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Golden Moon Sampler Tea #5
This was the first black tea I saw this morning, which, of course, means 8 more weeks of winter. Wait no, it just means that I made it my “must…wake…up…” morning tea. It’s a neat looking tea, love the giant long leaves. Reminds me a bit of Golden Monkey, although the taste is in no way similar.

To tell the truth I was going to just dismiss this as decidedly meh after the first (all-important morning) steeping, but after reading all of the glowing reviews, I decided I needed to give it another go, so this is actually my second try, this time in a more relaxed, paying more attention environment. I definitely see the appeal this time around. It’s just such a strongly tea-y tea. It smells like tea, tastes like tea, but more! Like, more tea than tea. Or something. It definitely hits that tea itch that I occasionally get in the back of my throat.

On the other hand, despite it’s name, it appears to be not particularly suited for me as a breakfast tea (or at least not on weekdays, maybe on weekends), since I need something quick brewing (for the many days I sleep through the alarm or hit snooze once too often) yet forgiving (for when I get distracted and let it steep for like 10 minutes). No pressure though! I think in that sense, French Breakfast wins out.

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #4:
So I’ve been thinking about my teapot lid issue, and I have come up with several possible plans of action.
Plan A: Befriend a potter.
Plan B: Order a billion different lids off ebay and hope one fits
Plan C: Invent time machine, go back in time and grab lid before it gets broken/stop myself from throwing it away like a noob.
Plan D: Recall the existence of thrift stores and the preponderance of random ceramics in them and see if there’s anything there that fits.

I’m currently leaning towards plan C myself.

Back on topic! The gods of fate have decreed that my afternoon tea be pu erh chai. The leaves look very nice with bits of cinnamon bark and a cardamon pod. I am a big fan of cardamon in chai and am always mildly disappointed when it fails to appear in my chai leaves. So bonus points for that, definitely. I have to agree with the other reviewers that the smell when brewed is decidedly funky. I probably would have been freaked out enough by the pungency to add milk (of the rice/almond vanilla variety) had there actually been any in the house. Sadly, I am currently milk-less, so I’m just going with the straight tea.

For me, this came out a very lightly spiced pu erh. I can definitely distinguish the base tea, unlike in the case of the sugar caramel oolong. Now, if a flavored tea is just standard black tea + flavor of some kind, I am generally more forgiving if it doesn’t distinguish itself. If something is specifically a flavored oolong or pu erh or other kind of distinctive tea, I fail to see the point if the flavors completely eclipse the base tea, if that makes any sense. Thus, I approve of this tea, although I think it could stand to be a bit more spice-y. On the other hand, since pu erh brews up so dark all the time, I may have overestimated how much water was needed. Sigh, always with the caveats.

I think I would like to try this with some sweetened milk, I may have to order more just for that.

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #3
Grabbed the first black (because, hello? morning!) tea that came to hand from the sampler box and it happened to be this. As usual, because I am a giant flake, I completely forgot that I was steeping this and ended up leaving it for so long that I find it too embarrassing to specify.
It totally smelled oversteeped so I was definitely expecting the worst, but apparently this tea is super forgiving (yay!) because the taste came out just fine. I agree with the other reviews that it is very smooth, almost neutral in taste, and I DO like my teas to be a little more full of character, but the ability to take a lot of abuse is a huge factor in its favor. I may have to get more of this.

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #2
So, given how small the golden moon samples are, I’ve decided to try and use them up in one go. There’s a little too much in each pouch for my ingenuitea though, so I’ve dusted off my teapot specially for this occasion. Of course, upon doing so, I was confronted with the problem of lid. Or rather, lack thereof. I can’t even find the pieces left after it broke during the move! Did I throw them away (like an idiot)? Ah well, for the moment I have used my MacGyver-like ingenuity to come up with a temporary fix. (It’s a pickle jar lid. Not optimal what with being made of metal and getting kinda hot, but needs must!)

I had a hankering for some Jasmine tea, so I decided to go straight for that rather than letting fate decide this time. The pearls themselves are of course lovely, and watching them unfurl is a treat. The taste is everything I expect from a Jasmine tea, floral with a slight undertaste that reminds me of (and this may sound weird) rice. This is quite delicate though, even after using all of it in my pot, it requires no dilution. Drinking this reminded me of how much I like Jasmine tea, but I’ll have to form a larger basis for comparison before I decide whether or not to buy.

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #1:
Wewt! Got my Golden Moon sampler today, and just had to start trying stuff. I have to say this caught my eye as I was looking through all of the samples, but not in a good way. In fact I was highly skeptical of this combination, while also being worried that the result would be too sweet.
Naturally, when I closed my eyes and grabbed a sample (the only way to choose when faced with 31 different teas), the gods of fate decreed that this would be it. Really, I should have known. The tea itself looks very nice, giant curled up tea leaves and the smell is quite potent. I brewed it up and it’s not the disaster that I thought it would be. The caramel creates the illusion of sweetness without actually being sweet and the base oolong is noticeable in the undertone, although to me it seemed like the caramel rendered the oolong characterless, causing it to devolve into Standard Green Tea Taste™.

I’m on the second steeping now, and the oolong and caramel appear to have switched places with the oolong taking center stage and the caramel creeping in at the end. I will freely admit that much of my oolong experience comes from drinking it iced while living in Japan, so perhaps it is my own expectations that are skewed with regards to this, but I still find the base tea to be somewhat lacking in character.

Still, it’s pleasant enough to drink, although I doubt I’ll be getting more.

Slept right through my alarm (again), so had to make do with my emergency Assam stash + a teabag. (I have a little tea case that I keep in my purse for exactly this purpose, it has little kitties in little teacups on it – yay craft markets!)　I didn’t quite put in enough tea leaf to suit my early morning taste (or lack thereof, rather), so I find it a little weak, but it has served it’s purpose. I’m quite fond of this Assam, honestly, it’s very forgiving and mild.

The second tasting of this went MUCH better than the lavender Earl Grey debacle. I let this steep for longer this time (especially since it was gonna be my morning cuppa) and I got a lot more out of it. It had an almost creamy texture to it this morning, and it was a lot easier to tell that it was flavored.
Clearly the answer to this tea is to drink it in the morning before you’ve actually tasted anything else.

Needed to cleanse my palate after the whole Earl Grey Lavender thing, and what is better at palate cleansing than mint I ask you? (the answer is nothing. unless you know of something, in which case, tell tell!) It’s weird, because I hate spearmint flavored stuff, but I love this tea! It’s like mint but with a twist! It is mint but as directed by M. Night Shyamalamalamalamalan. But it doesn’t get worse with each subsequent movi-i mean, cup! Anyway, awesome as usual!

Ok, so I thought I’d try this again since I couldn’t taste anything the first time I tried it, and also tried a longer steeping time, just in case that would help.
HO-LEE SHAZBOT. I don’t know if all the lavender fell to the bottom of the pouch, if I really WAS that congested, if I let it steep to long or what, but WOAH – the lavender is overpowering this time. It gives the tea at once a perfumed and peppery taste. Looking at the leaves, there DOES seem to be quite a bit in there, so perhaps it got clumped up. Looks like this is gonna need a third tasting.

Was in the mood for something different this afternoon (mostly because I keep reading people’s notes about these really neat sound dessert-y teas and getting jealous), so I broke out this stuff. I’ve managed to make it last for a REALLY long time (particularly important given that the rooibos toffee has been discontinued) but sadly, after today, there’s only enough left for one last pot. SO SAD.
This stuff is so good! It’s all coffee-y and nutty and all the flavors are balanced and there’s just that hint of toffee in there to make it seem like a treat and I don’t even LIKE nuts, why do I like this teaaaaaaa. Don’t mind me, I’m just mourning the fact that once I run out of this I can never have it agin.