Golden Spring

This is actually the third time I’ve tried this tea. I’ve just been incredibly busy this week with work. (I made the mistake of mentioning that I needed money in front of my manager. He gave me nine shifts this week. Thanks, but I’m gonna die!)

This has been one of my absolute favorite new teas lately. I’m actually pretty impressed with Adagio. The beautiful, fuzzy gold and chocolate-colored leaves unfold long, slender, and pointed. They smell very sweet, and slightly fruity with a bit of that malty black tea scent.

The flavor reminds me of yunnan tips. I can taste a sort of raisin-like fruitiness. There’s also a strong note of caramel that I have fallen in love with. This tea is such a treat. I highly recommend giving it the full five minutes, as it brings out a certain cocoa-like quality as well. And it doesn’t get bitter with that much time — just more flavorful and satisfying. I might have to get more than the sample size next time.

Also, I have no idea what all of you are talking about when you say this reminds you of meat. Seriously. I don’t get it.

After my disappointing Mariage Freres English Breakfast experience, I’m going to do one more black tea before trying to reestablish my interest in greens.

As I’ve committed to tasting my Adagio samplers without further ado, this is from the Adagio Black Savant sampler. (Which makes me feel like I should start rapidly adding numbers out loud or reciting the World Atlas or something. Surely they could have picked a better name?)

This is a very visually attractive tea, and in the sample tin its fragrance has a sort of fruity, or perhaps tobaccoey sweetness. There’s a breadiness, too. It’s a sort of toast with jam signal. And something along the chocolate vanilla continuum perhaps. In any case, it seems like there’s a fair amount going on here.

The same is true of the tea’s aroma. Sweet. Sort of reminds me of what I like about Yunnans. And yet, it’s not entirely sweet. The liquor is lighter than I’d expected but now that I think about it, with about half the leaves being a golden color it wasn’t really reasonable to expect a very dark liquor. It’s darker than darjeeling, say, but lighter than most black tea liquors.

Tasty! For some reason after reading the description, I’d expect this to be somewhat heavy. It’s not. It’s substantial without being weighty. And very, very smooth. Easy on the stomach, too (mine is a little annoyed with me after the Blue Knight Earl Grey and the Mariage Freres English Breakfast, but this is helping to make amends).

I get the “meaty” description, but I find the aftertaste mildly sweet, not really savory.

I’m glad I have more in the sample tin so I can taste this over time but on first impression this is a keeper!

’I’ll just start with my sampler tins, and then when I finish them, I’ll move on to the savant samplers,’ I had told myself. Hah. Guess not. I never have been the most patient of individuals, and none of the ‘regular’ tins smelled like anything I wanted.

I’m not sure this is the tea I would conjure out of the anonymous, inspecific aether for my first tea experience of the day either, but without having met my Ultimate Tea yet, it’s a pretty gosh-darned suitable alternative. The smell from the tin was delicious and sweet. The steeping tea was full-bodied and brewed more darkly than I expected, and I tried to savor it, really I did, but I couldn’t stop sipping. The aftertaste is like the ghostly impression of something sweet, with a faint hint of that raisin-sugar taste, but I can see why everyone is tossing around the word umami. This tea wouldn’t go amiss alongside some onigiri.

That said, I don’t really get the ‘meaty’ impression everyone else is getting…for me, it’s more of a savory sweetness. I suspect this is my freshman palate…it has a long way to go. Maybe that’s the full-bodied, brothy mouth-feel of the tea that I can sense but not quite taste yet?

I think my 100 tea, whenever I find it, is going to be something really indulgent. I can’t see any way that this tea could go wrong, though. I could drink this any time of day, any time of year, with any kind of food, and I think it would hold up its end of the bargain and be satisfying.

What a funny little tea. And I mean that in a good way. It’s like a really delightful Assam – except it isn’t an Assam. It’s malty and thick but with a sweet honeyed lightness that makes it feel both solid and delicate at the same time. There’s not a lot of complexity to the flavors but the dichotomy between the light/sweet/soft note and the heavy/darker/hearty note makes up for that and gives it a good depth. There’s even a little dryness at the end of the sip that I could see turning into an Assam-like nutty bitterness if I brewed it longer.

The second steep (4min) tastes more like what I expect Fujian teas to taste like – not really malty and not quite as honeyed, but more of a sweet, figgy-type flavor. Both steeps are very good, even though they taste like they came from two different teas!

Got a sample of this free today from a contest ans couldn’t wait to try it. Dry it smells a lot like someone dipped a flower shop in chocolate. Once steeped it smells a bit like coco nibs. I like the taste it’s not too strong not too mild and its very smooth. There is a kind of floral taste to it with a hint of coco nibs.

The Final Sipdown: Day 14.3

Hmm… Could drinking black tea at this hour have been a misstep? I GUESS WE’LL FIND OUT.

Ever smell something and have an image flash immediately into your head?

Here’s what I get with this one:

Staring at the hay covered floor of a county fair as a child.

Brewed, this tea smells unmistakingly of barn. It smacks of barn. Get a little closer to it, and it smells more of malt, but from about a foot away? BARN.

Erin was kind enough to send me a rather generous sample of this tea, but given that TFS is upon me, I dumped the entire thing into my Breville and hoped against hope that I wasn’t putting too much tea into it.

Luckily, the tea doesn’t taste overly astringent so I can only assume that my going heavy on the leaf was not a mistake [going light on the steep time may also have helped].

This is a pleasantly smooth black tea with a mouthfeel that sits somewhere between oily and silky. I get a nice, malty flavor from it rather consistently. Somewhat strangely, though, the taste of hay is equally present when I aerate and in the finish.

I’ve smelled hay in black tea before. [Jackee Muntz possesses it, for one.] But the taste of the tea hasn’t ever really possessed it before. And the taste of the hay in this tea is specifically barn hay. [Those who have been around fresh hay and been around a barn know that the scents, while related, are different. Those who have been around fresh hay and been around a barn also know what factors lead to those differences. The rest of you can probably figure it out on your own.] Meaning that in some bizarrely abstract twist, this tea tastes of barn. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

There is a starchiness about Golden Spring as well, but I can’t relay it to anything specific. The aftertaste, however, tastes a bit like a bagel. I’m not really sure where the meat comes into all of this, because I don’t taste it. Unless you count that there are animals in barns. Animals are meat, I guess.

Hardly any astringency, a smidgeon of sweetness, and overall what I would consider a decent black tea. Not overly complex, but sometimes that’s what you need in the morning. Is it leaping forward as something I’d prefer over Eight at the Fort, or some of the better Ceylons I’ve had? No, it’s not. But I’m not going to peg it as something that might not grow on me. If I find myself contemplating upon it during this week, I might pick up a few ounces to keep around.

[And let’s be honest – considering my relationship with Adagio, that’s really saying something.]

Teas Downed: 24

I need a heavily caffeinated tea this morning, which is gray and wet here in MD. So I opted for this sample I purchased from my last Adagio order. First, I love how fluffy the leaves are – light, airy and super fluffy.

Now, for the taste: bold, hearty and strong. This is a BLACK TEA, versus a black tea; it shouts its intentions of being bold and brazen, with no apologies and no looking back. Normally I can drink my “plain” tea actually plain, but I had to add some Splenda to round out the edges. Even with the sweetener, it’s still strong. But I taste a mossy, earthy flavor, which is quite nice. I don’t mean it tastes like dirt; it tastes fresh from the Earth, as though borne in the height of summer, with sunlight baking the earthly tones into the leaves. It’s poetic, it’s nice. I couldn’t drink this all the time, but for an AM pick-me-up, I’m glad I went with this.

This was so good. So many layers of flavor. I mostly picked up on a honey after note. It was rich and sweet and deep. Gotta try it to see what I mean. Totally worth it. :-)

Well after the Earl Grey failure this morning I knew I had to have something I enjoyed. I’ve tasted had this tea before but hadn’t joined Steepster yet. So without further ado…

The leaves are really pretty, the gold and black contrast nicely. They’re small, fuzzy wiry leaves with a smell that does remind me a little of a hay, but that doesn’t come across once brewed. The liquor is a deep amber that I wasn’t expecting.

This is a pretty smooth black tea, a little astringent. No bitterness at all. and I get the “meaty” aftertaste… I think. It may come from the thicker mouthfeel. A very tasty, savory tea overall.

The soft, airy, golden colored leaves brew a much darker tea than you’d expect. Though the leaves do have a subtle/sweet aroma to them, the full aroma doesn’t unlock until you steep it, when their sweet and savory quality comes out and invites you in for more. Taste wise, there’s a definite sweetness to this tea, which makes it a smooth and easy to drink tea for a cold morning wake-up. Aftertaste is smooth and sweet, with just a little hint of black tea bitterness. I don’t really get ‘meaty’ from it, but it does have a thicker mouthfeel, so I can see how that would make it a little more ‘meaty’. Overall, a definite winner that can easily be enjoyed throughout the day.

Wow! I like this more and more each time I make a cup! When its dry, the leaves are so pretty. They look like soft curls of gold brown and black. The scent is sweet and a little earthy to me. Steeped, it is divine. I love the malt-like flavor and the sweetness. It doesn’t need milk and sugar, but it doesn’t seem to hurt either. It faintly reminds me of Keemun. But this is better. I don’t like to steep this one for long. I feel like it tastes better that way :)

This tea tastes just like miso soup to me, brothy and creamy with a slight sweetness. The aftertaste is a hint of very dark chocolate. This is my favorite by far of the adagio black tea sampler. I don’t know if it’s the pan frying method or what but this is the first tea I’ve had that has had an almost “soupy” mouthfeel. Very good.

Interesting appearance of the tea before steeping. Strangely fuzzy! I don’t know what they do to the leaves to make them become fuzzy, but they are. The multi-color of the tea (black and brown is interesting as well). Pre-steeping the tea smells of fruit with a hint of good smelling pipe tobacco.

After steeping for three minutes the tea is a nice brown/red color. I get a light pleasantly malty smell from this once steeped. Tasting this tea, it is a mild red tea with hints of bread, which is probably the malty smell coming through on my taste buds. The taste ends with something I’m having trouble identifying. Maybe this is the flavor that the label claims is carob? It is kind of the slight bitter you get from very dark chocolate, but I am not saying that I really get a chocolate taste from this, maybe one of the components from the complex taste that is good dark chocolate? I’ll have to keep drinking this to see if I can identify it further.

I am definitely learning an appreciation for the more subtle red teas and this one is a good example of this type of red tea. Not quite as good as the Yunnan gold I bought at the same time (review TBD) but good none the less and a great tea for transitioning into the lighter teas I drink in the afternoon.

The smell of this tea hit me in the face right from the very moment that I poured my water over the leaves. It’s a heavier, stronger smell than I’ve ever experienced from a black tea before.

Oh, hmm. It isn’t bad at first, but it leaves a sour, bitter, very strong aftertaste. I can taste it all the way down my throat, and every time I exhale I taste it all over again. I’m not sure how much I like this; I want to like it, but that aftertaste is just too much.

This is a very great and very unique black tea. It’s one of the smoothest and least astringent black teas I’ve ever had. There is truly an umami meaty thing going on in this tea, but not in the MSG powered traditional sense. Upon tasting, I think it could best be described as an extension of and/or a twist on the typical malty sensation and heavy mouth feel of a malty black tea but with a more savory taste/aftertaste attributed to the heavy maltyness. Great stuff!!

This tea is rich, bold, and has that sort of “yeasty” note under the lighter, more pervasive muscatel flavor. Some days I like it, other days, not so much…it’s a mood thing with this tea. Some days (like today), it’s exactly what I want.

I picked up a sample of Golden Spring because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to buy another expensive tea. Damn, I like this tea. Think of it as a lighter Golden Monkey with a more delicate flavor. Faintly chocolate hues and smooth. Now I have to actually cough up real money and get me some.

I indulge in this malty yummy black every day! Its how I start my day and also what gives me my afternoon pick-me-up. It’s the best black tea I’ve found and I was converted from their Golden Monkey to this. Mmmm, mmmm, good!

I have a sampler tin of this, and I am down to just one more cup after this.

It’s a nice mellow tea, even with steeping it longer than I normally would.

A really great black tea. It tastes like someone spritzed a honey mist into the air and passed the tea leaves through it. Just enough to let you know it is there, but not enough to make it sweet.