I’m half way through my Golden Tips samples now! While I love Assam, I’m trying to space them out between other teas as I try each one for the first time, so that I can get an accurate impression of the flavour, rather than just a comparison to the one I drank previously.
This is a second flush assam, harvested in June 2014. There looks to be about a 50/50 split between wiry, black-brown leaves and slightly downy golden leaves. There are also some golden tipped leaves. The scent is malty, maybe a little woody. I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 3 minutes in boiling water. I added a splash of milk.
The one thing the scent and appearance didn’t prepare me for at all was the flavour! Usually it’s possible to get a rough idea, but this tea was a complete dark horse. From my observations of the dry and brewing leaf, I was expecting a fairly generic assam, strong and malty but perhaps not with many distinguishing features that would really mark it out. I was totally wrong. The mild chocolate and smooth caramel notes are obvious from the very first sip. They’re not strong, in your face flavours, but they’re definitely what this tea tastes of. The ubiquitous maltiness emerges in the mid-sip, and adds a sweetness that helps to define the chocolatiness still further. There’s a light woodiness towards the end of the sip, so I wasn’t completely wrong, but it’s not at all the defining flavour of the cup. I’m pleased also with how smooth this assam is; there’s no hint of astringency, and neither is it particularly tannic. Just perfect for my tastes, then!
This is a tea I’d repurchase, if only for it’s beautiful chocolate and caramel notes. It’s certainly an assam like few others I’ve tried.
hard to tell the difference between the assams some time, but I also like this one!