Award Winning Yun Nan Dian Hong Black Tea – Golden Tip

I’ve finally gotten around to trying this sample from the lovely Angel at Teavivre!! Thank you for the free samples!!

After my lapsang fiasco this morning, I needed a good black tea to counteract the tastes in my mouth. I knew this would be a good black even though it’s my first time trying it haha, so into the steeper it went. The dry smell is a lovely Yunna black tea, that sweet hay and potato scent. I used about 1/3 of the sample packet at 185 degrees for 2 minutes.

The resulting liquor is a dark golden brown, and smells so malty and honeyed good!! The flavor is definitely a dian hong, possibly my favorite type of black teas. Malty, sweet potato goodness, smooth with a touch of hay. Mostly sweet potatoes though, mmm almost bready in texture to me! I am wishing there was a little more honey to the aftertaste like there is in the aroma, but maybe it would come out more with a slightly longer steep time. In comparing to other dian hongs I’ve had, it’s definitely rich and a thick mouthfeel. Golden fleece had more honey, Zhu Rong had chocolate, and Yu Lu Yan Cha was darker and chocolatier as well. But this one definitely holds its own. It is possibly the most sweet potatoey and that malt…mmmm. A very easy cup to drink, it feels heavy in the mouth, but refreshing at the same time. I feel like I could have multiple cups of this and feel just perfect, at peace with the world. Oh, and dian hongs seem perfect for fall with their texture and flavors :) so a good pick for today!

Overall, this is a very delicious tea! I am so happy to have tried it, and am excited I still have 2.666 sample packs left! Probably the dian hong that I could drink many times and enjoy, not get overwhelmed by sweetness, etc. so far of the ones I’ve tried. Once again, thanks Angel for the sample!!

Ah, I started drinking this cup quite a while ago, forgot about, and ended up finishing it off cold. The honey malt smell came off strongly from the cooled off liquid a lot more than I thought it would. In between my cup of Da Yu Ling Oolong this was like drinking sugar crystals and the lightest, smoothest beer ever. There’s a bit of that peppered-ness too that I always look for.

This is good, and since this is technically a sipdown I should steep it more than once but I’m too distracted by this: http://tonematrix.audiotool.com/

I made a union jack and a dinosaur. Easily entertained. That’s me!

ok
so just a brief summary of my past week
so as alot of you probably do not know i am an avid mountain biker
so on friday last week me and a couple friends decide to go biking on the local hill
so since there is no lift we ride our bikes up switchbacks in order to get to the trails
so me and one of my friends started biking up and we got to the very top and then rode back down a little bit to meet up with two of my other friends
we met up with them and started down the trail
i like to kick up the rear so i waited a little bit before following after them
i very easily caught up to one of my 3 friends and passed him
i caught up to my next friend an stopped for a little bit to wait for the friend i had passed and then kept on going
i go to a place where the trail split into 4 parts and i was not sure where they had gone so i waited for my other friend to show me where to go then started biking again.

this is where it gets a little gruesome/interesting
my friend was 50 metres behind me and we were talking and riding and i hit a rock and my feet slipped of my pedals and i sacked myself very hard.
if your a guy you know how it feels so i hopped off my bike and started hopping around in pain. eventually the pain subsided and i hopped on my bike and kept going.
30 seconds later i felt a liquid in my pants and i screamed to my friend behind me " hahaha i pissed myself"
i looked down
there was blood all over my jersey and all over my shorts.
(since i am a downhill mountain biker not alot of things scare me but this
this scared me)
i told my friend and we decided it would be best to keep going out until we got on the road.
i called my dad and he picked me up and took me to the hospital. it was a very short wait at the hospital and then i went into a room
ill skip all the disgusting details and get to the point
i ended up rupturing my urethra and i have to wear a catheter for a month which means no biking for a month
that sucks

now to the tea

i stepped out of my comfort zone today as i am not a big fan of black teas
i brewed this one up and the smell of honey hit me instantly
steeped it for 3 minutes and its a browny reddish liqeur
i took a sip and its good
the thing i dont like about blacks teas is the sharp taste and maybe thats because i do not drink alot of black teas
i have yet to learn how to distinguish the flavor notes in a tea and that is something i will have to work on
in all a really good black tea

thats my story for the day
:)

As part of our ‘try every black that Teavivre has’ thing, we also were hoping that this Golden Tip was going to be a replacement for the discontinued Teavana tarantula tea that we had picked a couple packs of when they discontinued it.

Side by side, I cannot make a distinguishing difference between this and Teavana’s Golden Imperial Lotus (though, obviously, it’s not held together by a string in a round formation).

The tea is smooth, but with a very rich, malty flavor to it. There is a sweet, caramel undertone that really finishes off the taste. It doesn’t feel quite as thick on the tongue as say the Bailin Gong Fu, but it still has quite a bit of weight to it. It’s a very, very enjoyable black tea.

We’re definitely going to keep this one around, me thinks.

“I was randomly contacted through Steepster by a rep for Teavivre a couple of months back with a glowing opportunity – that being to try several of their wares. The dry leaves for this new batch were all twisty green-’n-gold excellence with a peppery sweet aroma. It reminded me of honey dipped in pyrite. Each and every time, the liquor turned out exactly as I hoped – deep gold-to-amber, reeking of honeynut-chocolate. On taste, it was as I expected, if not a little bit more.”

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2012/01/27/review-teavivre-yunnan-dian-hong-black-tea-3/

Sample provided by Teavivre.

By now I’ve used the entire sample I got from Teavivre. The dry leaf is light and fluffy, and pretty—it isn’t my first golden tip yunnan, but it is definitely the nicest looking, with those large golden leaves. It also smells yummy, vaguely sweet.

The brewed liquor is a dark mahogany brown, though I did steep it for a minute longer than recommended because this last pot was a little light on the leaf. The tea is not bitter at all, has a nice body and mouthfeel, nor is it astringent at all. The flavor is smooth and bakey, and some unidentified sweet delicious flavor that upon reading other reviews is like sweet potatoes. That’s the flavor! I also did pick up hints of caramel (not surprising, with the taste of sweet potatoes).

So far I’ve tried three of the teas that Teavivre sent me (I’ll have a review of their Bai Mu Dan in another day or two), and I love them all. I can see their teas taking up permanent residence in my collection.

This tea was sent to me for review by Teavivre.

This was another large solo sample inside a large resealable bag. The dry leaves were very pretty! It was straw colored intermixed with medium brown leaves. They were fuzzy and curled and twisted as well, almost like twine. The scent is very strong, nutty, warm, toasty.

I brewed this Western style. I was in desperate need of tea as my old tea kettle failed me, and I didn’t want to use any of my cooking pots to boil water or heat water up in the microwave. So my husband and I went to Bed Bath & Beyond to purchase a new tea kettle. So finally, I was able to get some tea in me! Steeped, this was a honey-brown color. The scent is a bit milder. The taste is great! Very toasty and nutty with a very mild hint of sweet florals and fruits. Delicious! However, I didn’t enjoy the strange after taste… I think it was astringency. Otherwise, this is a very good tea. As far as yunnan teas go, this one is good!

Sample sipdown! YAY!

The leaves on this black tea are really neat. Black with gold tips (it is in the name, so I don’t know why I was surprised) and wiry looking. Really cool.

Dry, this one had honey notes, bakey/croissant notes, a malty aspect, and possibly sweet potato? Yam? Something like that.
Once brewed, it picked up a slight spicy note (cinnamon, but not quite…) which is very interesting. The honey notes have calmed down, and the sweet potato/yam aspect has increased. The maltiness has also increased some. The bakey notes are still present (hooray!) and there is a slight earthiness to it.

Taste – Honestly, I think I screwed this up a bit (doesn’t taste bad, but it is a bit bitter). I forgot about the water in the kettle until it was at a boil, and then thinking “Black tea, boiling water”, I started to pour the piping hot water on the leaves…before realizing it called for a lower temp! Oops. I drained the water out and started over, but I think it had already affected the leaves. That being said, I will share with you what I’m getting from the cup.
So, other than the bitterness, I’m picking up some bakey notes, the sweet potato/yam aspect I found in the smell (it also happens to describe the mouthfeel – this one is almost potato-ish feeling), and a slight spicy aspect that is NOT attributed to the bitterness. I’m also picking up some earthiness and maltiness in the sip.

Luckily I have another sample of this one, so I can try again and hope for better results. This brew isn’t undrinkable, but I fear the bitterness is masking the full flavor profile of it. Holding the rating until I get this right.

Although everything has been said about this tea, I still want to add my two cents!

Thanks to Angel and Teavivre, I’m sipping on one of the generous samples I got from them.

It’s not an adjective I have used very often to describe a black tea, but this is somewhat “refreshing”. It’s light, yet packed with flavour and complexity. It tastes like summer fields!

It’s so fragrant, all flowers and honey. Can’t skip the roasted sweet potato notes, it’s there alright.

It’s a sunny tea, full of warmth and happiness.

Thank you Angel for this wonderful offering!

this was a very nice sample by the ever generous angel at teavivre.

this is a very smooth, warm blend. i think it’s impressive when the taste of a tea is warm over and above the temperature. has a decidedly black essence, but with a less heavy more rosy evolution.

lovely curled black gold yields a medium hued steep. lovely with cream and a bit of sugar.

i plan to buy this in future.