Golden Dragon Yellow Tea

1/20/14 Midday tea. 3g/6oz/175F First steep – 2 minutes. Very much the same tea as the pot tasting. 2nd steep – 2 minutes. The aroma and color in cup are lighter, but the flavor is still bright. A touch more astringent. The tastes don’t hang on the palate as long. 3rd steep – 3 minutes. This infusion is less golden in the cup, more a ‘summers first green is gold’ shade. The aroma is more vegetal and astringent. The taste has smoothed out and lightened a lot. This might be the last steep the leaves can support. 4th steep – 3min30sec. Both the tea aroma and color are very light now. The brew feels much lighter on the tongue, and the primary taste is a light astringent tone. I’m not going to try for a 5th steep.

A nice progression all in all.

I’m baccck! Sorry it’s been so long, but I’ve been super busy.

Stopped into a Teavana with friends the other night and they were offering this one up as a sample. To me it didn’t seem much different from some really nice Yunnan teas I’ve tried before. I found it to be rather malty with a touch of honey. Sure it was nice, but I didn’t find it to be as special as they were claiming it to be.

I certainly wasn’t going to shell out nearly $30 to take some home with me.

Honestly, I love this tea; I bought 6oz of it. I miss the 90 bucks it all cost, but this tea is just great!
If anyone can recommend a similar tea that is less expensive, I’d be forever in your debt.

~1tsp in yixing pot,
1-2 steeps 15seconds with 175F
Colour is light golden.
Aroma is of mild honey, floral and sweet.
Taste is much of the same with a smooth buttery finish, that doesn’t stick around too long.
3-4 Steeps 20 seconds 180F
Colour is more of a yellow/green, still pleasing.
Aroma has settled on the floral notes and less on the honey.
Taste is much lighter, more delicate, but less complex.
5th steep 25 seconds 180F
Colour is now like a clear yellow.
Aroma still hits with the floral, but significantly less “umph” to it.
Taste has mellowed out and the buttery finish is almost gone.

I’ll keep steeping with 30sec times until I get clear water out of the leaves. I really enjoyed this one. The spent leaves are also very attractive on the bottom of the yixing pot.

Just had a cup of this tea in my gaiwan which I received from Anna as a sample. thank you very much Anna. A good cup of tea. A very gold color in my gaiwan which looks nice. The aroma is very strong vegetal smell. The taste is smooth and mellow. It does not lingerin the mouth too long. Overall a good cup of tea.

Another one from Arby (I think). I’ve never had a yellow tea that I can remember, so this should be quite interesting. The leaves are long and spindly, with a mix of dull grey-brown and light gold. They look fairly similar to a Yunnan black tea, and smell a bit similar too.

This is certainly an interesting one. To me, it’s like a mix between a light Yunnan black tea and a dragonwell tea. The beginning of the sip is more Yunnan, with bread and some malty notes, and a light stonefruit flavor. In the middle of the sip, a strong buttery quality appears, and some nutty dragonwell-esque notes. The end is a little bit bitter, and I probably should’ve steeped this at a lower temperature… A light floral hit in the aftertaste as well?

It’s definitely interesting. Holding off on rating until I can try the rest of the sample with a lower water temperature.

This tea is another favourite of mine. The aroma is bright and summery, and the taste has notes that remind me of both green tea and of white tea. The crisp floral top note and slight smokiness are especially enjoyable.

First off, the reason I got this tea (and went into Teavana for that matter) is that it was on sale for half of its normal price ($13/50g). Though I wouldn’t buy it at full price, I would consider buying it again at the discounted one.

The feature of this tea that really takes the forefront when drinking it is its texture, which is buttery/fatty and silky smooth. Its taste is similar to a light black with a combination of honey, butter and malt.

Another noteworthy aspect of Golden Dragon is that its smell changes in a novel way. When dry it smells like pears and orchids over a Darjeeling base, but when steeped this morphs into a smell is very savory and reminds me of a steak spiced with salt/pepper.

Overall it is quite a light flavor.

Like many Teavana teas, this is fairly high quality but extremely overpriced. I got this as a gift, but apparently 2oz was over $30!

That said, this is a very nice buttery tea. Lasts through up to 4 or 5 infusions for me!

Day 4 of Lion’s Week of Tea challenge
Wednesday | Yellow tea

So I just picked this up the other day. as a free Starbucks reward. Since Teavana os owned by Starbucks, you can get loose tea/a free cup from there instead of a free Starbuck’s coffee. Anyway, I got 28g of Golden Dragon, my second yellow tea. I really like yellow teas, they offer many of the nice parts of green teas but without the grassy/stem flavours and no astringency or bitterness. I’m really liking this yellow tea streak I’m on.

This is a bit less toasty than my other yellow tea (“Yellow Sun” from What-Cha), I actually found it to be a bit like a black tea in that it has a strong and complex flavour with lots of tannins (but not in a bitter or overpowering way). I appreciate the tannins and flavour without the unpleasantness often associated.

There is a bit of a “mineral” taste, but not any specific metals. I do not find it overpowering or distasteful at all.

You can steep this several times, I would say probably 3 small teapots/large mugs.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this tea was amazing and stands up well to multiple steeps. After the 4th or 5th I increased the temperature to 205°F for an additional steeping or two. If I can catch this tea on sale I’m going to load up big time.