Golden Moon sample No. 20 of 31, random. The home stretch!
I’m tired. Need to get more sleep than I’ve been getting. I don’t know whether lack of sleep can affect how things taste?
I ask because I had a sort of unusual experience tasting this one. To start with, the dark, chocolate brown dry leaves seemed to me barely to have any smell at all. I got a little sweetness, maybe a teeny tiny chocolate note, but mostly… not much. Neutral, planty earthy smell and not at all strong.
Then I steeped it, and did a little bit of a double take on the aroma. I wondered whether it was just me, or did it smell an awful lot like the aroma of GM’s Nepalese Afternoon? The aroma was definitely sweet. Black tea sweet. As I concentrated on it a bit, I determined that I definitely got a predominantly honey note to the sweetness rather than brown sugar. But at first blush they seemed very similar. In color as well.
In taste, though, they differ. This one hits me with sweetness right away. The first sip was extremely sweet and honeyed, though that may have been primarily in contrast to the taste I had in my mouth from a cup of something else (Tazo Om) half an hour earlier. The second sip, less so, but still can taste the honey. It has a briskness to it, and is more astringent than I remember the Nepalese Afternoon being. Medium to light bodied, I’d say.
Does seem like it would go well with food. Does seem more an afternoon tea than a breakfast one, at least in terms of my personal preferences.
Hmm. Not sure where to place this one. I think on balance I like it not quite as much as the Nepalese Afternoon, and it would be down the pike a bit on my breakfast blend list.
It’s probably one of those that will get at least to the semi-finals as I narrow down the universe of all possible tea to a manageable stash to keep on hand. I will probably order some to try it against a narrower field and see whether it makes it to the quarter finals.
