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So this is my first gunpowder tea experience, I have to say, I’m not all that impressed. Right from the get-go, the smell of the leaves, I smelled a strong almost burnt green smell, it reminded me of bitter and earthy green tea, uh-oh.

I brewed the sample hot, 2.5 minutes, no additives. The smell of the tea is very green: vegetal, earthy, rough, a heavy smell that tells you the mouth feel will not be smooth or short. I usually like green tea, furthermore, I usually like overinfused and bitter green, but this is a different beast altogether. The taste of this tea starts as green, very bitter green, but there is an unpleasant smoky-ness to it, not like Lapsang Souchong, like unintentionally burned tea, followed by more bitter and finished with a strangely misplaced hit of sweetness. Surprisingly, there is no aftertaste.

So, bitter, burnt, bitter, sweet, nothing.

There are probably ways to fix this, adding sugar or messing with infusion times. Since my sample is out, I will have to try something else.

This one time, in a magical far away place I had one of those incredibly expensive, smooth, beautiful, sweet sencha teas. Then I woke up and remembered that I actually did have this one from Golden Moon.

I brewed it the first time, hot, 3 minutes, no additives. The dull leaves, covered in a light green powder, brew into something gatorade yellow/green with the familiar sencha aroma. For those who never had sencha, it is vegetal, it is green, it is bright and strong green in flavor, the final note, the aftertaste is slightly sweet. This brew is pretty spot-on. Not absolutely perfect, but a good Sencha.

The second infusion, hot, 2.5 minutes, no additives, is slightly brighter, a little more vegatal, and the sweet note starts a little earlier and lasts a little longer.

Overall, another good one by Golden Moon.

So, got some of this from Ricky, and gave it two old-college-tries before writing the review. First, the leaves a small, dark and tightly curled, mixed amongst them are candied/dried pineapple chunks – first thought: Ooooh! I’m going to love this. The smell of the dried leaves is green, you do not smell the dried pineapple. I thought this was a great sign, because it means no artificial pineapple flavoring was added, this is just tea with pineapple preserved so it can stay in tea. Now for the review:

The first time brewed (backlogging) I infused 1 scoop of tea, hot with no additives, 3 minutes. The leaves after infusing had unfurled nicely into a leafy green mess, but the pineapple chunks appear to have disappeared, they have softened and dissolved and infused into the tea. I noticed the tea itself was bright, yellow brick road color, had a sweetened aroma, but very faint on the pineapple. You can almost smell the pineapple, but it really does taste like a delicate green tea. The taste is very much green tea, slightly vegetal, fresh, crisp, with a touch, and I mean a touch, of fruit flavor.

Second infusion of the first batch: 2 minutes, hot, no additives. The tea definitely lost some of it’s golden yellow color and the aroma seems to have been knocked back a bit too. The flavor is roughly the same, very little loss, still very green with an inkling of fruit flavor.

I thought about the tea without trying it again, was I disappointed that the pineapple was not really there? Should I try and fix this? The answer Steepsterites, is no, I was not upset and I do not think I should try to fix this, because it was a decent tea. Though not strongly pineapple, as in I would probably rename it “Green with Pineapple”, it is still a very good green tea, using natural pineapple to flavor it and not some artificial or oil(s) to try and make it pineapple. It is clean and crisp and definitely vegetal and naturally delicious.

With this thought process in mind, I gave it one last shot, brewed 1 scoop hot, 3 minutes with a pinch of Rock Sugar. The second time around I had similar results with the leaves and with the missing pineapple, as well as the liquor and aroma, the flavor, however changed slightly. The sugar brought out some of the pineapple that was missing. The tea is still clean and green, but the pineapple was brightened, as in I could almost taste it.

Overall, I thought the tea was good although it should be renamed. I do not feel that the sugar added was actually worth the result, I believe the tea was fine how it was as long as you knew you were getting mostly a green tea that had pineapple in mind.

Thanks Ricky!

This was my third time trying this tea. As I had said in my previous review of it, I did not like the tea, I thought it was too weak, almost stale, but I did not buy it, so I could not send it back (believe me, I would have). I attempted the tea two different ways in order to try and fix it’s underwhelming-ness.

The first thing I did, blasphemous as it was, I crushed the leaves, a normal serving amount (1 scoop) in my mortar and pestle into a fine powder. I really hoped this would help to release the oils and hidden flavors within the leaves. I brewed this, 3 minutes, hot water then removed the infuser and ran it through another strainer because the powder was very finely floating.

While this did improve the flavor from previous trials with the tea, it was still in-no-way up to par with what I have come to expect and love from Dragonwell.

The final attempt at this tea, was over-brewing. As I had said in yet another review, I like to let my Dragonwell steep until I finish the cup, getting the most caffeine and flavor out of each and every leaf. I put one scoop of leaves in my mug, added hot water, let it sit for four minutes and began drinking. Over the next ten minutes, while drinking the tea and allowing the leaves to continue to infuse, I did notice an increase in flavor, but still not where I would expect this to be.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me two (and then three) times, shame on me…I do not blame anyone for the shortcomings of this tea, I find that the leaves could be old, this could be an unrevised batch, something could have happened in storage, as I said, not my sample, not my responsibility, but the tea is definitely not where it should be. This is especially disappointing because Adagio usually does a very good job in getting fantastic tea.

Oh well, I tried to fix it, and unfortunately failed to do so. This tea will forever remain at the bottom of my ratings…

This tea was brewed and handed to me, so I cannot give too thorough specifics on it; all I know is it was brewed hot, probably 2-3 minutes with no additives.

The tea is very good, airy, light, slightly vegetal but crisp and clean. Strangely, there is a slightly sweet aftertaste. This appears to be brought on by the cleanliness of the tea.

Definitely very good and I can safely say, I will be adding it to my next Adagio order

Down to my second to last bag. Was not feeling so great though, hoped this would help, I felt energized and soothed after drinking the rich, velvety goodness that is this tea.

Infused hot, 4 minutes, no additives.

Still chipping away at the Golden Moon Sampler…This tea smelled fantastic, like a rich black tea with a slightly sweet scent. The taste was plain, brewed hot for four minutes with no additives. As it cooled, I noticed an unpleasant astringency, a slight bitter note commonly associated with oversteeped tea. So I added a pinch of German rock sugar and a touch of milk, this made the tea sweeter and smoother.

On the second infusion, fearing the same result as the first, I brewed for 2.5 minutes and added the pinch of sugar up front and milk to taste in my mug.

Overall pretty decent black tea.

This tea is very complex: the dried leaves smell fantastic, the brewed tea does not, however, the flavor is great.

The dried leaves smell rough and natural, like they were not processed or pruned, but they are raw from where they were grown. There is also a spicy, sweetness to the scent. You can smell cardamom and cinnamon.

The brewed tea is very dark, almost unexpectedly dark. The aroma of the tea is more of the rough, natural, earthy smell. The initial part of this bouquet is a little too earthy for me, however, it mellows out into the sweeter and better smell. As the tea cools, the aroma levels out, and becomes more and more of the earthy pu-erh and less of the sweetness.

The flavor is complex: pu-erh, then citrus, then cardamom, then chai, then cinnamon, then ends with more pu-erh. It is complex, it is earthy, it is rich and it is spiced. Very good.

The rating suffers a little because although I enjoy the tea, the earthy aroma I do not like. For me, tea is always all about a complete experience, bouquet and flavor. Here the flavor is good, but the bouquet is off-putting.

I tried this tea a few times, the final opinion is still out on it though. I do really enjoy chocolate peanut butter cups. The odor of the leaves is definitely black tea and chocolate with a slight hint of peanut butter.

The brewed tea, hot, 3 minutes, no additives, smells very fragrant, very chocolatey. However, not so strongly of peanut butter. This holds true in the flavor also, definitely taste black tea and definitely taste chocolate, but no peanut butter.

I tried it again, hot, 5 minutes, pinch of sugar, splash of milk and I got a creamier slightly peanut butter flavor, but still more chocolate than peanut butter.

I do wish the peanut butter was stronger, I think I might be able to get the flavor I want out of it, but I am going to have to try a few things. Consider this an initial rating, hoping to perfect the tea and give it a better rating.

After depleting much of my samples this past week, I did stop in Teavana for some tins, and wound up leaving with a sampling of this.

The smell of the dried leaves is very good. It does not smell so much like apricots, there is a hint of apricot and a faint note of apple, there definitely is a toasty caramel smell.

Brewed hot, 3 minutes, no additives.
The liquor is bright (for a tea) pink, almost a rosy color. The brewed tea smells much the same as the leaves, like toasty caramel with some starchy fruit. To best describe it would be the odor of “buttered popcorn jelly belly jelly beans”. The flavor is definitely a little tart from the fruit acids found in apricots and apples, there is a mild undertone by the green tea and then a warmed caramel flavor.

The tea by itself is alright. I think I am going to try blending it with another teavana tea though to see if I can get more flavor out of it.