Ning'er "Golden Honey Aroma"

Ooh, all right getting into this one for the first time but it’s an interesting brew.

The first thing it reminds me of is a larger-leafed variation of a lapsang souchong (unsmoked) I had a tin of laying around. I would say the golden honey may be tied to the aroma but only the aftertaste has a honey-like stickiness and sweetness to it. After the tea has cooled down, passing it over your tongue leaves the same sweetness. It’s not overpowering but it is present.

Bready, woody, malt. This is a mild black tea that has a great body and little astringency. I’m still working my way through the flavors of this one but it is a very pleasant experience to base my opinions on.
I am getting a hay/wheat body more than anything else. Hard to describe.

Spring 2021 batch.

Black and gold leaves smell of alfalfa.

Prepared in my Jian Shui gaiwan, and served in my porcelain tea cup via my glass cha hai. Filtered Santa Monica municipal water just off the boil throughout.

Alloy orange liquor. Very mild aroma brings to mind hay, corn, and oats.
Sweet on the palate, suggesting apricot and almonds, grain, and a hint of licorice root. The earthy/grassy flavors dominate the finish with hints of baked clay and chestnut.
Reasonable longevity, but the flavor becomes drab after several infusions and it can’t be pushed with lengthy infusions or it just turns bitter without retaining much character.

Pleasant, warming, smooth dian hong – enjoyable but one I wouldn’t seek out again.

This is my first tea from Yunnan Sourcing in a while and my first review in two months. An un-air-conditioned apartment during a heat wave isn’t the best place to drink tea, but fortunately, the weather has cooled down and I’m back in business! I got this spring 2019 harvest just a couple months before COVID hit and turned everything upside down at the start of 2020. I don’t know whether that says more about my tea hoarding habits or how long this pandemic has gone on. I steeped 6 g of tea in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of honey, malt, baked bread, wood, and smoke. The first steep has notes of baked bread, malt, honey, molasses, hay, smoke, pine, and wood. I’d describe this tea as bready rather than sweet. The next steep has hints of cocoa and citrus. Steeps three and four are like rye bread with chocolate chips, which is a thing that should really exist. However, the smoke is also more apparent and the tea has some astringency. Orange is slightly present in the tea and at the bottom of the cup. The next couple steeps are similar, but without the cocoa. As the session winds down, the malt, smoke, and wood become dominant, though the tea remains enjoyable. The final steeps have notes of malt, tannins, earth, wood, and smoke.

This is a nice Yunnan black tea, but it’s nothing special.

This is the first time drinking this tea! When I warmed the leaves in the gaiwan without waster the leaves had a fruity, nutty, and toasty aroma. I did a 10 s wash and the first steeping was for 10 s at 194 degrees F. The tea liquor was golden as I outed and had a dark golden / reddish hue. I had tea foam from the tea wash and first two pours. When I smelled the leaves after the wash and first steeping the leaves had a citrus aroma. I can’t help but say as I steeped in the tea leaves had a fruity pebble aroma to them. The tea was warm, toasty, sweet sometimes on the inhale. Overall a fun and complex yummy brew. Can’t wait to try again!

I keep meaning to follow the prompts on Mastress Alita’s sipdown thread, but since they are just a couple days a month, I always seem to forget until a day too late. However, today both the sipdown thread and the Tea Together Tuesday prompts have to deal with National Pizza Day so I remembered!

I planned on doing a pineapple tea since I think that’s where the prompt was guiding us – mostly because a cheese tea or a pepperoni tea seems weird but pineapple isn’t. However, I could only think of one pineapple tea in my stash and it was Pineapple Upside Down Cake and that didn’t seem right. Instead, I picked a different pizza…

When I worked downtown Toronto, there was a restaurant that made a pizza with gorgonzola, pear, walnuts, and honey. That is the pizza that caught my eye. There was another pizza I used to get with more traditional ingredients and then a chili honey drizzle. So ultimately I have determined I like honey on pizzas and so a honey-like tea seemed a good call.

Many black teas have a honey flavor to it but this was the one that had honey in the name, which made it the quickest for me to find when I did my search in my database for a honey black tea. Weirdly enough, its not overly honeyed in its flavor. It is malty an has a touch of honey but there is also the slightest hint of smoke. Also wheat/bread. I guess that works for pizza in a different way but was certainly surprising when I started drinking.

This is good but unexpected. I don’t know if I need more of this but I am happy I have another cup worth to try thanks to Sil’s generosity. Thanks for sharing, Sil!!

I have had the 2020 version of this tea before and enjoyed it a lot. Now I’m drinking the 2022 version and I’m impressed by the differences. The dry leaf looks very similar, but the brew is completely different. The 2020 version was remarkably foamy, had strong spice aromas and was very strong and quite tanniny. The 2022 seems more like a classical dianhong, with caramel/honey and some flowery aromas, and there is a bit of a weird toasty/nutty aspect, almost like sticky/toasted rice, that I’m not really sure I like.

Another sipdown. This was a nice one to try. I like exploring YS teas. Some are hits, some are misses but most of them are pleasant if not “must haves”

Two months of waffling around on this while trying to use up all 100 grams and now I’m head over heels for it. Thought I’d get bored after a few cups, but no, I have to stop myself from grabbing this when making tea for work because I’ve developed something of an addiction. It tastes like orchids and chocolate and honey and I can’t stay away. Never liked a tea enough to reorder 8.8 ounces of it, but here we are.