Golden Dragon

Very mild taste, it wasn’t unpleasant, but, at the same time, I don’t really know what Lichee tastes like. So, can’t really critique this one much. It’s from a batch of inexpensive teas I’ve bought form a local asian grocery. It’s quite drinkable for what it is.

I recently bought a tin of this, but it must have been old stock – I didn’t smell or taste any rose, it was just kind of a flat black tea. The smell was so absent that I almost thought “Rose” was actually part of the brand name. I’ve since found a black rose tea that I really like, but it’s not nearly as cheap as this was (around $5 for the tin!) Because of the positive reviews here I’ll give it another try – maybe it’ll be better if I use tea that’s buried deeper in the tin, haha

I believe the last time I had enjoyed a Yunnan tea was from Adagio. The leaves were a mixture of beautifully light and deep browns, curled and soft, with tiny hairs. I recall golden tips and a smooth and soft flavor.

This tea is rather interesting. There is clearly a musty scent, which makes me worry about the quality of this tea.

There is a mixture of dark brown leaves and stems, which is not odd. What is odd is the size of the stems, most larger and longer than the leaves. I worry some more.

The liquor is dark and cloudy, with that musty scent from the leaves. I am actually not really looking forward to tasting this tea.

And, just as I had suspected, this is a very bitter tea. The musty scent had very much shown what the quality was to this tea, which is bitter and pretty much flavourless.

It feels like I haven’t really enjoyed a good new oolong tea in a while. I’ve found interesting oolongs, as well as replenished familiar oolongs, but never stumbled upon an oolong that can surprise me.

This is definitely one of the nicer tins I’ve purchased, closer in shape and design to the first double covered tin that contained Chocolate tea. The tin is covered in writing I can’t understand, aside from the name of the tea, of course. As well, the red tin is also covered with familiar designs of landscapes and a golden dragon on the lid.

The leaves are very complex and detailed, as they are tightly rolled. They vary shades of deep green, with stems scattered about. The aroma is wonderfully flowery, with a handsome roasted body.

Steeping brings out the buttery roasted oolong scent, scaling back the floral, and making for an increasingly complex aroma. The brew is a handsome deep amber color and very clean.

The flavor is soft, mellow and a nice balance of floral and roasted tones. There are multiple dimensions with each sip, as you catch different characteristics, most faint behind the buttery and floral flavors.

The balance and complexities give quite an interesting and delicious oolong. The mellow floral flavors make this an appropriate afternoon tea, as the strong floral aroma can linger.

We have traveled China bringing to USA the finest teas. Unfortunately in the USA we purchased Lung Ching Golden Dragon Green Tea believing it was from the same farm we visited in China. Our first cup of tea was tossed out because we found a long black hair in the first pinch of the green tea leaves. The rest of the can went into the garbage. Something must be done to improve the quality shipped to USA.

I picked this one up at my nearest Asian grocery. I envisioned myself sipping this in the afternnon while wearing a flowery hat in a sunny garden. Plus, the tin was totally adorable, and the price was very reasonable, considering its 1/2 pound size.

Opening it rushed an almost overwhelming scent of rose deep into my nasal cavities. I worried that the taste would be too perfumey.

After brewing, however, the taste was more subdued than the scent had led me to believe. The smell, once brewed, is enchanting and light. The color is (ha,ha) a rosy brown. Drinking it plain did prove a bit too astringent, but the addition of a teaspoon of sugar enhanced the already present sweetness and rounded it out. After the second steeping, I added milk, and that worked out, to my surprise.

A review: Rose China Black Tea by Choicest Tea

I think I am beginning to know difference between fine gourmet tea and poorly sanitary tea as this Choicest Tea is turning out to be when compared with the London Cuppa and English No. 1.

Rose China Black Tea does not measure to them at all.

Tea is steeped for three minutes for first infusion and nothing added but 1 tablespoon of the leaves. Tea color is dark amber and smells of malt but not like the Kopili Assam tea. It is much weaker by comparison.

For the next steep, this time done for five minutes and adding a teaspoon of sugar and this makes it more palatable as coffee/tea should be taken. Except I don’t like black teas but prefer green teas with nothing added to them. With adding of sugar, the rose fragrant is more surfaces in the fragrant and when tasting the tea; closing your eyes and envisioning the fragrant aroma of a rose bouquet…not of a fresh bouquet but of a forgotten one. Kind of like remembering what a rose smelled like.

Overall, five minutes steep, boiling water and the adding of sugar does make tea a choicest cup, bliss even!

A review: Rose China Black Tea by Choicest Tea

Steeping instructions:
Place 1 tsp of tea leaves for every 8oz (1 cup) of water
Bring the water to a rolling boil about 2120F

Color: is a reddish brown

Leaves are black and finely curled, more like bits but when boiled they become full leaves and retain their black color. With three steeps the leaves still remained the same.

Tasting notes or teas characteristic: black tea with tiny flakes of rose bits, not bitter but sugary like without the sugar, and malt. When first inhaling the aroma I can smell the scented rose, more like burned smoke with a slight floral undertone.

I am enjoying this malt liquor brew as I try to envision what it might be like to add sugar and perhaps milk to this tea. It would go well if fully cooked on the stove after removing the tea leaves to add milk and honey or sugar and let cook a bit longer; this would be an ideal way for true lovers of black tea to have it.

Something about this tea reminds me of The London Cuppa tea I have been enjoying, making this similar to a Darjeeling perhaps.

This China Rose Black Tea that I have is in loose leaf; a tin full. And I wanted to see how tasting a cup of this tea would meet with having tasted several other teas of similar type but in tea bags instead of loose leaves.

For this tea, it is best to brew and steep for a lesser time. Two minutes and not a full five minutes if only fixing one cup at a time. It brews strong right away. I find this tea is closer to the Kopili Assam in strength. They are both very assertive teas. The Kopili is probably the nicer of the two teas in quality as well.

For wanting a simple cup of black tea, The China Rose tea will do nicely. Adding sugar and crème to it makes it nicer even. And with the Kopili Assam, the flavoring is a fuller roast, nothing at all weak about this tea.

This tea was given to me from a former college professor. I was very surprised to receive a full tin of tea. The tin is very lovely, I plan to keep it once finished, but not for a long while since I cannot drink the tea as fast.

Having placed 1 tsp of tea leaves for every 8oz (1 cup) of water
Bringing the water to full boil and left to steep for the first steep for 3 minutes.

I note the color of the liquor in the cup is a reddish brown
The leaves prior to boiling were black and finely curled, are now full leaves and still retaining their color black. I was able to get three steeps out the leaves and they still remain black.

In tasting this tea, it is not bitter but more sugary and round. I want to say almost malt like even with a slight floral undertone.

Overall: this is a very smooth tasting tea; reminds me of The London Cuppa tea I continue to enjoy in between tea samplings; thus making this tea like a Darjeeling perhaps.

It is nice knowing that there is plenty more of this tea for me to enjoy and experience; many thanks to my former college professor.

Brought the can with me to work because the stash is getting low at the office. I gotta say this is one of the best bangs for my buck teawise. A good daily Pu-Erh.

Earthy….not as dark as other Pu-Erhs I have had but decent enough to be a daily Pu-Erh.

Needing a kick in the pants after locking my keys in the office at work, watching movie on the computer, and not leaving till 4:30 in the morning. I really like this Pu-Erh. It’s got the nice earthiness that I love about Pu-Erh. Found it at the Asian market for 3 bucks…can’t beat.

Nice pale yellow liquor with a wonderfully floral taste. But not too floral. Just right. Wish it was offered organic somewhere as I’ve been in an Oolong state of mind recently. I liked the third infusion the best and can probably get another three more I think!

Background: osmanthus is to Shanghai, where I was born, what lilacs are to Paris (except that it blooms in early autumn). It’s used to flavour a number of traditional regional dishes and desserts. Osmanthus tea isn’t really one of them – it’s not a tea-growing area, although it’s a city of oolong-drinkers by and large – but the scent triggers abject nostalgia. A cup of this to me as madeleines to Proust. Plus it just smells really freaking nice.

Dried osmanthus blossoms (little curled up yellow bits) have less staying power than jasmine. They lose their scent if shelved too long. This makes buying osmanthus tea, which I do whenever possible, a frustrating exercise. Ready blends were hard to find in Shanghai itself the last time I was there in ‘06. Then again, in ’06 it was hard to find osmanthus tea in Canada, and thankfully that’s no longer the case.

This Golden Dragon stuff is the cheapest, most generic option – $5/canister in the South Shore Asian grocery, iirc – and it’s definitely been shelved too long. Did no favours to the green tea itself, either; this ain’t gunpowder, which I’m convinced could actually be entombed for centuries and still taste fine when the archaeologists unearth it (not that this describes one or two pantry experiences I’ve had or anything). A long hard steep and/or multiple applications of hot water unlocks the osmanthus scent, though, and that’s really all I’m looking for. Still, a domain in which you tend to get your money’s worth.

(The classic method of preserving osmanthus isn’t drying at all, but candying in sugar syrup. Why don’t I get a jar of that from Chinatown and dump a teaspoonful in when I brew regular green or oolong? Reasonable question. The cultural injunction against sugaring Chinese teas is too strong, I guess. Ping me on Steepster if you try it.)

Incidentally – and the fact that I’m stretching the defined bounds of the software right now suggests that this is functionality Steepster’s social networking gurus ought to consider, perhaps with a nice Google Map as accompaniment – the best cup of osmanthus tea I’ve found in Montreal to date is the Brûlerie Saint-Denis near Côte-des-Neiges metro station, under the Renaud-Bray, which has a massive selection of loose leafs. I don’t know what company they source from.

Actually a pretty good jasmine scented green tea. I picked this up at the small local Asian market for like 4 bucks (for 1/2 lb), so I certainly can’t complain considering the price. It doesn’t have an over the top jasmine scent, but it does have a nice floral quality. I might try to steep for a little longer next time, or at least try another steep at about 3 minutes next. Even though the water was pretty hot it doesn’t taste burnt or bitter either which is nice (it’s not too finicky).

I just got a lovely box from teaplz full of some fun teas. I have no idea why I decided to start with this one – I suppose I’m feeling brave enough to give teaplz’s ‘Dragonhell’ a try!

The leaves… are not so pretty. Broken and sort of old and sad looking. Poor little leaves.

Pouring the tea into the cup, the smell is kind of nice. Nutty and not bitter. The taste is weird. The first sip I was thinking “Hey, that’s not so bad.” And then I finished the sip and there was this… weird taste just expanded in my mouth. Saltiness maybe? Or a nutty bitterness?

As the tea cools a bit, there is a slight hint of sweetness and then that nutty bitterness that was showing up after the sip shows up in the middle of the sip. Though honestly, it tastes a bit better when I take larger sips. There’s a bit of sweetness to it. It’s more of a taunt though, not a substantial sweetness. Just a hint of “I could be better, see, but this is what you get.” Maybe a really low temp will make this one happy.

Overall, the tea isn’t horrible but it doesn’t have that much redeeming social value. It’s just sort of meh.

DRAGONHELL. (Time to play some obligatory Dragonforce to get you in the mood for the epicness of the following review, and just cause it sounds cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc9_U-RBSuk)

I have heard terrifying things about Dragonwell. Salty water. Bitter. Astringent. BLECH.

I was joking around the other day about this particular tea, and apparently the universe was listening to me, because it dumped it in my lap! One of my sister’s friends gave this to her for Christmas, and my sister shoved it onto me. A 4.3 oz tin of Dragonwell of unknown origins. Probably from Chinatown, since the entire package is almost all in Chinese. No steeping parameters, no… nothing. Just pure terror.

So I bit the bullet and tried this, expecting a really bad tea experience. Before I dive into all the awesome tea in my house, I might as well have something mediocre, right? This tin was actually a lot less ghetto than I thought it would be. It’s double-lidded! Yay!

I asked some informed people, and did 2 tsps per cup (I made some for my boyfriend as well). I used the awesome digital thermometer that takgoti sent me (!!!) and waited for the water to drop down to 160. The dry leaf on this smells, as the boyfriend said, “Like all green tea – like a fish tank.” This amused me, but only made me more worried for what I was about to try. He only made it worse when he said, “It’s drink or die time!”

The resulting brew is a pale infusion, a gentle yellow. I took the first sip… and you know what? It really wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Not salty at all. More like the second steep of a gunpowder. I guess this is Chinese green tea! It’s not really sweet at all… a bit briny, but nothing awful and tongue-curling. I found it pretty easy to sip on as I set up the Roku I bought for my parents.

Really not terrifying as it could have been! I’m pleasantly surprised, actually. I mean, this is definitely not something that I’d want to drink all the time. At all. It’s very…. blah, in a lot of ways. But it’s way better than bagged green tea, and it was drinkable. I finished my cup.

Picked this up in Chinatown— an absolutely delicious oolong!

Good midday tea – very flowery and distinct.

This is a tin of tea that I got from a local oriental market. This one isn’t as good as the SpecialTeas Fine Ti Kuan Yin, but I think it’s cheaper, and I can get it locally.

I brewed this in a 14 oz Yixing pot, 2 heaping tsp for 2 steeps – 2 min and 3 min. Water just off boiling (200ish). If I go more than 2 with this one it really falls off quickly, hence the relatively long second steep time.