Award Winning Yun Nan Dian Hong Black Tea – Golden Tip

Drum-roll please…. I’m back! I had a wonderful vacation in Europe. I even got to try delicious new teas from new places! Reviews coming soon! :) When I got back I found a nice big bag of samples from Teavivre waiting for me! What a great way to end your vacation! Admitedly I am swamped with work but I will make time for tea and Steepster. I missed you all while I was away!

This is the first tea from the samples that I have decided to try. I chose it randomly, and I have to admit that I am a pretty good random chooser (if I may say so myself!)!! hahaha… This tea is delicious! 

The leaves are long and elegant. The dark brown and golden yellow make the leaves a pleasure to look at. The smell is incredible… It is a combination of extreme maltiness a hint of chocolate and a dash of honey. It is a party in your nose! My mouth couldn’t wait to join in!

The scent while brewing is spectacular, an extension of the deliciousness of the dry leaves. Once brewed the used leaves turn true golden and the golden brow liquor that they produce smells of fresh baked chocolate bread! I am in love… Unsweetened I get a tiny bit of welcome bitterness followed by the taste of fresh baked bread with just the right amount of maltiness and a hint of honey to finish of the sip. Wow… Sweetened a chocolate note becomes apparent and it is pleasure in a tea cup. 

The second steep is just as delicious, but not quite as bold in flavor. I find it, surprisingly, a tad bit more astringent than the first, but still delightful.  

This tea makes you double check if it is flavored… I really felt like I was eating freshly baked chocolate bread with honey! 

A great welcome back tea! :)

I’m going to start with a little story. Yesterday, members of my local family (my Momma, Grandma, Aunt), went for Mother’s Day brunch and we had a good time. I passed on the horrible restaurant tea and opted for….wait for it…COFFEE!! Egads! It was bad too-only a little sugar made it tolerable. As the conversations moved along, occasionally, I thought of my good tea at home and my fellow Steepsterites. Then it occurred to me-while I am not a huge fan of Facebook (extremely rarely on), I love Steepster. :)) Steepster IS my Facebook! Then I smiled. :)) I spent the rest of the day with my Momma.

I am sending a huge Thank You to JenW for this delicious sample. :)) Beautiful long and slender leaves that are a combination of colors-some black, some black/beige, while most are a tippy golden beige color. The aroma is terrific, with a sweet honey aroma, and lighter chocolate notes.

The wet leaves exude a toasty, woody, medium to dark chocolate sweetness. The thought of sweet potatoes crossed my nose (maybe a little). Then came the smell of musty/earthy fallen leaves. Ahh….the sweetness…I inhaled so deeply, so many times, I was nearly hyperventilating! Is it true? I was picking up on a lighter candy sweet cherry note. Maybe it was just the lack of oxygen to my brain, because as the leaves cooled I couldn’t detect it. Now, I was detecting toasty and wood-like sweetness.

The cup was a dark brown. Where was the bottom of my cup? The cup revealed aromas of sweet honey (raisins?), combined with a musty, earthy aroma. The flavor was quite malty, earthy, and dark chocolatey, with a mild sweetness. The feeling on my palate was smooth, with no bitterness.

Then other aromas in the kitchen invaded my senses :-//, so the review will be continued…….

At 9:30 PM tonight, the Horseshoe Casino is opening in Cleveland. I’ll get there sometime soon. I steeped the leftover leaves from my last steep with about 2 tsp of additional leaf (190 for 3 min.). I hope my leftover tea leaves aren’t too much of a gamble for my intestines! :-//

My second steep unearthed honey, earthy sweetness while steeping. The wet leaves also had honey earthy aromas, cooling to a more earthy than honey sweet aroma. The cup was even darker-or seemed to be. I was thinking, “Is there anybody in there?!”. Oh yeah….there was…I saw my own reflection! :)) My sinuses were really bothering me, so my cup aromas were hampered. I did detect darker honey, slightly earthy yunnan mustiness, and some malty aroma. The flavors I noticed were slight & thin (sinuses), with some mild astringency-not bitterness. This is in large part due to steeping the previous leaves again.

This was not quite the review I was hoping for, but I will review this tea more after dinner with my Dad and a friend of ours at a local sports bar called Bootleggers. For now, I have to bolt (as in Thunderbolt). :)) Steep on steepies…….

Had a great dinner on an outdoor patio with lots of sunshine, but it did get cooler before we left. It was also very calming listening to a water fountain. :)) Good conversation, laughter, and music (Led Zeppelin, Journey, America, Def Leppard, etc.).

So for my third cup (2 tsp, 185 for 2:20), I did read some reviews after my first cup. Some people got (baked) sweet potatoes, or a raisin quality. Dry leaves smelled of honey, malty sweetness with chocolate notes. My sinuses were clogged AGAIN, so the wet leaves smelled mainly honey sweet (possibly raisins), mild chocolate, and some sort of baked sweetness. The cup smelled malty sweet, chocolatey, and earthy. Flavors in the cup were mainly malty, chocolatey, and earthy.

My last cup was similar (boiling for 3 min.), and I added the rest of the sample to the steeped leaves from the third cup. I tasted less sweetness, and it was mainly full of musty earth, and less chocolate. I was hoping to taste some of the baked qualities. :-// The feeling on my palate was smooth and quite full without bitterness!

What a great and delicious tea! I will definitely be ordering some more. This tea reminds me more of Autumn, but it is awesome anytime! Thanks again JenW-this was much appreciated. :)) A perfect end to another beautiful day! I’m gonna go…….seems I keep rambling on…and on….and on. :))

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3HemKGDavw

Cupped & Reviewed: Monday, May 14, 2012.

Sweet, clear, crisp, bright, yams, hay, maple, butterscotch, chocolate, malt = Bliss.
YUMMMMIE

I’m positive I’ve had this tea before now but apparently I have yet to log it. It’s good timing as I am considering another Teavivre order and was really impressed with the regular Yun Nan Dian Hong but wondered if the next level up was superior enough to justify buying that instead. This one costs approximately three times the price of the regular dian hong, so I am hoping for a remarkable experience. This has a remarkable quantity of golden leaves, I wuld say it is at least 3/4 golden tips. Very beautiful, and left lots of little tea leaf fuzz in the bag.

I am at work so I steeped this in a T-Sac rather than a brew basket or gaiwan. There is lots of room in it for expansion though, so I’m not too fussed. Three minutes in I have a lovely golden orange liquor and an appetizing aroma. Sweet cocoa, a sense of astringency but it’s not fully developed. It smells rich and almost has some aromas that remind me of bread. I can’t quite explain those so I’ll just enjoy.

First sips yield sweetness but surprisingly little flavour. I expected a POW of cocoa and tea, instead I get a whisper of each. I had some carrots as a snack earlier and I actually taste them more than the tea. Maybe this one requires more steep time? As I continue to sip the flavour builds on the tongue, but still doesn’t reach the level I expect of Teavivre’s teas, especially at this price range ($18.90/100 grams).

I will be fair and admit that this is an old sample (give or take a year) so it may have lost flavour in storage but it was stored well, in a double sealed bag. I will definitely try again, but this just didn’t have the punch I was looking for. A very nice tea but not the flavour I expect for the price and the quality of the leaves. I feel a little let down, but at the same time am buoyed as I can guiltlessly pick up the cheaper Yun Nan in my next order!

My teas from Teavivre finally arrived! I had ordered this yunnan after sampling it, but Teavivre also included a lot of other samples for me to review as well. I will be getting to that tonight and tomorrow, which is my day off.

Anyway, I’ve made two pots already since I opened it last night. It’s my current absolute favorite black tea. I was thrilled to see how much 100g actually is. It looked like a bird’s nest as I transferred it from the pouch to a tin, and smelled so deliciously sweet. The boys have been liking it as well, even the ones who aren’t big tea drinkers. I’ll probably be logging this one a lot this winter.

Second Review. I’m beginning to feel better today but still sticking to drinking black tea. I remembered how good this tea was first round and wanted to revisit that memory.

There is such a warm, light, floral nose to this golden tea liquor. Not malty but slightly yammy. When you take a sip your mouth fills with sweet juice and that yam taste at the back of the palate. The tip of the tongue tickles of tannin…just to let you know that your tongue has been coated with tea. Since I was drinking this cup for my morning tea, I added sweetening and that changed the yam. It became a lighter version with a bit of sweet, dried apricot fruitiness. When I added cream, the flavor of airy puff pastry arrived with a ta- da! Um, what a superb cuppa from a black tea so full of wonders!

This would be good with a mild breakfast ham and egg crepe but not too salty with a mild cheese, or just some plain buttered rolls.

Another sample stash busting! I am on a roll today. I’m not sure how I managed to drink this only once before but my sample was mostly empty today. Maybe I drank it without knowing it?

I probably ended up using a bit much leaf in my cup this time around, but it still is a very tasty cup of tea, and a very nice dian hong. Mmm, sweet potatoes and oranges. With this much leaf I’m missing out on some of the honeyed notes unfortunately, but perhaps on the resteep.

Thank you Angel from Teavivre, for writing to me and generously offering to send me samples to try. This is by far my favorite of the 5, and have already ordered 100g with my first Teavivre order.

So I started my tea journey trying mostly flavored teas. I am now in the next phase, of attempting to find unflavored teas to love. This one falls in the “love” category. Btw, I am still using honey to sweeten most teas, but this one requires only a minimal amount. Don’t forget that my first love is Coke, so my taste buds are sweet trained. But I’ve found local honey, and using it will help with allergies too (so it has 2 purposes). But the tea itself carries a sweetness to it, that requires little help.

Yun Nan Dian Hong Golden Tips is really smooth and has absolutely no bitterness to it. Being sensitive to bitterness, this already gives it high praise. Someone called it “Lipton but better” and I concur … much much better. Some mention the sweet potato association. I’m leaning more towards caramelly, but see where those associations are coming from.

Teavivre says that this can be resteeped 12 times. I’ve only gone as far as 3, and on the third the flavors were weakening. Perhaps I need to be more precise with my temps and times. I’ve also tried it cold, and that is where the Lipton comparison comes from. It’s very nice cold, in a Lipton (but better) kind of way. Teavivre is now offering this in the 50g size. Angel sent me a sample of the full-leaf version of this tea, and it will be nice to compare the two. Teavivre’s customer service rocks btw. My order was put into the mail system Upton/Adagio-style (next business day). This and Upton’s Imperial Golden Monkey (ZP85) are my current unflavored favorites (so far).

NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM!

Thank you Angel and the Teavivre team for sending me this! It’s hard to believe that I haven’t even reviewed all of the teas they sent me….. I’m working on it!

So, I’m pretty sure that black teas are my favorite. Actually, scratch that, I am sure. I like how reliable they are and how hard they are (most of the time) to mess up. I just generally really like them (I’m going to make an order from Upton hopefully very soon to try some of their millions of blacks, I’m so excited!). This one is no exception.

The folks at Teavivre know their stuff. And they know it well. This one is super yummy. Not quite as good as the Bailin Gongfu, but still very yummy. Others have described this one perfectly, so I’m just going to basically back them up. This one has a very definite yam flavor base-slightly potato-y (in a not yucky way) but with that yam sweetness. Very good. As it cools more, the yam starts to turn more into a yam-mixed-with-a-regular-potato flavor. The potato note comes out more and the sweetness backs off. There’s also a bright, almost citrus, note in the front. Absolutely delicious. I also get kind of a honey sweetness stirring around, playing with your tastes. Also, a little bit of a malty hint, but just a nudge. Not a full-forced push. This one is so good. I love it!

Thank you again Teavivre and I can’t wait to finish this sample off!

I’ve been sipping on this early mornings the last week or so! Backlogging…but see other notes :) It’s really quite FAB :)