Gold Rose "Jin Mei Gui" Wu Yi Rock Oolong

Tea type
Oolong Tea
Ingredients
Oolong Tea Leaves
Flavors
Malt, Mineral, Roasted, Sour, Fruity, Apricot, Cream, Floral, Honey, Roasted Barley, Rose, Smoke, Sweet, Vegetal, Wood, Astringent, Carrot, Char, Grilled Food, Soybean, Sweet, Warm Grass, Zucchini, Autumn Leaf Pile, Toast, Wet Rocks, Hazelnut, Roasted Nuts
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Loose Leaf
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by hawkband1
Average preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 0 min, 30 sec 6 g 5 oz / 144 ml

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From Yunnan Sourcing

Jin Mei Gui (金玫瑰 / Gold Rose) varietal was first introduced in 1990. It’s a hybrid of Tie Guan Yin, Huang Jin Gui and Bai Qi Lan oolongs. It’s been introduced successfully into both Anxi and Wu Yi areas of Fujian. The uniqueness of this varietal lies in it’s ability to be roasted and takes on a natural floral sweetness much akin to rose (hence the name).

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7 Tasting Notes

72
533 tasting notes

Backlog. Sipdown.
Oolong group buy: I got a little bit of roast off this tea, plus the usual sour nuts (it’s light). Mineral with some malt and honey. This was an okay tea. I reached for it more that some of the others that I’m torturing myself with. (why I don’t discard them…..)

Flavors: Malt, Mineral, Roasted, Sour

tea-sipper

“torture teas”! That doesn’t sound fun!

Kittenna

Haha, sometimes I wonder that too, but I have guilt problems with throwing things away. So it’s quite nice that my husband is drinking many of the teas I truly don’t want as iced tea!

gmathis

That’s what summer is for—getting rid of the second-stringers in preparation for THE SEASON.

ashmanra

AaaaaHHH! Gmathis, you said it! It won’t be long….except here it is going to be in the upper 90’s for a while, then we will have a cool day or two in about a month and a half, then it will be hot again, then another wait for a cool day….but you are right! THE SEASON is getting close. I can hardly wait!

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86
413 tasting notes

Since I love teas with naturally occurring rose notes, I was drawn to this oolong, even though I have mixed feelings about Wuyi rock teas. This is the spring 2016 version. I steeped 5 g in a 120 ml teapot at 200F for 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The smell of the dry leaf is roasty and floral, and reminds me of a Qi Lan I had from Tao Tea Leaf a while ago. The first steep has notes of flowers, roast, wood, smoke, and cream. The rose becomes more distinct in the second steep, although it only emerges gradually. There are also hints of apricot. The aroma at the bottom of the cup is surprisingly sweet.

In the third steep, the tea comes into its rosy glory. The notes of candied rose petals go oddly with the roast, which is still pretty assertive. The apricot is most prominent in the aftertaste. By steep five, the rose subsides and flavours of honey and roasted barley take over, and the tea also begins to get more vegetal. By the eighth steep, it has notes of minerals, veggies, and underlying sweetness, and it peters out soon afterwards.

This is a complex tea that rewards careful sipping. While the roast is sometimes obtrusive, the sweetness smooths it out. I enjoyed watching this tea evolve throughout the session and will have no trouble finishing the remainder of my package.

Flavors: Apricot, Cream, Floral, Honey, Mineral, Roasted, Roasted Barley, Rose, Smoke, Sweet, Vegetal, Wood

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 5 g 4 OZ / 120 ML

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85
167 tasting notes

After traveling around the tea world with Liquid Proust’s group oolong buy, I’m back in familiar territory. It’s been an adventure!

This little guy is interesting. The flavors were sort of Cheshire cat-like, appearing, disappearing, changing. Overall, I have to say that most of the flavor, for me, was nut, wood, and fruit. But, looking at other reviews, other folks had very different experiences, and I can’t say that I disagree with the notes they picked up on.

I did feel, however, that the flavor in-mouth got flat pretty early on in the session. This was especially true when drinking from a glass. When using a seasoned clay cup, the flavor was significantly improved.
*
Dry leaf: pine wood, peanut shell, raw walnut, sesame seeds, dark chocolate, tangy citrus. In preheated vessel – some sweet grilled veg notes, pine wood and tangy citrus become more prominent.

Smell: roasted nuts (hazelnut), dry baking spices, pine wood, citrus

Taste: roasted nuts, sweet woodiness, cocoa powder, some floral (rose? yeah, why not). Prominent rose aftertaste, along with peach, citrus, and underlying nuttiness to balance tartness of citrus.

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96
91 tasting notes

Please see my tasting note under the regular YS post for this tea. It is a fantastic tea in my book.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 0 min, 15 sec

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82
16 tasting notes

From LiquidProust’s 2017 Regional Oolong Group Buy.

The dry leaf has a very pleasant charcoal and grilled vegetable scent with nice charred looking whole leaves, I brewed it up for breakfast in a 200ml kyusu with 190 degree with 30ish second infusions. The wet leaves smell just like zucchini being grilled over natural wood charcoal next to fresh cut grass, It’s motivating me to get my grill all set up, good thing it’s spring!

The mouth-feel is like a nice consume soup, not overly thick but complementing the roasted vegetable taste very well. The tea leaves a lasting smoothness after I drink, akin to a finely aged scotch. Rose definitely comes through in the aroma and taste, somehow sneaking in past a heavier roast, and a bit of astringency balances it out quite well. This is a Yin-Yang tea, I wouldn’t normally think the flavors would work well together but they do.

The tea lasted through two liters worth of infusions (10 or so) with the last two being longer brewing times with hotter water, and it held it’s flavor well. Gold rose became sweeter with a lighter roast and more mineral notes near the end of the infusions.

I want to explore more Oolongs and come back to this one, as I think I would be able to get more of the nuances.

Flavors: Astringent, Carrot, Char, Grilled Food, Rose, Soybean, Sweet, Warm Grass, Zucchini

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 0 min, 30 sec 6 g 7 OZ / 200 ML
TypicalTeaDrunk

Drinking this today. Great review. It is a very balenced yin-yang tea. Thanks for Posting!

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84
15 tasting notes

This is a really nice, balanced oolong, with strong aromas of rose, apricot, minerals, smoke, toast and autumn leaves. The flavors are well balanced and the mouthfeel is round and full, without any bitterness and only a bit of astringency. In later steepings, 5 and up, the tea takes on a very startling sweet character that really emphasizes the apricot flavor, which lingers practically forever. Great tea with good staying power. I stopped at 9 steeps, and while the aromas faded significantly, the flavor probably could have kept going.

150ml gaiwan, 5g, 85C, 20s +10-15s each add’l steep.

Flavors: Apricot, Autumn Leaf Pile, Malt, Mineral, Rose, Smoke, Toast, Wet Rocks

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 0 min, 30 sec 5 g 5 OZ / 150 ML

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90
15 tasting notes

My tea order came in from the Yunnan Sourcing US site this afternoon, and boy do I have a lot of teas to try. I ordered six different teas, and this was one of them. I had originally made an order to the Chinese based Yunnan Sourcing site before realizing it would almost certainly be delayed due to the Chinese New Year. Thus, ever tea hungry, I made an additional order from the US based site with the rationale that of course I can go through 300g of tea before the Chinese order arrives.
At least one can say I’m optimistic.

Regardless, although Jin Mei Gui was the second tea that I tried from this order, it certainly comes in first place so far.
I brewed this gongfu method, in my 100ml Ruyao Gaiwan, with steeps that stuck around 5 seconds at the start, 10-15 in the middle, and 30 at the end. I got a heavy 10 steeps out of this, but the last two were pretty faded, and could have probably been skipped.

That said, let’s get to the review.

Dry leaf: Pretty floral scent, with standard roasty oolong scent intermixed. My first impression upon getting a whiff from the bag was dried rose petals.

Liquor: Honey yellow, at the start, with a halo of deep amber. Later steeps produced pale gold with deep gold halo.

1st steep:
The aroma is like roasted sesame, and first taste is exactly like that with rose, sesame, and honey on the nose. It has a gentle sweetness, like sugar encrusted rose petals you might find on a wedding cake.
Definitely not cloying like overly sweet rose scented candles or perfume.

2nd steep:
This was the first and last time the actual standard roasted-tea-leaf-taste of oolong actually came out to play, with the first taste also having some nuttiness (closer to hazelnut than sesame) and then slipping into a floral rose on the nose that is dripping in honey. It is delicately sweet, at the same time, like eating cake, and the taste lingers and lingers quite a long time after.

3rd steep:
First taste is roses, strong strong roses like a fresh bouquet at a wedding with more of that addicting honey and rose taste on the nose. This was probably my favorite steep as the sweetness on breathing out wasn’t quite so strong and the stronger rose taste was really pleasant and quite a surprise as the previous steeps had been all nuts and oolong. It has that nostalgic taste and smell to it that just makes you happy to think about even long after the session is over.
As this point, I was pretty tea drunk, which is pretty unusual for me with oolongs. I kept wanting more and more of the tea and was drinking it pretty fast – not gulping it down but the time between steeps was pretty short.
I was jittery, full of energy, my heart was going pitter-patter and my thoughts were rushing along. It’s the type of feeling you get right before a first date, when you still aren’t sure what to expect, or perhaps right before saying “I do”. Exciting, and almost overwhelming.

4th steep:
The places have reversed, with the rose-y floral taste coming in first, and then sesame on the nose – again the theme of honey and roses keeps showing up in this tea.

5th steep:
Not much to say here, pretty faded, and I thought it was on it’s way out as it was like the type of taste you’d expect from pressed flowers that haven’t been fresh in a long long time.

6th, 7th, 8th steep:
That said I was completely wrong. This steep was SWEET. Almost overpoweringly so, I thought this tea was well and truly dead because of the lightness of the previous steep but it’s completely back full force with a strength that’s like taking a spoonful of honey. The 7th and 8th steeps both follow along this path and at this point the sweetness is almost frustrating. I’m hoping it will switch up at the last moment, but it stubbornly remains sweet without much change.

9th, 10th:
Faded, almost the same as steep 5 but even fainter. This tea is pretty much dead at this point. There’s some very slight floral going on, but the sweetness and all depth is gone.

Final thoughts:
This is a very special tea, that brings to mind first dates, weddings, wedding cake, brings about a tea drunkenness that was unexpected and exciting, and has a pretty consistent taste throughout the session.

At the same time, though, you never get bored of it, because the places of the three main flavors/scents (sesame, rose, and honey) keeps switching around with some coming to the forefront while others fade back for a while. It’s a steady relationship type of tea, a “meet the parents” type of tea. It isn’t quite to the point where it’s a “married with kids” type of tea, as it doesn’t have that quality of it falling into a routine. It’s still new and exciting, and you keep seeing sides of it you don’t expect from one steep to the next.

This is a very romantic tea, you wouldn’t want to share with just anyone. The thought of sharing it with anyone who asks might inspire a bit of jealousy and protectiveness that’s reserved for the most special of teas you come across.

Even during the most frustrating times of the session (6th, 7th, and 8th steeps) I wanted to stick through it, through some weird sense of loyalty and stubbornness to see if it was well and truly over, and although it was frustrating due to the sweetness it wasn’t unpleasant at the same time.

This would be the perfect tea to have at a wedding, or on a special occasion like valentines day or a cozy, intimate date at home with your special someone. I’ll most likely order a lot more of this in the next month or two just to make sure I have it around.

Flavors: Hazelnut, Honey, Mineral, Roasted Nuts, Rose

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 0 min, 15 sec 7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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