The reviews on this tea certainly are intriguing. I’ve brewed it now on three different days, and in the end have found it rather disappointing.
I actually don’t like the smell of the fresh leaves at all. While there is a certain honey scent to them, there is also a very sharp scent that overpowers the honey. I suppose I could describe it as floral, so the fact that I don’t like floral perfumes in general might explain my dislike for the scent. The impression that comes to my mind is someone trying to cover body odor with stinky perfume.
Once brewed, luckily it looses the sharp scent. There is a nice black tea flavor, but I have a difficult time picking up any honey. I detected a hint of honey near the back of my throat as it cooled, but it was rather fleeting (since they describe the sensation as the front of the palate, this also led me to an interesting internet search to learn that taste bud mapping is over simplified).
The second time I brewed the tea, I didn’t use enough leaves and the result was very blah watery tea. The leaves are difficult to measure (I don’t have a scale) due to their very large size. Both the first and third time, though, I used plenty of leaf. The third time around I tried adding a small amount of honey to the tea to see if it would accent the natural honey flavor, but it didn’t really add much. The tea also left a bad aftertaste in my mouth.
All in all, I’m glad to have tried the tea and can see why some might enjoy it, but I think the description from Golden Moon of honey flavor literally exploding didn’t happen for me at all. I don’t generally sweeten my tea, but I do sometimes like a hint of honey in some teas. This one was a little disappointing for me at the end.
