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Purchased this from kimquat in her stash sale. I’ve been rather curious about Golden Moon for a while, so I figured I’d pick this one up while I had the chance. Dry, it smells extremely minty! There’s a little vanilla sweetness in the background too. I did a 3 minute steep because mint teas tend to get too minty for me if steeped longer.

Yum, the aroma is much mellower in its mintiness, and there’s a lovely creamy vanilla in the background. This is quite delicious! The front of the sip is mostly mint, but the vanilla quickly develops around it and is especially strong at the end, where it obtains an almost custard-like quality. This tea makes me think of white chocolate with spearmint leaves, if there is such a thing. If not, there should be! :) A lovely, mellow mint tea.

This tea was one of my personal gifts from Ellyn from the TTB last week. Yay French teas! For some reason, the dry leaf smells like pickle brine to me. Isn’t that odd? I’ve encountered this smell in a couple of other flavored teas too! Very strange.

The brewed aroma is very sugary and candy-like! To be fair, this was how the Kusmi version smelled too – I’m not sure if violets are super sweet or something? The taste is quite sweet as well, in a powdered sugar kind of way. I think I enjoy violet as a flavor, it’s floral but much less offensive then others. That being said, this is some strong flavoring! I’m really glad I only steeped for 3 minutes. Even with the somewhat short steep, it’s quite perfumey, especially near the end. Not bad though! Especially considering I don’t love floral in general.

I’m pretty sure the coconut in this has gone bad… Smells overwhelmingly of vomit.

Tastes like vomit too. Dumped. >.<

Not going to rate it, considering.

I confess, I’m not sure who sent me this one… I know it was a freebie extra sample from one of my recent swaps, but I stupidly forgot to write a name on it. Thanks and sorry, whoever you are! :P It’s a combination of fruit and green tea. It smells very… limey. Limey in a cleaning product kind of way. This should be interesting, heh.

The brewed aroma is much less intense, thankfully. And the flavor is much lighter than I expected! It’s definitely artificial lime, but I still find it tasty, like lime candy. I don’t taste yogurt thankfully, because I think that would be weird in a tea. There is definitely a creamy element, and I can taste a little bit of apple. Overall, this is a pretty enjoyable tea, and I’m sure it would be very good iced too.

Edit: I just realized that this reminds me immensely of the new lime golden Oreos that are out this summer!

This sample came from Roswell Strange. I’ve liked most of the Kusmi teas I’ve tried so far, so I asked for this one even though I’ve been underwhelmed by most chocolate teas. There are a few pieces of what I assume are cinnamon stick mixed in with the generic-looking black tea. I didn’t get a lot of smell from the dry leaf, something vaguely sweet and spicy. I steeped it for 3 minutes

The brewed tea smells kind of spicy with maybe a little bit of milk chocolate. Meh… I’m finding this tea very underwhelming. I don’t really get much chocolate out of it, just a vague sort of sweet creaminess. And I guess there’s a hint of spice, but it’s nowhere near as present as I would expect. So mostly it just tastes like a mediocre black tea with a bit of cream to me. Sad day… I sometimes appreciate subtle flavoring but this one is too subtle for me I guess. :P

This sample came from Ost as a freebie in our swap! I had considered ordering the sample pack from Tea at Sea when they had a small sale a while back, but didn’t end up doing it. This little sample packet is so cute! And resealable, how lovely! It’s a bit weird that the instructions are attached to the part that gets cut off, so I just ended up taping them to the front of the packet. The leaves are flattened and they vary widely in size, I also see a few stems in there. The dry smell is alfalfa and grass, which is pretty synonymous with sencha for me. I steeped for 1 minute at 175 degrees.

Whoa, the brewed tea has a strong marine aroma! I’ll be honest, it scared me a bit. However, the taste is nowhere near as pungent. There is a little bit of a marine or seaweed note, but I found it quite lovely. This is a very grassy sencha, with the taste of autumn leaves in the background. I also get a little hint of spinach peeking in at some points. The entire flavor is quite mellow and light, and very refreshing after drinking black and flavored teas all morning.

So… After I had already brewed and sampled this, I noticed the brewing recommendation in the tea’s description… 5-6 MINUTES?! WHAT?! So I had to try it, of course. And as I kind of expected, it came out rather bitter. The flavor is definitely stronger, but it’s those same notes from before. All things considered, I preferred my short steep version. Maybe somewhere between the two would be ideal (2-3 minutes?).

This sample came from Mandy! A dark oolong with one of my favorite flavors? Yes, please! This is clearly a very oxidized oolong, the loosely-rolled pellets are almost black in color. The website doesn’t specify whether it has been roasted or not, and I can’t tell from the smell because of the flavoring. Dry scent is sweet vanilla and caramel with a bit of that alcoholic “flavoring” note. I did a 3 minute steep.

Oolong is always so amazing to watch! I love how huge the leaves are when they’re unfurled, and I find it interesting that even these leaves ended up looking fairly green once wet. The aroma is vanilla custard with a background note of autumn leaves. I was surprised that the oolong is actually the strongest flavor in this tea! It tastes like autumn leaves with a bit of a roasty note. The vanilla flavor is very creamy and pudding-like, and the hazelnut accents it well without being entirely identifiable by itself. It mostly manifests as a creamy roasted nuts flavor. Unfortunately, there’s a bit of an artificial, almost alcoholic aftertaste to this which makes me very sad. Too bad!

This was sent to me by the generous MzPriss. It wasn’t even a swap, she just sent it out of the kindness of her heart, aww… Sorry it took me so long to try it! :P It’s been a while since I had one of these giant golden fuzzbud (™?) Yunnans. This tea is composed entirely of huge, fat, golden buds that are super fuzzy. Dry scent is very sweet with a ton of honey and apricot and a little hint of cinnamon. The recommended steep was 1 minute but I found it too light for my tastes and let it go for an extra minute.

Mm, it smells like pastry with honey and golden raisins! The taste… Definitely a lot of fluffy, buttery pastry. There’s an inherent creaminess that, combined with the slight grain note, reminds me of soy milk. I also get a very mild sweet potato flavor, definitely with a little bit of butter and honey mixed in. I’m actually a little bit sad that I don’t get that interesting cinnamon scent in the taste… I did a second steep at 4 minutes and it came out very similar to the first with a little bit of a stronger grain note.

Overall, yes this tea is good. However, the price is way too steep in my opinion. I have had very similar teas from Yunnan Sourcing, and they have several other fuzzbud™ Yunnan teas that I haven’t tried yet. And the price is less than half of this tea! So it seems a bit excessive to me, but to each their own. :P

Another lovely Yunnan tea from TeaVivre! I’ve learned to have very high expectations for their teas, whether they’re premium, superfine, nonpareil, or just regular. They’ve definitely become one of my top 5 favorite companies for tea. I’ve tried three of their other Dian Hong teas, and I have a sample of the last one on the way. So I was curious to see how this compared, and where it fell between the Gold Tip and “regular” Dian Hong versions. The leaves are long and straight, and quite thin. I would estimate the golden bud content to be about 40%. Dry, the leaves smell quite sweet with lots of honey and apricot, and some mild malt in the background. Did the usual 3 minute steep. :D

Wow, the aroma! This is definitely the strongest honey scent I’ve ever found in a tea, and it’s accompanied by lovely apricot and raisin notes, and the ubiquitous malt.

I was so surprised by the taste that it deserves a new paragraph… Lol. It has the lovely bread flavor that I’ve come to expect from good Yunnans, but it also tastes like creamy oatmeal and chewy raw grains. This is reminding me a lot of Shang’s red teas with their combination of white and black tea flavors. It has that grain note that borders on being a white tea-like sweet hay flavor. The honey really starts to come out near the end, along with the apricot, and these two form a lovely aftertaste with a bit of graininess still present.

I have to say, this is not at all what I expected! I was prepared for this to fall somewhere between the bready/honey/stonefruit of the Golden Tip and the earthier and more robust “regular” Dian Hong. But this definitely has a flavor profile all its own, and it’s very delicious.

Thanks Angel and Mary at Teavivre for giving me to opportunity to try so many of your teas at little to no cost to me! You have an amazing company and your service is always fantastic!

Edit: Totally forgot to mention that I took a huge mouthful of this, and then there was this pesky tingling in my throat. Of course, I ended up coughing and spewing tea everywhere… Luckily, it was mostly just all over my pajamas and not my laptop. Such a graceful moment.

Purchased this from kimquat in her stash sale (I sincerely hope that her name is Kim and people call her that in person, too cute)! I am continuing my quest to try all the Yunnans! Honestly, it doesn’t say where this tea is from on their website, but I was assuming Yunnan based on the appearance and the smell. The leaves are very long and slender, slightly twisted. It’s almost all fuzzy golden buds with some dark grey leaves mixed in. The smell is mild malty bread with honey and stonefruit notes. I did a 3 minute steep at 200 degrees. I’m always so tempted to overleaf these teas because when I get the leaf in, it looks like so little leaf!

The brewed aroma is all baked bread and malt with the same stonefruit and honey notes from the dry leaf. I catch a little nip of earthy, mineral scent. Mm, this is very delicious. The strongest flavor here is crusty bread and malt, yum yum yum. One of my very favorite notes in tea! This bread happens to be toasted with a little bit of honey and apricot preserve over the top. It’s very smooth and lovely with a silky mouthfeel. I do get that little bite of earthy and mineral somewhere near the end, and I think it adds a lovely dimension, even though earthy isn’t generally my favorite.

Yum yum delicious! Thanks kimquat!