__Morgana__

Golden Moon sample No. 30 of 31.

I’m not a sencha expert. I can count on my digits the number of times I’ve knowingly had sencha, and I probably don’t even have to use the toes.

So I cheated a little to get myself started. While I didn’t go so far as to pour the leaves out to compare how they looked, I compared the smell of the sample packet leaves to that of the Den’s Organic Sencha. And guess what? The Den’s is orders of magnitude more fragrant, more juicy and sweet and vegetal-smelling. The dry leaves looked pretty normal to me, but they weren’t as shiny and deep green as I remembered the Den’s being.

Looking back at my notes from the Den’s, I think the liquor color may be different as well. This steeps chartreuse too, but more toward the yellow side. The aroma is nice. It’s got some butter going on, and a definite vegetal scent. It tastes good, but a little on the thin side. I remember the Den’s being much juicier.

I think I’ve convinced myself (and it wasn’t at all hard to do) that I’d buy Den’s over this sencha. Though if someone offered me a cup of this, I would be happy to enjoy it with that kind offeror.

Tried this today the Samovar way, with a tablespoon of chai and a tablespoon of black tea (Teavana Assam Gold Rain). Otherwise the same: 1 tbsp sweetener, 1 cup water till it boils mostly away, 1 cup milk, steep ten minutes in the milk after bringing to a boil.

This seems to be one way to make chai more chewy. I am going to be using this method from now on. Not sure this black tea was the best choice — I haven’t tried it outside of the chai experiment. But it tames the pepper just the right amount to keep it spicy while also giving it more substance and texture.

Better the second time with more water and less tea, and also a bit less steeping time, but not a significant enough improvement to merit much of an uptick. Still mainly a bitter orange peel flavor, just a little more watered down this way. Adding a couple of points.

A slightly oolongated (sorry!) detour from the Golden Moon project while the water was at the oolong temp setting.

This tea is crowded. There are a lot of little oval cream colored flower buds in the sample, perhaps even more flowers than tea leaves. There’s a grainy looking greenish powder which I’m guessing is the lemon myrtle, but it looks as though it has been put through a pepper mill. The packet has a strong tart orange peel scent. I’m speculating that The Necessiteas ended up with a lot more orange ingredients than anticipated as their offerings are seeming heavy on the orange flavor lately.

The oolong must be pretty green as it delivers a fresh butter colored liquor that has a buttery aroma. There is also a suggestion of flowers, and a citrus note that seems out of place here. The citrus note worries me.

But I shouldn’t have worried, at least not too much. It is present in the taste of the tea, and it isn’t destructive or distracting as I had feared. Mostly, it’s effect is to steer the flavor of the tea away from the dominant buttery floral I would have expected from a green oolong and inject a more piquant flavor. Surprisingly, it’s pretty good.

I’m not sure what the lemon myrtle contributes, exactly. Maybe it’s what keeps the orange flavor under control. The jasmine flowers don’t seem to be contributing much either. There’s no identifiable jasmine note among the generic floral.

Second steep: 3 mins. More orange in the aroma and a powdery, perfumy quality as well that is vaguely lemony. Must be the myrtle. These two qualities dominate the flavor as well along with the generic floral and a sweetness on the back end with just a tiny bit of butter.

Third steep: 4 mins. Not terribly different from the last, except that the mouthfeel is less soft and feels more like water.

I’m actually quite surprised that this tastes as good as it does. If I wanted to have a green oolong, though, I’d be more likely to go for one that didn’t work so hard at muting the qualities in green oolongs that I really like (butteriness, creaminess, flowers) in favor of some other flavor(s). Still, if you’re not an oolong purist and/or are addicted to variety, this comes in a sample size so you can give it a try without a huge investment.

Golden Moon sample No. 29 of 31. The end is so near, and I’m making a push to finish my samples in a fit of completion compulsion.

I’ve been looking forward to this. I haven’t had a non-green, non-flavored oolong in a while. I’m excited to revisit one.

The dry leaves are multicolored: dark brown, lighter brown, some green and some silver. They have a rich, dark, roasty nose that reminds me of the Formosa oolongs from the Upton sampler. Very nice. Toasty/nutty. Steeps to a deep, golden yellow.

The aroma is as I expected from my earlier experiences with different Formosa oolongs. Fruity. Nutty.

It’s very tasty, though I’m not sure I’m getting everything described, at least not in the first steep. I’m not getting chestnuts so much as something that is almost like a Brazil nut; I’m not getting dates so much as something that is almost like apricot. Floral? Some, but I can’t be sure it’s orange blossom. I am not sure I could identify the scent of an orange blossom. If it is citrusy, I’m not getting citrus. Cedar? Well, the roastiness does have something in common with wood, but… hmm.

Second steep: 3 mins. Deeper gold liquor, closer to amber. A very obvious floral note to the aroma, which must be the orange blossom. It’s even slightly orangy smelling, but only very slightly. Flavor is deeper and more complex. I taste citrus! And a nutty/fruity/woody flavor, like you get from sucking on a peach pit, but without bitterness.

Third steep: 4 mins. Still an amber liquor, but in other respects, starting to fade. The citrus/floral note to the aroma is more obvious this time around but against a background that seems a little flat. There is more wood in the flavor this time, and less suggestion of fruit and nut.

I feel like I should try a fourth steep, but I’m afraid to. This seems already to be on the descrescendo.

I like it. I’m not sure I like it more than the Formosa Oolongs I have from Upton though admittedly I haven’t tasted those in a while. I’m going to get another sample instead of a full tin at this point and taste some other oxidized oolongs in the meantime to see how this one rates against them before I commit to a full tin.

Golden Moon sample No. 28 of 31. The Kashmiri Chai at last! Made on the stovetop, sample packet = one cup of chai.

This is the fourth chai blend I’ve tried on the stovetop, and it’s so interesting to think about the differences between the various blends. The Rishi is quite peppery. This one doesn’t have pepper. I generally like pepper in chai, and have found some blends lacking for the lack of pepper. For whatever reason, I don’t find this one lacking. In fact, I think I may prefer it ever so slightly to the Rishi (not enough to rate it differently), or at least like it around the same, even though the Rishi is much spicier. Ok, but wait. I liked the Samovar chai best of all, and it has pepper.

I am concluding that comparisons don’t really work here. This is a nice chai. It’s smooth and tasty when made on the stovetop. True, its spices are somewhat subdued compared to others I’ve had, but it isn’t as though they’re overpowered by milk, which is my prime measure. Its body is a little lighter so it’s not as chewy as others I’ve enjoyed, but it’s still nice.

This is, as I think about it, pretty much the GM Pu-erh Chai, without the pu-erh earthiness. Not that that is, or should be, surprising. It’s still doesn’t beat the Samovar in my view or even come close, but I’d happily drink it for a change of pace when I feel like having chai but want something a little lighter weight.

Golden Moon sample No. 27 of 31. Only five teas left to sample. It will be bittersweet to reach the end, but it’s not like I don’t have a ridiculous number of other samples to try, both singles and sets. And next in this group is finally the Kashmiri Chai, which I definitely have to try today. I’ve been waiting for it for a while, and seeing it sitting there next in the stack is just too much for me.

But this isn’t about chai, this is about Rose Tea. I’ve had rose petals in a lot of teas, but their function seems mostly to be decorative. The only other tea I’ve had that really bills itself as a rose tea is the Numi Velvet Garden White Rose. I haven’t had it in a while, but I recall liking it. It doesn’t really seem a proper comparative vehicle here, though, as the GM Rose is a black tea, not a white.

Rose Tea smells utterly divine. I adore rose fragrance, the fresher the better. This smells very fresh. Like burying your nose in a bouquet of long-stemmed roses. The petals are a lovely purplish-reddish-pink and give the illusion of fresh softness. (If you actually pick one up in your fingers, you’ll find it to be dry and crisp.) The black tea adds a slight muskiness to the scent, but for the most part it is rose, rose and more rose.

The smell of the tea base is more prevalent in the aroma of the steeped tea. It has a sweet smell, suggesting sugar or honey, similar to the aromas in others of the GM black teas. The flavor is lovely. The rose predominates, but it is much gentler in the flavor here than it is in the Numi white. I’m not sure if that’s because the black base has more innate strong flavor than the white or for some other reason.

I don’t get any bath products in the flavor; nothing soapy or lotiony, or even perfumy. There’s a quaint nutty aftertaste that is unexpected and helps to banish all resemblance to bath products.

I like this a lot. It’s not something I could see drinking every day, but it’s something I would keep in my cupboard for when it’s the right taste for the right time.

With this in my cupboard, I could let the Numi go as a representative rose flavor without regret.

Stressed and tired, so not up for a magnum opus tonight. Tomorrow maybe. It’s work at home Wednesday and I think my big project may finally be done, so my stress level should go down and I may actually get to enjoy some tea instead of gulping it down while distracted. But after my earlier yucky face experience, I wanted to end the evening on a higher note.

This is a surprisingly nice fruit blend. It has chunky pieces in a nicely harmonized color combo/continuum of very dark purple to light brown. Its variations would be nice in one of those eye shadow palette compacts. It smells like tart strawberry in the sample packet. I brewed it double strength in about 16 oz of water, and it made a pretty, hibiscus-influenced magenta-like liquor.

In taste, it is not at all tart or bitter. In fact, it is sweet, undoubtedly from the strawberry. Apple notes poke through every now and then, and neither the rose hips nor the hibiscus seem to have much influence on the taste. The kiwi is tricky, but I do notice a sort of cooling flavor that comes after the strawberry and doesn’t seem to be the strawberry simply morphing into another variant. I think this is the kiwi. I’ll focus on it more when I next try the rest of the sample and see if I can tease it out a bit more.

I haven’t had that many straight mixed fruit blends, but I like this one better than the Teavana Lemon Youkou because it doesn’t require sweetening.

The red and purple of the rose petals and hibiscus, the grey-green of the tea, the light yellow-green of the lemongrass and the tiny blocks of orange peel make this a colorful tea to look at. In the sample packet, the dry leaves smell strongly and almost exclusively of orange peel.

I think I oversteeped this — I set the timer for 5 minutes but got preoccupied, and it may have been longer than 6 by the time I got back to the tea. It had steeped to a really lovely peach color and still smelled strongly of orange peel.

The taste, however, had a single, sour/bitter note: orange peel.

I will try one more time with the rest of the sample and move the slider if things improve.

Hello rooibos my old friend [?], I’ve come to talk with you again. Ugh. Now I have Simon and Garfunkel rattling around inside my head.

One thing I think I can say with certainty is that as much as I haven’t cared for the Necessiteas flavored greens and have even had a strike out with one of their flavored blacks, they do rooibos blends pretty well. I am hardly an expert on the point, but I suspect that rooibos is pretty forgiving when it comes to being a base for blends. Still, I’ve had ones that were too noisy, so it’s obviously not a foolproof base. Or perhaps some people just like noisy rooibos and find those blends successful and the ones I like the disasters instead.

Be that as it may, this one did remind me more than usual of the covering of the bottom of a hamster cage, but I think it is because of the huge honking hunks of orange peel in the mix that make the rooibos look so backgroundy. And the chocolate poking up from underneath. Which as it turns out, is an accurate visual representation of the taste.

The aroma, though, is somewhat orange-medicinal, like a kids’ liquid medicine.

The flavor is a strong orange flavor that isn’t sweet, rich, or candy like as the orange flavors I’ve particularly enjoyed are. This one is slightly tart and a tiny bit bitter, but not in an entirely bad way. It basically has the character of orange peel, which is to say it tastes like what it is. No surprise there. Behind the orange is the rooibos, an appley note that stands between the orange and the chocolate which isn’t really much more than a warm cocoa undercurrent. Sometimes the rooibos and the chocolate change places. It’s not consistent, though.

The aftertaste is pretty strong on the rooibos. Which is not the best way to end.

I preferred the Peppermint Pattie, but this isn’t bad if you like flavored rooibos.

Golden Moon sample No. 26 of 31.

I’m conflicted about this one. On the one hand, there’s something interesting and nice about it. On the other, it’s weird.

The dry leaves have small light brown pieces in them that look like little seeds. This must be the pollen. They smell of pear, and there is also a very heavy floral scent. Honey is there, but around the edges.

The liquor is where the honey first shows up in force — it’s a dark honey color. The aroma has both pear and honey, but mostly honey.

The taste is unusual. To me it is floral more than anything else, but I’m not sure what flower. There is some pear, but it is not strong. And some honey, but it isn’t strong either. The tea isn’t bitter, there’s nothing really objectionable about it. It’s just kind of strange and unexpected. The weirdest part is a waxiness to the mouth feel. The finish does have a lot of pear to it.

Not sure enough to buy a full size of this, but not ready to give it a pass. I’ll likely buy another sample when I place my order and give it another try.

Golden Moon sample No. 25 of 31.

I was hoping this would blow me away with it’s “claming aroma” (typo on the sample bag label), and that I would have found another staple Earl Grey.

This isn’t terrible, but it’s not among the better Earl Greys I have tried. The leaves are nice looking with their light colored tips, and there is a strong bergamot scent that, while it isn’t oily, is definitely heavy. I couldn’t identify lavender in the scent of the dry leaves. And I wonder why I’m supposed to, since it isn’t listed among the ingredients.

After steeping, the bergamot fragrance becomes milder. I’m still not smelling lavender, mostly what I get underneath the bergamot is a malty, black tea scent. The liquor is fairly dark orange/brown.

There is a hint of bergamot in the taste, which is what I prefer. I don’t love very strong bergamot in the taste, as when it is too strong it can do a number on my stomach. But this was perhaps too subtle even for me. I still can’t find lavender anywhere. But the other taste I do find is something odd. It’s a sort of a flat taste that hints of bread, but not in a delicious way. I’m wondering if it is what the tea tasting books refer to as “bakey” or over fired? If it is, it would make sense as there is a baked feeling to it but not in a tasty way. Like the stuff that sticks to the bottom of the cake pan and is heavy on the baking powder.

In any case, not a success in my further attempts to populate my Earl Grey stable.

Golden Moon sample No. 24 of 31.

I need caffeine. I went out last night and am going out again tonight. I haven’t done that in… I can’t remember how long. Anyway, fortunately since I pre-drew my last few samples I know that I have a bunch of black teas coming up in the sampler. So I don’t have to expend any energy figuring out what to drink. I can save the energy for tonight.

This one has very attractive leaves. I love the variegated colors of tippy teas. This one has a lot of pretty white tips in it, among leaves that range from dark brown to greenish. The packet indicates that this contains FTGFOP-18 darjeeling. (What’s the 18 mean? I can find info on the number 1 after a designation but not a number other than 1. From what I read, 1 is supposed to me that it is among the finest of its type, so does 18 mean it’s far down the ranks?)

The dry leaves don’t have a strong smell. They’re a little dusky smelling. As is the aroma of the steeped tea. I’m looking for the characteristic “muscatel” fragrance, but honestly I don’t know what muscatel smells like. It does smell a lot like the other darjeelings I’ve had, so I’m guessing what I think of as “darjeeling” smell is actually muscatel. It’s a sharp, dry smell at the top and a dusky, fruity smell at the bottom. The color is a medium brown orange “tea” color.

This is a medium to light bodied, refreshing drink. It’s flavorful without being weighty, and it has a bright texture with being too drying in the finish. I’m a darjeeling n00b, so though I know I like them and I like this one, I don’t yet have enough of a repertoire to compare this meaningfully to others. I gave the only other straight darjeeling I’ve rated, the Tazo bag, a 74. This is better than that, but I wouldn’t put it out of the 70s, so instead of rating it overly high I’m going to bump the Tazo down some.

I wasn’t intending to write about this one yet since I tried it for the first time this morning during a rush to get the kids ready for swimming lessons, but I had to change my mind because of the comments coming from the breakfast table after I poured the water over the mixture.

Picture the mixture (there’s a photo at the top of the page of the black tea leaves, white coconut strips, chocolate chips). In the packet it has a v. strong scent of “lime,” a really acrid smell that borders on chlorine, with some not sweet chocolate underneath and some sweetness that may be the coconut in the corner. It’s on the kitchen counter having just had water poured over it.

Now picture the scene. Two boys, ages 4 and almost 6, eating microwave French toast from Trader Joe’s and drinking orange juice, and the boyfriend about to sit down with them while I am puttering making my own breakfast.

Boyfriend: “What’s that smell?”

Me: “Tea.”

Boyfriend walks over to cup and sniffs. “Caramel?”

Me: “No. Lime, chocolate and coconut.”

Boyfriend: “Ahhhh. It’s the coconut.” He starts to sing: “Put the lime in the coconut and drink it all up, put the lime in the coconut and call me in the morning. Wasn’t that Harry Nilsson, the same guy who did The Point?” He sits down.

Boyfriend: “God, that smells awful.”

6 Year old: “I can smell it from here. I don’t like it.”

Me: “Really? I don’t think it’s so bad.”

4 Year old (Mama’s boy, bless him): “I don’t think it’s so bad either.”

Boyfriend: “Who thinks it smells bad, raise your hand.” Raises hand. 6 year old raises hand.

I take a sip. It’s identifiably lime, coconut, and chocolate, but mostly the acrid lime that tastes a lot like it smells and is throwing the mixture off kilter. I put some milk in it and try again. Slightly better, still way too heavy on the lime. I look at the packet. Chocolate Coconut Lime. I am wondering why it isn’t called Lime Chocolate Coconut?

Me: “It doesn’t taste that good.”

4 year old: “Can I taste it?”

Me: “No.”

4 year old: “Is it tea?”

Me: Pause. Is it tea? Answer. “Yes.”

Sort of.

Golden Moon sample No. 23 of 31. Since I’m getting toward the end, and had an insatiable wave of curiosity come over me, I randomly drew the order of all of my last samples. This is the first. Here’s the order of the rest: Darjeeling, Tippy Earl Grey, Honey Pear, Rose, Kashmiri Chai (yay!), Imperial Formosa Oolong, Sencha and (drum roll please) Sinharaja.

The little gunpowder nodules look a lot like they did in the Moroccan Mint. I’m guessing they are the base for that tea. When I sniffed them without the influence of mint, I got a really interesting smell. At first, like Rabs I thought it was some form of rodent chow, or maybe lagomorph chow. That sort of grassy smell of those big blocks of compressed organic mystery material that pet rats chew on, or of the smaller pellets for rabbits. Second time, coming at it from having cleared my smeller by not being near anything with a strong smell for a few minutes I realized what it truly is. Millet seed. It’s the smell of the seeds I used to give to my pet finches. Or maybe it was the canary or parakeet. Can’t be sure now as that was a long time ago, but I definitely recognize the smell.

After steeping, I had an aromatic surprise. Up until now I haven’t been able to detect any smokiness at all in gunpowder. Mostly what I get instead is a sort of “dusky” or heavy green smell. With this, I did get a smoky aroma. Not smoky in the Russian or Lapsang sense, where you can really smell charred evergreen trees. More of a light whiff with a seed essence, as though you’d walked into a room where a sesame seed bagel had toasted too long after enough time had elapsed that the smell had almost fully dissippated. Along with that, there is the dusky green I remembered, which has a sweet aspect to it. The color is a deep, clear yellow.

The flavor isn’t as sweet and vegetal as other greens. It, too, has a dusky character with a sort of a nutty (or rather seedy) taste to it. I can find a tad of bitterness, but not enough to make it unpalatable.

I have very limited experience with gunpowder and may have to downgrade this eventually, but my experience hasn’t been nearly as unpleasant as reflected in the notes of a lot of other tasters. Or perhaps I’m just in a charitable mood. Really, though I didn’t dislike this at all, in fact, I liked it — my only hesitations are that I think it’s not something I’d choose to drink a lot, and that I don’t have a frame of reference to know how this compares to others of the same type of tea. So I’m giving it a default very good rating until I have grounds for comparison.

Golden Moon sample No. 22 of 31. Fate determined Friday would be pu-erh day!

The package says it contains aged Chinese tea from the last century. Which sounds really special and exotic until you consider the last century only ended about 10 years ago. ;-P Still, 10 years is probably older than most tea I’ve tried except for the Celestial Seasonings mystery tea bags I found in the back of the pantry from years and years ago. So this should be interesting.

This is my first non-Samovar loose pu-erh, and I now know that all pu-erh leaves are not tiny and cute. These are fairly big, and chunky. They look like fragments of brown tree bark. They have a mellow, chocolate earth smell.

The tea’s aroma is really yummy, though it doesn’t have the smell I associated with pu- erhs. There’s not even a small amount of leather in this one. It smells sweet and (to me anyway) chocolatey. Like the middle-to-high chocolate notes in fresh baked brownies (just not the dark fudgy ones). The color is medium to dark brown, not as dark as the Palace Pu-erh, not as light as most black teas.

Wow, very tasty. Interestingly, it’s not like the other pu-erhs I’ve had. I really don’t get a lot of earthiness. It’s more like a very dense and flavorful black tea, smooth, sweet, some malt, and a character that verges on chewy and biscuity. Its not so much a taste as it is a connection, but I feel a strong cocoa association, maybe a little of the mocha-java as well.

I’m liking this one quite a bit. Some day when my experience has increased sufficiently I’ll have to get more scientific about my pu erh ratings. For now, I’m giving this a mark commensurate with my enjoyment from this tasting.

I haven’t had this in quite a while and thought it was time to see whether it still had the love, particularly in light of my new ambivalence toward rooibos.

I tasted it tonight specifically looking for the impact of the rooibos on the overall flavor. I would say it does have an impact, but a marginal one. There were a few times when I got an appley flavor that came to the fore that I knew to be rooibos, but mostly, this tastes like vanilla cream, with a soft lemon note.

Now, does it still deserve its co-leading ranking with Rooibos Tropica from Teavana? That’s a little more difficult. I didn’t taste them side by side, but I think I do prefer the Tropica. But not necessarily because it’s superior to this as a rooibos blend; rather because its fruity flavor profile feels less filling than this does which makes it preferable to me for a late night caffeine free option. That said, this is still a nice dessert option. It’s a toss up really, so I’m keeping the rating the same for now.

It turns out, I thought I’d finished my stash of this but I totally forgot I had a couple of bags still at work. So this time I REALLY DID drink the last of this. Exciting, because it makes way for more Earl experiments to come. I have a whole Upton sampler to start on in the coming days, not to mention assorted other samples!

Golden Moon sample No. 21 of 31, chosen at random.

I had a hard day. I just sold my childhood home, which I’d been holding on to since my mom died in the mid-90s, mostly for sentimental reasons. I thought I was ready for this step. Sure beats being a landlord from multiple states away (so my thinking went). Or having it sit empty and having to deal with upkeep from multiple states away (so my thinking went). And it’s in an area that, very fortunately, held its value during the recession and even appreciated some, so no downside there. And the transaction was relatively painless because the lady who was renting it bought it, and so I didn’t have to put it on the market.

But when I had to sit down with the notary and sign the deed, I started to feel really sad. So many memories tied up in that house. We moved into it when I was 5. I’m trying to make myself look at the bright side. At least the buyer wants to live in it and update it, not tear it down and build a McMansion on the little lot. So if I ever find myself in the neighborhood with my kids, I’ll still be able to show them the house mommy grew up in.

But. Stress. And work stress this week too, no time to work out for 2 days. I’m hoping to take a few days off as soon as I get a project done, maybe get a massage. Yeah, that’s what I’ll look forward to, she said.

Anyway, I thought I had a conference call at 7 p.m. tonight but it got postponed, so I actually have a shot of doing a workout. But I really don’t feel like it, so I am hoping a gentle caffeine lift may help motivate me.

I haven’t had jasmine pearls before though I’ve seen pictures of them. The pictures don’t really do them justice. They’re quite charming looking in real life. They look like tiny, variegated aquarium snails. Or miniscule turbans. Or rolled up bits of rattan. They have a strong, sweet, jasmine smell.

The liquor is pale yellow with a hint of green and has a rich jasmine smell. It’s got a lot to it without being artificial or overwhelming. I’d happily wear it as perfume; it smells lovely and fresh. It would make a nice spring/summer eau de toilette.

The taste is very, very sweet and slightly vegetal, with the predominant note, not surprisingly, that of jasmine. The tea has a light body, but I’m not sure I could rightly expect jasmine to be chewy.

By the end of my first steep, the pearls had only partially uncurled. Some of them were starting to look a bit ringletty. The flavor on the second steep, while still light bodied, had more depth. It felt a bit silkier, like it was leaning toward green oolong land. The pearls were pretty much uncurled at this point, except for a few that had a tightly wound bit still at the end of the leaf and looked a little like… sperm! I gave them another run through, believing that there might be more flavor hiding in the curls. There was, though the second steep was tastier. The third was heading toward washed out.

I can’t remember the non-pearl GM jasmine well enough to compare these two. Perhaps it’s my mood and my great need for comfort today, but I have a more positive visceral response to this one than to the other.

Can someone who is more experienced with green teas in general and jasmine green tea in particular educate me on why one would have both jasmine pearls and regular leaf jasmine in one’s cupboard other than for variety in how they look and whatever difference there may be in how any given one tastes vs. another? Is there something else I should be considering? If I had to choose between the two at the moment I’d pick this, but perhaps there’s more to it I should be thinking about?

I’ve been looking forward to trying this sample ever since Ricky said he thought I’d like it since I’d liked Maiden’s Ecstasy.

The little pu erh leaves are so small and cute, like they are with the other Samovar loose pu erhs, and perhaps loose pu erhs in general (my experience isn’t yet broad enough to comment). They’re not a uniform color, they’re gradations of brown from a medium, milk chocolate to a dark, bittersweet chocolate color. They have the deep, dark, leathery smell I have come to associate with pu erh. And something mocha-like, too.

What a gorgeous, dark color this brews to! It’s a deep dark brown, with some red in it. Depending on how the light hits it, it is either very nearly opaque, or darkly translucent. The aroma is gorgeous too. It’s only a little leathery, and not barnyardy, or fishy that I could detect. It reminds me of a savory mushroom soup. Not cream of mushroom. The other kind; the brothy, gravy-esque kind.

The taste is amazing. Again the words deep and dark come to mind. Again, there’s nothing barnyardy or fishy about how this tastes to me. There is some leather, but there is a lot more, too. Earth, moss, coffee, and an interesting mix of other suggestions. On the one hand, gravy. On the other, tree resin. On the other… ok, I realize I don’t have three hands, but if I did, the third would be almost a very dusky, deep, dry cabernet, the kind I don’t generally find palatable. In this tea, though, I like that suggestion. What I don’t like about those kinds of cabs is the abundance of tannin. This, however, is exceptionally smooth.

I think what I must be trying to describe is what ancient trees taste like. Which is awesome to think about.

This is quite lovely. Unlike the other Samovar pu erhs, this is so rich it’s not something I could drink every day. Fortunately, since pu erhs improve with age, I don’t have to worry about it going bad in my cupboard if I limit my indulgence to a sometime thing.

I was scared to try this tea. It’s such a big favorite here on Steepster, I felt awed and intimidated by its very existence. It’s like being in the presence of a celebrity.

On the one hand, I’m glad I looked at the notes for it before I tried my sample. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have known to give it a try at 175. On the other hand, wow. Such (almost universally) high numbers! Am I worthy?

Pretty leaves with those golden tips punctuating the darkness of the leaves. My smeller is off today, so I don’t get much from smelling the dry leaves. But the aroma of the steeped tea is incredibly complex. Sugary, fruity, buttery and smooth.

The sugar flavor is a very distinctive type of sugar. I know from whence the reference to yams comes. Last Thanksgiving, when the rest of the family was having some sort of goopy yam concoction with marshmallows and pineapple, I, on a restrictive diet, stuck a half yam, sliced longitudinally, in the oven to bake and eat plain. When I checked on it, the sugar in the potato had bubbled up from the orange meat, fallen to the bottom of the oven and carmelized there giving the most amazingly delicious smell. That’s the sugar I taste here.

It marks a return to the preternatural smoothness of Samovar blacks following a slight detour with the Ceylon Super Single.

I understand the high ratings on this. It has depth, body, character, all the things I look for in a tea.

I need to sit with this one for a while, taste it multiple times. On this first tasting when I’m tired and stressed, I fear I’m not in the frame of mind to give it its true due. But oh, how I am looking forward to getting to know this tea.

Just wanted to say that my Samovar order arrived today so I opened up the tin of this to see how full it was because I was afraid after Shanti’s post and it was up to the top. Shanti, you should definitely contact Samovar about your lack of full tin. It sounds like you got a defective one.

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.

After drinking my way through a can of this, mostly mixed with spearmint and tarragon in an attempt to try to find the sweet spot that would mimic Tazo’s Refresh, I am having to rethink my rating and significantly downgrade this.

The truth is, I never really did get used to the earthy, dirty smell and taste. I know that peppermint doesn’t have to be that way, because the peppermint in Refresh doesn’t have that quality. I don’t know if it was just the batch I got or what, but I’m not willing to order more to find out. I will stick with Refresh as a mint tisane rather than my Frankensteinish attempt to recreate it, and I’ll try some other peppermint samples as I go along. Teavana’s peppermint is getting a high rating here, I’ve noticed, so I may give that a try as well.