Organic Green Tea

If you haven’t heard, I have the best boyfriend in the entire world.

So, my boyfriend is always amused by my various obsessiveness. I tend to cycle through hobbies and pastimes pretty quickly, and he’s always along for the ride. When he found out that I was getting into loose leaf tea, and made my first order from Adagio, he surprised me with the Golden Moon Tea Taster’s Sampler set (http://www.goldenmoontea.com/Tea_Taster_s_Sampler_P56C28.cfm for those that aren’t in the know). It’s $20 for their entire catalog, 1-2 cups of each of their 31 varieties, and if you use the code “teareviewblog” you get free shipping (it worked when I ordered, at least). It was the perfect gift, and as a result, I have the chance to work my way through the various and interesting teas of a highly respected company.

The box is a bit daunting, so I figured I’d start with the basics. And what’s more basic than plain green tea? I don’t have much experience with green tea overall, but I read on here and elsewhere that this was just straight green tea, with a very mild flavor.

When I opened the little packet, I was sort of surprised at how much there was in there. The leaves were pretty and twisted, a wonderful verdant color. There were some broken bits at the bottom of the packet, but for the most part, most of the leaves were intact. I’d read that many of the offerings were really one cup only, but I measured out a heaping teaspoon of this, and I still had half left. Since I didn’t want to overdue it with the leaves, and add too many to the pot with no knowledge of the the temperament of this tea, I just did the one heaping teaspoon and sealed the rest of the bag up for another time.

The dry leaves smelled… leafy. Green in a plant-like way. Nothing distinctive. The resulting liquid after brewed was a light yellow color. A very, very pale goldenrod. The cup had literally no smell.

On my first sip I was a bit surprised. This tea doesn’t have a strong flavor at all. As someone that’s accustomed to blacks in the morning, it was a bit interesting. There are barely any tasting notes to be had while the cup is still piping hot. A hint of vegetation, a sweet aftertaste.

As the cup cooled, however, the sweetness really came into prominence. I only really tasted the “candied pineapple” tasting note once or twice (this is not flavored with pineapple, so don’t expect a strong flavor at all). The best thing that I can say about this tea is that if it was cold, it’d be immensely chuggable. And I mean that as a compliment. It’s refreshing and light and tasty, with a very pleasing sweet note. It tastes pure and refined. Does it taste like “tea”? No. So if you’re going into this expecting a flavor parade, you will be disappointed. It tastes more like drinking dew from a large leaf in the morning. What I would imagine the water served up on Olympus tastes like.

All great compliments, but when I’m drinking tea, I don’t really want water, I want tea. I really enjoyed the subtleties of this tea, and I’m going to try resteeping it (some of the leaves still have a twisted shape and didn’t unfurl completely), but I can’t imagine ordering more of this.

Randomly Selected Gold Moon Sampler number in the vicinity of 20 or 21

I always thought that cats had an innate system of checks and balances that involved leaping up on tables but not knocking over the long-stemmed wine-glasses or not leaping into the tea mugs.

My first infusion of this was poured into a very nice bee house banilla-colored (I made that it — it’s not quite the white of a vanilla and not quite the yellow of a banana) 5 ounce mup (not quite cup; not quite mug) that I use for a lot of my smaller samples.

Anyhow, as it was cooling my calico cat Zoey took a flying leap at it and the tea and the mup flew off the desk. Fortunately nothing broke but Zoey stared at me imperiously as I cleaned it up.

I proceed to make second infusion. I am a bit underwhelmed. I’ve had green teas that have really nice vegetal or buttery tastes and the most recent one I had, a Wazuka Sencha, was delighfully complex. This one is pedestrian at best. I would not invest in it as a “go-to” green tea. It’s not awful—it just does not have any zing or snap crackle pop or butter or grass to it. Maybe it needed a longer steeping but a green tea can turn in the blink of an eye from a buttercup to a rancid bitter old shrew. How delicate then can be.

Zoey is unrepentent. RIght now she’s licking the tea off her toes with the spirit of a Rosie the Riveter.

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #10:
So I decided to let fate decide this afternoon’s tea, and this is what I came up with. Now, usually, when I submit myself to fate, I acknowledge that it has the final word on things, but this time, I was all like “what no, I want something NIFTY!” So I decided to pretend that the first random grab hadn’t happened and try again. Whereupon I grabbed it AGAIN. and then AGAIN. Ok fine, fate. Clearly you want me to drink the organic green tea.

I believe I’ve already mentioned that I am not particularly well-versed in green teas so I didn’t expect to have much to say, but this tea actually has more character than I gave it credit for. I mean, it’s quite light, that’s true, but it does have that note of sweetness that, yes, could very well be candied pineapple. It’s not as vegetal/grassy as some green teas that I’ve tried, and I agree with some of the other reviews that it would make an awesome cold drink for hot weather. Very interesting – think I’ll take TeaEqualsBliss’s advice and oversteep the next cup, see what happens.

Stupid Firefox crashed and I lost my review. UGH! Take two…

It seems like whenever teaplz and Ricky don’t like a GM tea (or rather don’t love one), I suddenly need to try it. It’s like I want to torture myself with tea. It didn’t work last time with the Lapsang Souchong but I’m thinking it might work this time.

The leaves? Are not happy looking. They are dark olive and brown and dry looking and there seems to be a lot of twiggyness going on. I’m betting on a strike out here. The tea smells… dusty. And I’m not even talking about the dry leaves. I’m talking about the liquid. You know, the wet stuff. And when wet stuff smells dusty? That’s not cool.

Okay, it’s not as bad as I feared. I mean, I was expecting the little red icky face, but this isn’t bad. First off, it’s pretty sweet. Not quite a honey sweet but almost like it’s been sweetened with sugar. Even to the point of an almost sugary aftertaste. As it cools a little bit some tartness is coming in on aftertaste. I’m starting to make a little face after I swallow but it’s nothing horrid. But… that’s it. That’s all I get out of this tea.

So yeah, not nasty but not great. Sort of a generic green tea flavor that really isn’t anything other than wet and a bit sweet. I think this would be a good ‘starter’ tea for someone that just wants to drink tea as some sort of medicinal supplement. It’s not offensive and just a bit boring. But for me it’s not really a good representation of what’s available in the world of green teas.

So not quite torture via tea, but not something I’ll ever want to have again. I might do a second steep just because I pretty much always give greens a second steep. But if I do, no guarantee that I’ll drink the whole cup.

I’m really glad I only have (had) a sample of this, because it’s not even worthy of a swap list. Had I never had green tea before, this would inspire me to try others. The reason for this is that this tea’s fragrance makes a promise on which its flavour simply doesn’t deliver. It is so bland, so utterly featureless, that it couldn’t possibly do the green tea justice.

For most of my mug, I felt like I was drinking little more than sugar water. As the tea cooled, a little bit of flavour came through, and that was pleasant enough, but still unremarkable.

Tea amount: 1 sample packet
Water amount: 8oz./~237mL
Additives: ~2tsp Demerara sugar
Dry mouth factor: 2/10

Golden Moon sample No. 12 of 31.

Fate apparently wanted me to drink this one, too, right away — because I drew it out of the basket on the heels of another green and so happened to have the water in the Zo still at 175. (The next one to come out after this was Irish Breakfast, so we’ll be waiting a while to drink that one…)

I’m sure this is the first Ceylon green tea I’ve had, which is interesting in and of itself.

The dry leaves aren’t as deep green as other greens I’ve had. They’re a little browner, with some that almost reach yellow, even. They smell a little toasty. They seem to have some oolong-like characteristics, except in shape where they are long and for the most part not curly though some are almost balled up.

Liquor is a very pale yellow green and has a sweet, vegetal aroma that is similar to that of Chinese greens I have had, but less. By which I mean it suggests a light-bodied tea. Which is, in fact, borne out by the drinking.

In taste, this tea has less depth of flavor than the Teavana Three Kingdoms Mao Feng, which I found lacking in depth. Less vegetal, and not particularly buttery, though it does have some sweetness. I was looking for the subtle candied pineapple and didn’t find it. Candied pineapple in my experience is extremely sugary and that is not this tea. I did, however, taste something that if I stretched (reach out with your feelings, Luke) suggested fresh pineapple, but ratcheted down several major increments from the best fresh, juicy, sweet, pineapple.

I’m glad I got a chance to try something other than a Chinese or Japanese green tea. I probably would not have sought out a Ceylon green. I don’t like this well enough to order more, though.

This is the last of my sample and I am purposely oversteeping to see the difference. I steeped for about 5 to 6 mins. I strongly suggest this. It has more flavor and it isn’t bitter but on the verge of maybe getting bitter if steeped longer. The pineapple like scent DOES come out more if steeped longer. I am going to try multiple infusions.

This morning I felt The Force (i.e. __Morgana__’s tasting note from last night) compelling me to try this tea. When I popped open the packet I was really surprised. There was so little tea inside. I really debated on whether or not to stick to the parameters I’d set for this entire sampler (one bag = the same big-arsed cup). I’d tried spliting up the first few samplers and then gave up since I don’t have a super-accurate way to measure and really wanted to give the teas an equal chance. Well, I stuck with my brainless parameters.

You might want to get ready for my crazy scent-association-o-rama: The packet smelled like a piece of 2X4 that had been cut with a somewhat dull circ saw. Not the burned aspect – but after the wood cools and you get that smell. Kinda woody, but there’s something more to it.

The first steep was really unremarkable. It tastes like if you took a black ceylon tea and removed all the black tea and replaced it with genero-green. Green Drink. And I’ll second __Morgana__’s “Pineapple? Wah?” Nope. It’s genero-sweet that I’m beginning to associate with Ceylon. I actually tried to use the power of suggestion on myself and would think of random sweet things: caramel, honey, and even strawberries and thought that I should be tasting “subtle notes” of each one. Yeah, it pretty much worked. So I’ll say it: “subtle notes of candied pineapple my hiney!”

Don’t get me wrong – it’s a pleasant tea. I did steep it about a minute and a half longer on the second go around. It did give it a teeny-tiny bit more oomph, but not enough to make me want to purchase a larger amount of this tea. NE

I don’t know about candied pineapple, but this is a sweet and mild green tea. I’m getting hints of smoke, but I might have just been storing this too close to the GM Gunpowder. I’m drinking steeps 1 and 2 simultaneously, and while the color is nigh identical, the first steep has a stronger, sweeter flavor. I’ll update with number 3 in a bit.

As of now, this is nice and I wouldn’t turn down a cup, but I’m not planning to buy more; this is a bit weak for my taste.

2.2g, 6oz

The aroma of this tea was so strongly vegetal it made me gag. Thankfully I brewed it to go in a travelers mug and the lid kept that smell from further hitting my nostrils.

The taste is a light airy green with a slight sweetness and no acidity. I drank about half the mug hot, and enjoyed how refreshing it was, it really quenched my thirst, in a way more astringent teas do not. I got a bit of sweetness out of this hot, but found the sweetness deepened when the tea had cooled off. I’m not tasting candied pineapple, but I do enjoy the lightness of this tea.