coconut taste was good, but prefer my beloved Organic Black with Coconut. I think the sort of floral green paired with the coconut didn’t do it for me. If I already didn’t have a coconut tea I was crazy for, maybe I’d like this better.

I understand that wearing a decent shirt and meeting someone at 9am is not exactly abnormal for much of the world. But as I’m a software developer who normally works from home, these are both atypical experiences for me.

So! I need something with caffeine in it and which is easy to drink. And the vanilla jasmine tea has been my go-to tea for such circumstances lately, but apparently for some reason I haven’t reviewed it yet here.

Unlike most jasmine teas, this is a black tea blend. The vanilla is more noticeable than the jasmine. The jasmine is definitely still there, though, and I suppose it’d be more obvious if I had more experience drinking vanilla teas without jasmine in them.

All in all, a very drinkable black tea, especially with a bit of sugar in it.

But: as I was finishing the tea, my client called me to move our meeting to 10:30. So I could’ve substituted getting enough sleep for the caffeine. But it’s too late now, and so I’ve been able to spend the past hour writing this not-particularly-long review.

Another one bites the dust! Sigh…I’m starting to get a little bummed about all my teas running out…sigh…

Anyhow…I over infused this one and it’s still pretty good – very bold – a little tart – and a little juicy, even.

Another good cuppa this morning! YAY! On to the next!