Yunnan Jig

I feel like I’m rediscovering teas when I read your reviews. Made of pure awesomeness.

@Auggy, I agree!

:D I’m glad that everyone is getting a lot of enjoyment out of my tealog! It’s been so much fun logging all of this and watching my tastes evolve. You just wait! There’re still oolongs and greens and whites and pu-erh to get to (none of which I’ve ever tasted in loose leaf form… and I’ve never tasted white or pu-erh, period).

I started with black because it’s the most familiar. But all of you have been a tremendous help! The Golden Moon sampler is on its way!

www.denstea.com has a free green sampler that comes w/ info. You pay $3 upfront, but you get $3 off your next order of $15 or more. Check it out:)

MY GOSH! I just saw all the GM teas you have in your coupboard now… I don’t want to think of the damage your check book must have suffered lol.

No! Hahaha, they’re all samples that my boyfriend got me as a present!

http://www.goldenmoontea.com/Tea_Taster_s_Sampler_P56C28.cfm <— Each brew 1-2 cups and it was $20! I was so excited that I just added all of them to my cupboard like a fiend!

HAHA! Sweet! As soon as I have room I’m so buying that.

They each come in foil-wrapped bags, so it’s very, very easy to store! Plus I had a $5 off coupon by using the code “teareviewblog” which was pretty awesome.

It’s actually 31 teas! The only tea out of all the Golden Moon teas I didn’t receive is Vanilla Jasmine. Literally their entire catalog in a box! It’s pretty exciting. :)

No Vanilla Jasmine! shoot, I’d LOVE THAT. How long is that coupon code active?

I have absolutely no idea if it’s even active anymore. My boyfriend used it early last week. I’ve heard that other people got Vanilla Jasmine and not Rose. But really, it’s quite the steal, and a super-excellent way to try all of Golden Moon’s offerings. They’re all loose leaf as well. It’s going to be a great tea education for me. I can’t wait to dive in!

Whoops! Looks like I do have Vanilla Jasmine! :D It’s every single one of Golden Moon’s teas!

Look what you did, now I’m tempted to order that. I’m trying to do one tea company at a time. Almost done with all my Adagio purchases. Then I’m going to move on to Rishi. $20 for 31 samples. I’m tempted…

Jump ahead and do Golden Moon 1st, it’s the cheapest:)

Haha, steepster is a bad influence. Must resist spending!

It’s their entire catalog, Ricky. :) That’s pretty hard to beat… They’re supposed to be an excellent company!

Peer pressure. Not good. Don’t start listing places to purchase tea around NYC.

LOL you know no idea how long I spent trying to find the supposed ‘peppery’ flavour of this tea. I tried different steeping times, water temperature, etc.

Eventually I steeped it once for 6 minutes and when I resteeped the same leaves (7 minutes) the resteep had something that might possibly be pepper. Or not.
XD

I am convinced that this peppery flavor doesn’t exist. Bah! LIES! I think it has somewhat of a peppery SMELL when dry, but I probably wouldn’t have smelled that unless someone had told me about it.

Maybe higher quality Yunnan teas have a “peppery” taste? And Jillian, you resteeped this? I haven’t been resteeping my blacks just because they’re… blacks. Yeah.

Ricky! BUY SOME TEA. And I’d love to know places around NYC to purchase tea. Dean & Leluca apparently has Harney & Sons and the famous French blender Mariage Freres. There’s a place near me that sells Numi Tea, and Whole Foods has Rishi, Mighty Leaf, and The Republic of Tea. There’s also Radience Tea House and Subtle Tea here in NYC. Tavalon used to have a tea bar in Union Square but it closed and I’m not sure they’re opening it up again.

Umm, I’ll have to stop by Whole Foods sometime this week, actually no. Stop tempting me! Is it loose tea or teabags at Whole Foods?

Ricky, I think it depends actually on the Whole Foods. I’m pretty sure that the Columbus Circle location has some loose leaf. Not really sure about any of the other locations in the city, though. :P

1. I have to echo Auggy’s thoughts on the awesomeness of your tea blog. Bursting at the seams with the awesome.

2. Tavalon relocated to Jersey. Not sure if they’re redoing the tea bar or if they warehousing it up, but that’s where they be.

3. Now you have ME looking at the Golden Moon sampler. Does anyone have any extra will power lying around? Maybe packed in a box somewhere…?

I’ll check the one on Union Square and get back to you =D

Don’t do it takgoti! If you do it, I might feel even more pressure to purchase it.

Thanks Auggy and takgoti for the kind words about my bloggin’ skillz. Gunpowder is tomorrow, so you’ll probably be reading about my first loose leaf green, as well as my first multiple steeping experience. This should be interesting. :)

Buy the sampler! :D The boyfriend used “teareviewblog” as a code and got FREE SHIPPING. I don’t know if it’s still in effect, but considering that it’s the entire Golden Moon catalog, it’s pretty worth it. :) And then everyone can be logging about the teas as one big steepin’ family!

ARGH. I just bought the sampler. It IS a good deal (and the code still works for free shipping).

@denisend NICE. I haven’t done it yet, but I don’t think it will be long before I cave.

YES! :D It’s only 1-2 cups for each tea (although some people have gotten 3-4 cups out of it), and a lot of the teas have potential for multiple steepings. It’s exceedingly rare that you’d ever be able to taste a company’s entire catalog in one go, so it’s pretty exciting! :)

I plan on caving tomorrow when my new budget month starts. :D Though I might have to wait until we get back from St. Louis so it doesn’t end up sitting on my porch. :(

Yay! I love coercing people to join in the fun! All of the samples come in these heavy duty foil bags. Which is adorable, but a bit annoying at the same time, since you can’t sniff any of the teas without ripping the bags completely open. :( But there’s a full spread of every type of tea here, so I’m pretty excited. Man I love my boyfriend!

@ teaplz: I only re-steep certain whole-leaf black teas. The chinese blacks seem to hold up pretty well for a couple steeps (although not as long as other types of tea).

@Takgoti: Resist, damn you! If you cave then I won’t have any excuse not to buy the GM sampler myself. ;p

Sorry to hear about your gate. Is your garden ok?

Thanks Lala The garden is alright, had a few things (sweeping brush for one) broken and a lot of rubbish dumped but it’s nothing my husband can’t fix. A few hours when we get the time and it will be as good as new.

We were in a nicer area a couple of years ago and when my husband had cancer our landlord wanted to rip us off and charge extortionate rates so we had to move into the first place we could. We just didn’t know how bad it would be here. Well this time next year my husband would have saved roughly £8000 and my mother said she will give us another £5000 so we have enough deposit for a nice house in a nice area. I can’t wait. No more broken gates, no more poop on my doorstep, no more drunken arguments outside my door, no more of everything.

Oh, Kitty! I am sorry you have had to endure all that! Here are my prayers that you get in a nice place with GREAT neighbors SOON!

Thank you ashmanra It’s not something that I like to talk about but with everything that’s been going in for the last few weeks I just had to rant a little. Just found out that my aunty broke her wrist yesterday as well and in a seperate incide my cousin lost his job and got into a bad car crash. Hopefully the negativity around my family will be lifted. When it rains it pours.

Wow! Sorry to hear about ALL that stuff Kitty.
Regarding the tea, I rather enjoyed this one, & the Yunnan Noir is also quite nice :)

Thanks Terri HarpLady Yunnan Noir is on my wishlist but Adagio don’t sell it in the UK :(

That’s no fun.
Next time I place an Adagio order (might be a little while, I just placed one), I’ll have to order a sample of it to send your way. :)

That would be ever so kind of you Terri HarpLady I’m always happy to repay a favour. :)

I have a crap load of points as well. I want those chocolates and cookies!

I hear they are still on back order!!! Oye!
I think I will just get some blends. If you have any extra blends laying around…hint hint :P
CHEERS!

We’ll never see them. I’ll be shocked if we do.

“just get some blends”?! just how many points do you have??

Not as many as Cofftea! LOL I think I have $49 FREE worth coming…

LOL yeah I have about $140.

wow.

just wow.

to both of you.

Adagio is probably the one place I haven’t bought from yet. (Well, not the only one but the main one with a big inventory.) Given that people seem to have a love/hate relationship with them I am wondering whether I should order some samples from them or skip it? What do you guys thing?

Don’t skip it, form your own opinion!

I agree, don’t skip it…and I’m not just saying that because I do like their company and their teas…I agree, you must form y our own opinion…you won’t know unless you try! I will say the first time I ordered from them I used the online chat feature and “Christine” was on the other end and I told her my tea interests and she was awesome suggesting teas to try. She did suggest sampler packs as well and I think they are a good way to go for trying several of their teas without spending a buttload of money right away :)

If you are interested in $5 coupon on your first order – let me know I can send you an email coupon…just need your email address if you want to PM it to me.

Oh thank you! Finally someone else who can find the smokiness in Yunnan! I think of it as sort of in the vein as Lapsang Souchong, only milder, but that if you don’t like one, chances are you won’t like the other either. I’ve stopped mentioning that because people kept looking funny and started talking about pepper. I can’t remember having found any pepper either. I was beginning to think my memory had been playing tricks on me.

Exactly! I had pepper on my pasta for lunch and it sure the heck didn’t taste anything like this tea does. It reminds me more of the Russian Caravan teas that I drink – although it has different undertones.

Has anyone — other than the guys who write the descriptions for the tea companies — ever tasted pepper or spice? With Yunnans, I taste maltiness and a caramel thing. But spice? I haven’t found one Yunnan that matches that description. I think we’re onto something here.

I have on occassion encountered something that I’ve described as having a spicey taste, but how we perceive flavour is so individual so that might easily be my own definition of a spicey taste that someone else would describe differently.

Sometimes I pick up a taste that tastes like my pepper mill smells. I assume that’s what they’re talking about and go ahead and call that ‘peppery’, but that’s the closest I’ve really gotten (because the way a pepper mill smells and tastes are two different things… not that I go around licking pepper mills or anything).

See, now I wouldn’t call Yunnan Jig smoky, but instead peppery. Maybe it’s just semantics?

I think it’s probably the same flavour but recognise it differently. It was the same thing with the white cucumber I got from Ricky a few days ago. Others had found a cinnamon like flavour, but to me it was like a mouthful of dill.

I don’t know…I found some smoke flavor in the weaksauce yunnan I ordered the other day. It was on the tail end of the sip, and showed up primarily after the cup had cooled down. Now I’m going to have to make a cup of this and see if I can find the pepper in it.

Glad you’re enjoying this one! _

If you want to have a completely different Yunnan experience and really get a taste of how diverse Yunnan teas can be, try an all-bud Yunnan, such as Itoen’s Yunnan Gold Tips (which I currently can’t find on its website) or Rishi’s Organic Ancient Tree Golden Needle http://www.rishi-tea.com/store/golden-needle-organic-fair-trade-black-tea.html.

East Side Rob, due to shipping issues and fees and customs and whatnot those aren’t really available to me :(

I love tea from the Yuannan region. I was actually building an order from Rishi. 25% off! If only there was free shipping as well. I won’t cave! You could always get steepster members to send some tea your way.

Surely, there are Yunnan bud teas available over there — it’s Europe, the cradle of fine food and drink. Try Le Palais des Thes at www.palaisdesthes.com. They have a Bourgeons de Yunnan that’s an all-bud Yunnan. They’re French and they ship to the United States (and the French are so ambivalent about us Americans), so surely they’ll ship to Denmark. (You guys are such an uncontroversial lot, except of course when the local newspaper publishes a cartoon of Mohammed, but, hey, I digress.)

Anyway, Le Palais Des Thes, I think, even has a store in Oslo, so surely they can hurl a sample across the Skagerrak or the Kattegat, or whatever body of water it is that separates you guys.

I haven’t tried their Yunnan bud tea myself, but I bet it’s pretty good. I found a link, but it’s to the American version of their site.

http://www.palaisdesthes.com/us/tea-shop/yunnan-tips-2424.html

Let me know if you have any luck.

Ricky, I do have some secret plans in that regard, but it’ll have to wait a while.

East Side Rob, oh I can get the type, no problem. Those particular vendors you mentioned would be a problem though. I’ve only ordered from Adagio once, and it was pretty extravagant experience. About $20 for the tea, about $20 for shipping and about $20 for customs…

I’ve always considered drinking a fine tea an affordable luxury, something that can be enjoyed for a fraction of the cost of a good wine. But at $40 for a shipment, I can see why you’d want to avoid American-based tea purveyors. And how’s the Euro against the dollar these days?

No clue, we haven’t got the Euro in Denmark. Yet. It’s a question of time before they send that to a vote again. The majority for no was tiny the last time. But I think $1 = about 6 danish kroner.

Ouch, couldn’t you just list it as a gift? Would you still have to pay customs for that? When I order stuff outside of the US that’s what companies usually list on the customs form.

I can’t, so far as I can see, control how they send it. And I’m not sure there wouldn’t still be VAT on it. On the other hand, I’m not particularly comfortable about the customs labels being fiddled with like that. I haven’t bought from Teaspring (who otherwise have very reasonable shipping!) since the time I ordered for some $75 tea, and when I got the package the customs label read ‘Contents: Card. Value $10’. I was lucky the customs people didn’t decide to try and open that one! O.o

Haha, usually the items are listed properly, but the pricing is a bit fudged when it’s sent to me.

Yeah, I’ve only had something like that happen the one time, but it did still make me a little uncomfortable with shopping there. I think in the new year I’ll have to place an order with Chaplon. They’re based in Denmark and I haven’t shopped with them in AGES. Don’t know why actually, I’ve always been happy with their quality. They just sort of slipped off my radar, I guess.

Yay! Glad that this one was better than mediocre. I think it’s a pretty standard tea overall. The cocoa smell is awesome on this one, though! One of my favorite things about it. :)

I could totally see this one becoming a standard morning tea. It isn’t awesome but it is darn good so I enjoyed it. Thank you for sharing it with me! :)

Tickled by the “thickly prickly pepper.” (Say that five times fast!) A tongue twister tea!

It’s MAPLE syrup. :)
And I love this as a morning tea. Unfortunately my stomach is sensitive in the morning.

I’ve made that mistake before. :P

Blech! It’s a disgusting experience.

Oh a rainy weekend, Alfred Hitchcock and copious pots of black tea sounds stupendous!

This would be the perfect area for that. I love Washington for the rain.