Golden Tips

Hesitant approach
Behind the black is hidden
A sweetness unnamed.

So the wonderful Cheri (Cheri0627) was determined to change my opinion of darjeelings (which, until now, has been in the red), so she sent me a whole BOX of different ones to sample! This is my first tentative try. I also made sure to try and follow Amanda’s (Amanda ‘SoggyEnderman’ Wilson) suggestion about a cooler water temperature.

The dry leaves are very fragrant-a pleasant mix of floral and wood with an emphasis on floral. The wet leaves also smelled wonderful-and strongly! The liquor is a dark burnt orange.

I steeped for 3 minutes and was met with an interesting flavor. Not unpleasant, but I spent the whole cup searching for a flavor that was hiding behind the more standard “tea.” Was it fruity? Nutty? Floral? I settled on sweet, but that’s as far as I got. As it was worth exploring, I tried another steep.

I was planning on steeping for equalish time. But, as happens at work, time got away from me and threeish turned into 6! And as a further disruption, I didn’t get to it until it was cold. For a cooled second steep, I’m impressed with its drinkability. That hidden flavor is still there, but on the very last end of the swallow.

This is very tasty – it is definitely sweet but I don’t get a lot of fruity notes. It is a little like musty apples almost, with how earthy it tastes. I enjoy it, but I always enjoy oolongs. I did two western style steeps and it kept me up long enough to finish my portfolio. Tomorrow I turn it in, and hopefully this time next month I will be a certified teacher. :)

Light green, fluffy leaf. First steep yields pale yellow cup with very subtle aroma and taste. Subsequent steeps produce a slightly nutty aroma. Reminds of the chestnut character found in some Mao Jian Chinese green tea. Flavor is fresh and green but very mild.

birthday tea!

Okay, it was harvested on my birthday, so that’s why I’m calling it birthday tea.

Open the packet…wow…smells………AMAZING. Rich, fragrant, delicious.

http://instagram.com/p/ud20K-gyRZ/

The tea is pretty good, but not as great as it smelled when it was just the dry leaves.

Lewis & Clark #4

Soft nose. Bold flavor. Classic first flush flavor with hints of stone fruit. Becomes slightly bitter at the finish, but not enough to spoil the taste. The finish is very long, adding depth to the following sip.

There was a discussion topic about Darjeeling a few weeks ago, and this tea sums up my feeling in the discussion. There are hundreds of good, solid Darjeelings out there; each one a pleasure to drink, but few can distinguish themselves enough to rise to the top of the ratings.

This was really smooth, and really didn’t remind me of most blacks I drink. It was light in color, and had no bitterness at all. I think it would be great for a person who finds a lot of black tea to be too bold, though it didn’t quite have enough flavor for me to want to purchase.

Lewis & Clark Traveling Teabox – Tea #22
The mystery of this Darjeeling will be lost on me.. as they usually are. The color of the mug is a unique bright orange! Already interesting. The fragrance from the untasted mug is like a lemon maple syrup but the flavor only has hints of both of those. Otherwise it’s tough to tell! A little stone fruit. Not very much muscatel. It’s very light flavored and I can’t piece the rest together… I tried another Darj the same way as I steeped the second cup of this one (unique with that one).. but this one turned out a little bitter steeped that way but still maintaining that orange color. I wish I was more profound with this one.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 tsp // 20 min after boiling // 3 min
Steep #2 // half mug // 15 min after boiling // 3 min

Today I bid a fond farewell to this tasty second flush Arya Ruby Estate darjeeling. I appear to have enjoyed this selection quite a bit more than other Steepsterites enrolled in the Golden Tips subscription plan. To each her own! :-)

Today’s new darjeeling experience chez sherapop is this lovely Arya Ruby second flush from Golden Tips. The harvest date is June 27, 2014, so not very long ago. The dried leaves are mostly quite dark and spindly, but there are also a fair number of lighter silver tip as well.

The liquor is nearly orange, so definitely darker than first flush darjeelings. The dried tea is incredibly fragrant, with a rich floral and woody aroma. Why this tea could be a perfume! It’s definitely more complex than many of the abstract perfumes being produced today. Well, that’s another story.

The flavor is very rich as well. I’m not really sure how to describe it. How about delicious?

I am happy that these sample packets from the excellent Golden Tips subscription program contain a full 10 grams, which means that I’ll be able to try this tea two more times…

Lewis & Clarke TTB

Yay, a second Darjeeling from Golden Tips! This one is an oolong, whereas the last one was a black tea, so I assume they’ll be quite different from one another. The leaves of this tea remind me of Oriental Beauty – they’re varying shades of brown and grey with silver tips mixed in. Dry scent is pretty similar to the other two Darjeelings, with sweet and slightly musty hay and grain notes. I used the lower end of the steeping time spectrum again, at 4 minutes.

Yum, the brewed aroma is a luscious mix of strong honey, sweet fruit that definitely leans toward grape juice, and bread notes. Wow, I actually really love this one! And it does somewhat remind me of Oriental Beauty in taste as well. There’s a ton of honey sweetness mixed with a lovely grape juice-like deep fruit flavor. I also taste a bit of that nice somewhat roasty autumn leaf note that I associate with oxidized oolongs. This tea screams “Autumn!” to me and I love it.

Thanks so much, Cheri, for including this tea in the box! :D

Lewis & Clarke TTB

Trying another Darjeeling to compare! :D I think Cheri added this one to the box, since I know she has the Golden Tips subscription. Thanks, Cheri! The leaves of this tea look very different from the Giddapahar that I just tried – they look very much like green tea, especially after they’ve steeped and expanded. The dry scent is similar, though – musty sweet hay and grain, similar to a white tea. I used the shorter end of the steeping time range provided, mostly because I was afraid of bitterness.

Brewed, this tea smells pretty floral, but it also has creamy hay and grain notes. I also get a little bit of fruitiness, but it’s similar to fresh grapes instead of dried fruit. Wow, this tastes very similar to a white tea! It’s very creamy and smooth with sweet hay and pastry notes. At the beginning of the sip, I do get an interesting floral flavor that seems to disappear near the middle. It then reappears in the aftertaste and lingers on the tongue long after you’ve finished drinking. Luckily for me, it’s not a super strong or heady floral, so it’s pretty inoffensive. I’m surprised to not find any of the fruit notes that were in the last Darjeeling I tried. I’ve really enjoyed both of them, though! :)

I had no idea what to expect from this Thurbo Winter Wonder Autumn Flush Darjeeling from Golden Tips, because the leaves look very different from most darjeelings. The color is mainly a sort of sienna brown, with some shades of brownish green dispersed as well, and the shapes are quite variegated, with many open, torn leaves, and fewer compactly twisted longer pieces.

I was a bit surprised, because I’ve been enjoying Margaret’s Hope Autumn Flush (see my mini blog for more on that: http://steepster.com/teas/norbu/47145-margarets-hope-darjeeling-autumn-flush-2012-ftgfop1), but the leaf form is completely different.

I used exactly the same brewing parameters: 3 grams; 10 ounces; 3 minutes at 81C, and to my surprise the liquor turned out bright yellowish orange—much brighter than most amber-colored darjeelings.

The good news is that the cup was delicious! The flavor is definitely different—less nutty than the Margaret’s Hope, but very smooth and enjoyable. Clearly I am a fan of autumn flush, though until recently that was unbeknownst to me. I suspect that many blends include some autumn flush mixed in, but I can now aver ex cathedra that there is nothing third-class about Third Flush Darjeeling! (Well at least not Thurbo or Margaret’s Hope.)

Today, September 3, 2014, was a historic day chez sherapop: her first experience ever of a darjeeling oolong tea!

I had no idea what to expect. First off, the dried leaves are beautifully variegated in color, size, shape, and texture. There are a fair amount of very attractive shiny silken textured tips among some darker, chocolate brown leaves and lighter, grayish-green leaves. The scent of the dried tea is definitely more darjeeling than oolong, but it’s a lighter, less grassy, and less nutty darjeeling.

The brewed tea, was more of a light peachy than a golden amber color, and tasted like … drum roll … darjeeling-scented oolong! Of course the “flavoring” comes from the tea itself, not from anything added. The texture is more like oolong, with the same juicy succulence found in lower oxidation oolongs.

I was very happy with this glass and decided to try a second infusion, since oolongs are always good for multiple steeps. This one was no exception to that rule, so I hereby do fully and truly aver that this darjeeling is an oolong! On the scale of green to black oolongs, I’d say that this is more fully oxidized, but since all darjeeling “black” teas are really oxidized to 90%, I’d guess that this one is more like 60%.

The Castleton was a bit of a surprise as the first two Darjeelings I tried from Golden Tips were not all that good. I enjoyed drinking the Castleton. Although it may lack some of the complexity and depth when compared to top tier premium Darjeelings, this tea had all the basic characteristics of a good Darjeeling along with a slightly nutty taste enhancing the flavor. For a sunny Sunday afternoon in Southern California, it was a good tea to have. Very easy to drink and very easy to like with a slight astringency to balance out the overall Darjeeling flavor of this tea. I would like to have given this a slightly higher rating but since the tea is going up against Darjeelings from Mariage Freres, I can only rank this at 75 but I will mark this tea as recommended with reservations.

I received the 2013 second flush as a 10gm sample. For me it’s perfect…. I love Darjeelings and I love oolongs… A perfect mix. It’s very flowery with a sweet honey flavor. I wasn’t even tempted to add milk and sweetener.

It’s okay. It’s not a spectacular oolong, or a particularly horrible one. It just doesn’t stand out in the crowd.

This is just ok. I was expecting it to taste more like the second flush teas. It was a bit light and bitter for me.

I had to dig around to find this one, because Nothing is quite listed as I would expect it to be for Golden Tips Teas. That said, I found it. Yay me!

I really liked this one as it cooled. But even hot, it was quite nice. Surprisingly, not quite as nice as the second flush goomtee that I had before it. I will enjoy the rest of this tea that I have.

Now here’s a darjeeling which I would easily identify as a darjeeling in a blind line-up! This second flush tea from Okayti (by way of Golden Tips) looks, smells, and brews up just like the darjeelings familiar to me. The leaves are of variegated shapes and colors, but on the whole they are veering dark matte chocolate brown and look like a lighter black tea.

The liquor is amber, pure and simple. A perfect example of the color of amber. Not red, not orange, not green, but amber. The taste is slightly astringent and grassy but with real depth and complexity as well.

I drank the first half of this batch while eating fresh raspberries sprinkled with sugar then frozen before drizzling half & half on top. This skewed my tasting a bit, since the berries were very tart and my tongue had to readjust to process the flavor of the tea.

By the second glass (when the raspberries were all gone), I recognized the smooth yumminess of this darjeeling. It may be that, at heart, I’m a second-flush kind of gal. Only time will tell, but by the end of this year I should know for sure!