423 Tasting Notes
Almost a sip down, as I want to rebrew this tea. I love Golden Monkey, and this one from Terri is pretty good – tasty, sweet, smooth – but not good enough for me to sit up and take notice, or place in my “favorite Golden Monkey teas” just yet. I need more time with it before I decide, but it does seem like a decent and good black tea.
Ok, so now for a proper tasting note, because this tea is worth it. This is from my latest order from Norbu Tea, part of what I bought during their 25% off Chinese New Year sale (on until the 31st of January. Go buy some great tea now! I’ll wait patiently until you are done).
One of the reasons that I love Norbu is that they have all these unique and interesting teas that you can’t find anywhere else, and this is one of them. This is an aged oolong that is practically my age, and yet doesn’t have any funky, fishy, musty smell or taste. It is very dark, and has a roasted note to the first steepings, but from the third steep on it takes on a Tie Guan Yin taste, with flowery, slightly perfume-y notes, and some fruitiness that remains with this tea from the start. I used very short steepings, as this tea came out bold during the quick wash, so I was afraid of over brewing it. The leaves unfurl, and they nearly filled my little Yixing teapot (Yunnan Sourcing Green Dragon Egg – wonderful teapot!) by the fifth and sixth steepings. This tea can go on for ages, and you are likely to tire of it before it runs out of juice. There are some cocoa notes to the tea, particularly in the first steepings, and there’s a nice sweetness to it, yet also a complexity beyond what you normally get even from a very good oolong. A tea to remember, and to slowly and methodically savor.
P.S. I’m not a fan of flowery oolongs, so I’m knocking off a few points due to my personal preferences. If you are at all a Tie Guan Yin person or an oolong person in general, you need to try this tea.
Preparation
Sounds wonderful. I love Norbu, too. I’m intrigued by your teapot as well. I don’t have a Yixing yet but I’d like to get one.
Please don’t make the mistake that I did and buy lots of cheap, poor quality Yixing from eBay. Invest in good Yixing teapots, they will last you for years if you treat them properly. I have two from Yunnan sourcing and they are all excellent, excellent, and decently priced. One for Sheng, and one for Oolong. I also have one for Shu that I bought at an outrageous price from Le Palais de The, but at least it’s a good quality one. Finally the one I have for black teas is exquisite, and was a gift from a friend who toured in China and asked a local to help her buy “a good quality Yixing for a friend who likes tea” :)
And Norbu are practically my favorite tea company :)
I’m trying to stay away from Norbu’s page…
Terri…stay away! i have samples to send you!
Oh good! Saved! :)
I am struggling not to place another order there. There’sa Sheng, a white tea and a few black teas that are tempting me. Must hang in there
See, that’s the thing. I know you’re supposed to have a different Yixing for each type of tea (and even subtypes) and I worry that I’ll get carried away if I start down that slippery slope. ;-)
Morgana, I have 3 yixings designated for: Sheng, Wuyi Oolongs, & Shu. Then I have an adorable white porcelain teapot with blue lotuses on it, which is the same size as the yixings. Because it’s porcelain, it’s interchangable, but I pretty much use it for black teas. I haven’t got a black tea yixing yet, because some of the full leaf black teas I drink have very different flavor profiles from each other. My mind is telling me that I’d want separate little pots for yunnan, wuyi, taiwan, etc., so porcelain it is. I have gaiwans for the oolongs, etc. It is a slippery slope! Fun, but yeah!
An interesting take on Ya Bao, in Sheng format – a kind of combination between toasty white tea and the depth of flavor of Sheng, with a little lemony twist. A very comforting, sweet, mellow drink, that needs several washes and time to unfold its flavors (obviously in a Gaiwan or a Yixing teapot). No camphor taste, for those who avoid Sheng Pu’er for that reason. A nice evening treat to have curled with a book.
Sipdown!
I got this tea from Terri. Thank you Terri!
This is not a great darjeeling, but it’s a nice enough and not too memorable tea. If you don’t like Darjeelings, then you could probably still enjoy this tea. It has less acidity and astringency than more pronounced Darjeelings, but also lacks the more ethereal muscatel notes, or the fantastic mouth feels that good Darjs have.
If you’d never had any other Golden Monkeys, it would probably taste amazing, right? But it is Teavana…