Vanilla Jasmine

Just when I’m about to give up on flavored teas, Golden Moon saves me from the funk I was falling swiftly into.

I really loved GM’s Jasmine, and found their vanilla to be pretty okay, so I was a bit excited to try this one. The dry leaves have an absolutely delicious smell. Someone mentioned cream soda, but I think it’s a bit better than that (since I’m not the greatest fan of cream soda). It’s juicy and floral and vanilla, very comforting and exciting. You can really smell both in the aroma, with the jasmine probably edging out the vanilla the teeniest bit. There’s also a lovely chocolate-type smell going on here.

I steeped this one up at boiling, but then as the leaves opened up, some looked a tad green, and I began to get worried that I had messed it up. Green and black blends are pretty tricky, temperature-wise. On the pour… the tea is a fairly dark color, a coppery-orange, and the smell coming off of it isn’t that strong. I’m getting more of a black tea smell, with whiffs of vanilla and jasmine.

The taste of this… I’m surprised how light it is! There’s sort of a mellow tea flavor, which I assume comes from the mixing of the black and green. It’s not the strongest, but it’s definitely adequate. At the front of the flavor, I’m definitely getting a bit more jasmine than vanilla, but then they tend to switch and mingle, until they’re just this one flavor that I can’t really describe. Other than vanilla jasmine!

Sometimes I’m actually getting a grape-like flavor, which is sort of strange. I don’t mean like a muscatel-wine flavor, like a Darjeeling, but sort of a grape soda flavor. It’s pretty pleasant, but sort of bizarre. I’m not getting any of the cocoa notes I smelled in the actual drink, which is fine by me.

Towards the bottom of the cup, the tea became a bit bitter on the initial sip, which wasn’t unpleasant, but is probably due to my temperature issues. I’m happy that it didn’t really negatively impact the tea until the very bottom, for sure.

Overall, another pleasant offering from Golden Moon! It didn’t knock my socks off (where did that expression even come from? Did someone’s socks actually get knocked off my something just that awesome?), but it was definitely an enjoyable cup, and on par with what I’ve come to expect with Golden Moon.

Two of my favorite flavors – how well do they go together? I decided to try really hard not to steep the H-E-double hockey sticks out of this one, so that I could catch as much as possible out of both flavors without succumbing to bitterness. The dry leaf smells super!

Mmmm, came out just right. The aroma has both vanilla and jasmine, individually discernible but also combining to form one yummy whole. The tea itself is naturally very sweet, and I’m getting absolutely no bitterness. The liquor is medium brown with a hint of green. I actually got out my cream and sugar and have it waiting on the side, since I usually prefer vanilla teas with those additives, but this tastes so nice the way it is I’ll think I’ll leave well enough alone. The only thing that niggles at me is a slight, unusual aftertaste that I can’t quite identify. Guess I’ll just have to try more again sometime to try and suss it out…

I am SO behind on tasting notes! I think I’ve just been drinking an unusual (for me at least) amount of tea recently, and it’s finally caught up with me. I’ve been doing 2-4 cold brews a day, and this is one from this morning.

Thanks to Nicole for this tea! I really like what I’ve tried from Golden Moon Tea, and I’ve had my eye on this one for a while. I’ve never had a black jasmine tea, though I do have a Jasmine Cream from NMT to try out. Ah, my sample backlog is getting overwhelming! Anyway, this tea has all the ingredients for success. It’s got a really nice kind of malty black base, a rich floral taste from the jasmine, and a wonderful creaminess from the vanilla. In fact, it reminds me of cream soda! Only, you know, without the fizz and a lot less sweet. The black base and the vanilla also tone down the jasmine a lot so it’s not perfume-y or overly floral.

While all the elements are there, it’s missing a little bit of pizazz. Don’t get me wrong, I really like it, but it just doesn’t scream “this is a special tea!” to me. I think it would be nice for an everyday iced tea, though it seems to be a bit expensive for that. I am really digging the cream soda vibes though, it’s a nice way to get a sweet fix without having tons of calories!

As Auggy wrote in a review of this tea, it is very similar to Cream Soda. The vanilla aroma is lovely but I think that the vanilla overpowers the jasmine in the tea. I like this quite well, but I’ve had better Jasmine teas and I’ve had better Vanilla teas. I think that the combination does not dance symbiotically. Vanilla takes too much of a lead.

Drinking Vanilla Jasmine was more than a little pleasant but not enough of a knock-out for me to invest in a full size. But I can understand why some palates will award this with a top score of 100.

The fragrance of the dry leaves is wonderful!! A very creamy, rich jasmine tempered with the sweetest of vanillas. Once steeped, the scent deepens into a steamy, candied, hothouse orchid.

The taste is a pale version of the delicious scent. There is a sweetness with just a wisp of jasmine. The vanilla is apparent in the aftertaste—a syrupy tropical vanilla.

For me, this rates high because I’m in love with the aroma! It’s intoxicating. The tea itself is good—just remember to breath in deep with each sip—then it becomes extraordinary.

Life is starting to become busy again but I’m not sure I’m ready for it! Winter session Shakespeare class for one more week and then the regular semester starts. And I finally have a job. At a coffee shop that sells Rishi tea! I’m kind of excited about that. Maybe I can get a discount or something.

In any case, I’m fully stocked up on tea for at least the next couple of weeks. Orders came in from Red Blossom Tea Co, Den’s Tea, and the famed Golden Moon sampler (so I can finally ship my swap box to you, takgoti! Sorry for the wait, it’ll be shipped tomorrow!). There’s almost too much to take it all in and I’m enjoying it very much.

Last night I pored over The Merchant of Venice and drank somewhere in the neighborhood of half a gallon of tea while doing so. I haven’t done the homework & tea thing since high school! It was great.

Anyway, I’m slowly making my way through the Golden Moon sampler and it was either Vanilla Jasmine or Tippy Earl Grey tonight and my housemate chose Vanilla Jasmine so here we are. The dry leaf has a very warm vanilla scent to it. Not too sweet but just nice and rich vanilla. While brewing the scent was lovely. Light jasmine robed in vanilla, not competing but complimenting nicely.

The flavor is full and robust. It’s dominated by vanilla but with nice floral jasmine notes throughout. The vanilla flavor is wonderful. Rich and creamy and the overall flavor of the tea is perfectly balanced. My housemate loved it too.

OK, so it has that jasmine smell i kinda hate in tea. So far I either hated or loved jasmine flavored teas. Just something about jasmine and me. Hope it’ll be on the good side but I honestly doubt it. I hate the smell of this tea…
OK I don’t hate it. I love the initial taste in my mouth but I slightly dislike the aftertaste. It’s very subjective tho so i wont rate it. Tastes like good tea but there is an issue of jasmine aroma for me :) But I’d even rate it on the good side…
And yeah all the aromas – jasmine, vanilla and black tea blend in quite nicely.

I love the aroma this tea gives off both in the dry and wet leaves. Ahhh :) A very calming vanilla with a bit of floral jasmine. I just wish I could drink this tea, I think I royally messed it up. I brewed with boiling water for 4:30 (says to do 3-5min on the silver armour). The taste was so astringent in my 12oz mug that I took very few sips. A few while scalding hot, a few slightly cooler and a few much cooler. I just don’t like this tea, but I don’t think it’s the tea’s fault. I think I’ll keep my jasmine teas of the green variety and skip black jasmines altogether.

I’m used to jasmine teas being greens, so having those flowery flavours mixed with a black tea base instead is an interesting change. I think the stronger flavours of the black tea provide a more solid counterpoint to the perfumy jasmine for soemone like me who doesn’t like their tea tasting like a bar of soap. Even so, this black tea doesn’t taste harsh nor does it drown out the flavouring, so I think this tea is a good balance between two extremes. The vanilla is an interesting addition and it works really well with the jasmine making the tea taste sweet, like some sort of candy – cotton candy maybe?

A really fun and enjoyable tea, and I bet this would taste fantastic with some milk.

The irksome thing about vanilla is that, like cinnamon, you give it a little bit of stage time and it wants to hog the entire spotlight. I love jasmine, but couldn’t smell it in the dry leaves, which smelled entirely of vanilla. I could smell a bit of jasmine in the steeped tea, but it was pretty subtle. The tea itself is kind of weak, and tastes like vanilla; I don’t taste any jasmine. Definitely not my thing, don’t think I’m going to get through this mug. On to the next one!

[Edit]: I removed my rating, which was 13. It’s not the tea’s fault that I don’t like vanilla. I reckon if I did, I’d like the tea better in spite of its weakness and insufficient jasmine presence. In any case, I didn’t want to pull its overall rating down with my biased score.