Golden Monkey Imperial Yunnan

This was my tea of choice at work today.
Wow it’s golden – not just hints and tips – these whole leaves and buds are GOLD – so beautiful.
I’m a fan of Yunnan, and have tried several golden ones lately. I like them in general, and I think this is a good example of that style. I don’t think this is in my top 5 teas, but I enjoyed it at work today, and could easily be an everyday at work type of tea.
It was just medium bold, not astringent, some sweet – but I didn’t get any floral (that fine with me – floral would have turned me off).
Thank you TheTeaFairy for sending me a sample of this beautiful tea.

Yunnans are not my favourite tea. But I’ve had some delicious ones and some less than delicious ones. :) This one is from the lovely Teafairy and is a fairly decent, middle of the road, yunnan. I like the average-ness of this one, funnily enough. it’s a tea that i can get behind drinking when you want something that isnt out of this world but is still a comforting cup. :) thanks teafairy!

After breaking my heart and drinking the last bit of golden eyebrow in my cup, i regretfully move on to this next tea in my sample shipment from tealux.

Opening the bag, i notice just how beautiful this tea is. This tea looks like large silver needle… only instead of being silver, this tea is gold :). The smell is a nice mix of clean, dry fall leaves, and clean, dry hay. The liquor has a nice smell of clover honey :)

I scoop out 2 tsp of buds into my 4 oz gaiwan, and infuse for 30 seconds at 195.
As i was somewhat expecting from the appearance of this leaf, this is a lighter tea, despite its rich dark almost mahogany coloration. This tea is smooth and delicate like silver needle, but with a bit more flavor. Not without surprise, this tea is the first tea since silver needle i have tried (not that that is saying much) that tastes almost exactly the way it smells dry. It has a pleasant taste of hay that has been soaked in clover honey. The honey taste lingers somewhat, tempting you to take that next sip.

To me, this is the “evil twin” of silver needle. I highly enjoy both, but will rate this slightly below silver needle, as somehow, this tea just kinda seems like its trying to be something it isnt supposed to be, but manages to get away with it. This is a perfect black tea for when you want to step back and have a nice, soothing tea that wont run around the room screaming its name (not that that is a bad thing, thats what i LIKE about black teas lol) but also want a break from the uuber delicacy of silver needle.