Vanilla Jasmine

Instead of buying the whole Golden Moon Sampler for $20, I purchased only those teas that I was interested in and saved $11. This was one of those teas. I love vanilla and I love jasmine, so I’d be telling a lie if I said I wasn’t excited about this one.

The smell is intensely vanilla. It’s an intensely creamy vanilla smell, like vanilla bean ice cream or the vanilla extract I use when baking cakes to decorate. The jasmine is there, but only slightly. It is tantalizing my nostrils.

This is wonderful! For a black tea, it is surprisingly light. I should mention that I’m drinking this after it has cooled down significantly; I was making some iced tea for my mother and forgot that this was waiting for me on the table. I actually don’t taste a whole lot of tea in here – it’s mainly just that extremely creamy vanilla with some jasmine on the tail end. There isn’t a whole lot to say about this. It is a very simple tea. Simple, but high quality and soothing.

GM Sampler | Tea 1 of 31

Sampler Picture 1 | http://bit.ly/9xGx6q
Sampler Picture 2 | http://bit.ly/dBJHvN
Vanilla Jasmine | http://bit.ly/dtaOd0
L’Entire Set [Which Shall Be Updated Accordingly] | http://bit.ly/bDtnNn

AND SO IT BEGINNETH.

Or, rather, it beganneth about a long while ago. I’m going to be writing the first leg of this from notes since I was a bad logger. [This makes me think of lumberjacks. Which makes me think of Monty Python. Suspenders and a bra! I should mention that I’m cresting on a bit of a caffeine high at the moment.]

The tea smelled distinctly, unmistakably, of jasmine and vanilla. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how it was going to taste, but I didn’t buy this sampler so I could smell the tea and dump the cup.

So, I drank. And, it would have been more surprising if I hadn’t read the other tasting notes, the jasmine was hiding in the wings on the taste. I mainly got vanilla, which is not how I would have thought this all would have gone down, but it’s not to say it wasn’t pleasant.

The vanilla taste was rich and a bit creamy. It reminded me of these lollipops my family gets sometimes when we’re near a See’s [which used to be a mainly west coast deal but I think has spread across the country with some success] that are vanilla flavored. [For the record, vanilla and butterscotch lollipops = good. Chocolate = meh.] I like those lollipops, so it probably goes without saying that I enjoyed the vanilla aspect of this tea, but I’m going to say it anyway. I liked the vanilla.

The jasmine came gliding out right as the tea was exiting my mouth to whisper its presence, leaving a very light, floral aftertaste to the vanilla. The entire thing was kind of strange, but there was something about the way that the vanilla and the jasmine played off one another that made it work.

A small note: while it was still hot, I didn’t find this tea very good. It stifled the jasmine and drowned out the sweetness in the vanilla, so I’ll gently advise to wait until it tips towards lukewarm.

Overall, I’d call this a win, but I think I’ll wait to see whether I want to order more until I’m done with the sampler.

I was feeling sort of like spoiling myself a minute ago. I’d wanted to save this to pair with some sort of dessert, but then I started putting my gym clothes on and thinking ‘I really do not want to run today’, and decided once my shoes were on that I was going to banish this morning’s overdose of Earl Grey with a cup of something indulgent. I’m a wee bit concerned that the cup is going to be too strong…it seemed like a greater quantity of leaf than the rest of the single-serving 2-cup sample packets have had in them. I assumed this was a result of the jasmine or something, so I went ahead and brewed it anyway, but now I’m not so sure.

It definitely smells like…cream soda. Cream soda with something else in there, and I’m not quite able to think of what the ‘something else’ is. …grape? That seems a little odd. Maybe that’s just something the jasmine is doing in my nose.

I have no trouble whatsoever getting jasmine out of this aroma. The vanilla is easy to find, but the pair of flavors are both so balanced that pulling them apart is something I’m finding difficult to do. I feel as though the jasmine wins, though. If this were a jasmine-vanilla cage match, it would go five rounds, probably involve a lot of grappling, and jasmine would win by virtue of just being on top the longest.

No, maybe we have to scratch that. Jasmine wins in the nose, vanilla wins on the tongue, coasting in for a surprise finish that I think must be aided along by the black tea, which shows up through the floral jasmine unexpectedly. There’s a nice sweetness on the finish.

As it cools, the jasmine is making an effort to reclaim the title. I suspect if I let it cool even further there would be more upsets in store, but as with most long bouts involving lots of grappling, I feel compelled to chalk it up on the board as an even match and change the channel.

As with most sweet teas, I’d be curious enough to try it iced. I could definitely drink this more often than I think I want to drink plain jasmine tea; the vanilla brings a fuzzy warmth that the jasmine — which I find can be a bit cloying, at times — benefits from.

Just when I’m about to give up on flavored teas, Golden Moon saves me from the funk I was falling swiftly into.

I really loved GM’s Jasmine, and found their vanilla to be pretty okay, so I was a bit excited to try this one. The dry leaves have an absolutely delicious smell. Someone mentioned cream soda, but I think it’s a bit better than that (since I’m not the greatest fan of cream soda). It’s juicy and floral and vanilla, very comforting and exciting. You can really smell both in the aroma, with the jasmine probably edging out the vanilla the teeniest bit. There’s also a lovely chocolate-type smell going on here.

I steeped this one up at boiling, but then as the leaves opened up, some looked a tad green, and I began to get worried that I had messed it up. Green and black blends are pretty tricky, temperature-wise. On the pour… the tea is a fairly dark color, a coppery-orange, and the smell coming off of it isn’t that strong. I’m getting more of a black tea smell, with whiffs of vanilla and jasmine.

The taste of this… I’m surprised how light it is! There’s sort of a mellow tea flavor, which I assume comes from the mixing of the black and green. It’s not the strongest, but it’s definitely adequate. At the front of the flavor, I’m definitely getting a bit more jasmine than vanilla, but then they tend to switch and mingle, until they’re just this one flavor that I can’t really describe. Other than vanilla jasmine!

Sometimes I’m actually getting a grape-like flavor, which is sort of strange. I don’t mean like a muscatel-wine flavor, like a Darjeeling, but sort of a grape soda flavor. It’s pretty pleasant, but sort of bizarre. I’m not getting any of the cocoa notes I smelled in the actual drink, which is fine by me.

Towards the bottom of the cup, the tea became a bit bitter on the initial sip, which wasn’t unpleasant, but is probably due to my temperature issues. I’m happy that it didn’t really negatively impact the tea until the very bottom, for sure.

Overall, another pleasant offering from Golden Moon! It didn’t knock my socks off (where did that expression even come from? Did someone’s socks actually get knocked off my something just that awesome?), but it was definitely an enjoyable cup, and on par with what I’ve come to expect with Golden Moon.

Today has been a pretty rough day but thanks to takgoti and teaplz I’ve finally gotten in a good enough mood to feel up to making comfort tea. At least I hope this will be comfort tea. Here’s hoping.

Larger sample size for this one – looks like I’ll be able to try this one twice! The leaf smells pretty cool but rather different than what I was expecting because I get a distinct cream soda smell from it I was expecting the jasmine to be the strongest flavor but it looks like the vanilla wins.

The tea looks pretty light – kind of a dark cider color… maybe I should have done a little longer? But I’m impatient. So I didn’t. Smells nice though. Not getting cream soda anymore (which is a bit sad but ultimately okay because I’m not sure if I’m ready to drink cream soda tea), but there seems to be some chocolate smell in there tucked under the vanilla. Or maybe a cocoa scent is more accurate. It does smell good. Vanilla (homemade-ice-cream vanilla, not high-and-sweet-vanilla-cake-from-a-box vanilla) with that cocoa note peaking out and then a soft floral of the jasmine on the tail end. It makes me want to eat s’mores. I’m nervous now because I’m afraid the taste will be a let down. This just smells SO good. I can’t see how the taste won’t be a let down.

Okay, it’s not a let down but it is definitely tastes different than it smells. Smell-wise I get sweet and sweet and a little rich and sweet. The taste is a little darker. The tea is more evident. And the aftertaste is back to a bit of sweet vanilla cream soda (but not as strong as was in the smell of the dry leaf). But sipping this is a pretty awesome experience. The taste changes and expands as it hits my tongue. At first, it is a darker, almost graham cracker taste (sorry – the s’mores association is stuck in my head), or maybe even caramel. But then the second I swallow, the taste lightens and expands – first with the vanilla and then with the jasmine. I still can find some similarity to cream soda, but it’s pretty neat and not overwhelming (and this is from someone that doesn’t like cream soda).

I’m a bit curious as to how this would be with sugar, so for the last half of my cup, I’m going to sprinkle a little in. And apparently I’m going to put a little in my keyboard too. Oops. The sugar shortens the taste expansion a bit and makes the similarity to cream soda more evident. The dark taste at the front is muted and I almost instantly taste the vanilla. And that vanilla taste seems to continue a bit more to cover up the jasmine. The sugar also adds a slight aftertaste that makes me think eventually I will need either gum or water to cleanse, but prior to the sugar addition, the tea left me with a pleasantly clean and light jasmine aftertaste. Ultimately, I prefer this without sugar but neither way is bad.

This reminds me a lot of two of my favorite flavored teas, SerendipiTEA’s City Harvest Black and Colonille. I’d rank this as number three in that group, which is pretty good company to be in. It’s distinctive enough that I don’t feel like I might as well drink one of those other teas but similar enough in the nicely flavored vanilla and chocolaty tones that I do group them together.

So yeah, different than what I was expecting from the smell but honestly? The difference is good. Sure, it’s not quite like eating s’mores but the depth of flavor this tea has is really nifty. Less like candy and more like comfort tea. An easy 4/5 stars for me.

Two of my favorite flavors – how well do they go together? I decided to try really hard not to steep the H-E-double hockey sticks out of this one, so that I could catch as much as possible out of both flavors without succumbing to bitterness. The dry leaf smells super!

Mmmm, came out just right. The aroma has both vanilla and jasmine, individually discernible but also combining to form one yummy whole. The tea itself is naturally very sweet, and I’m getting absolutely no bitterness. The liquor is medium brown with a hint of green. I actually got out my cream and sugar and have it waiting on the side, since I usually prefer vanilla teas with those additives, but this tastes so nice the way it is I’ll think I’ll leave well enough alone. The only thing that niggles at me is a slight, unusual aftertaste that I can’t quite identify. Guess I’ll just have to try more again sometime to try and suss it out…

Golden Moon sample No. 6 of 31 at random. I’d think it weird and that I seem to be channeling other Steeples today with this pick, but I’m saved from the weirdness because I actually fished it out of the basket two nights ago after the Coconut Pouchong. I just haven’ t had a chance to give it any attention until now.

Dry leaf mix is a nice range of colors across the tea color spectrum from very dark to silver flecks. Their scent is interesting. Vanilla, surely — it smells like cream soda vanilla to me. And jasmine, just as surely. And some darker notes: tree bark, and something that is almost musky.

I always have a dilemma as to how to steep mixed teas and I know I tend to like my greens steeped under two minutes and my black steeped around 3 minutes. It looked like most folks on Steepster who have had this went with longer steeps, so I chose closer to the black parameters.

To extend the cream soda metaphor, the liquor is pretty much the color of one of those old timely, hearty cream sodas — not the wimpy yellowish ones, the tan/amber ones. The aroma is lovely. The jasmine smells very fresh, and the vanilla smells more seasoned, and they come together in a nice, balanced way.

Unfortunately, I’m not feeling the love in the taste. Maybe I should have steeped longer? Or shorter? I taste some flowers, but not much vanilla. And there is an unexpected harshness to the blend. Something about it is making it stick in the back of my throat rather uncomfortably. It isn’t making me gag, it’s just a noticeable, continuing sensation, almost like an afterburn, though I didn’t drink the tea when it was overly hot. I would call it astringency except that it isn’t affecting anywhere else in my mouth, and astringency for me is usually an all over sensation. As the tea cools, I am able to taste more of the flavor of the green tea, the black tea, and the vanilla, all of which are tasty enough but the strange mouth sensation continues even with cooler tea. After the sensation, whatever it is, dissipates, the aftertaste is sweet and flowery, with an interesting, almost tobacco note.

The jasmine and the aftertaste are enough to make me willing to give this tea another chance, but it would have some work to do to change my mind. Mostly it would have to lose the climbing-up-the-uvula thing it’s doing in the back of my throat.

I am SO behind on tasting notes! I think I’ve just been drinking an unusual (for me at least) amount of tea recently, and it’s finally caught up with me. I’ve been doing 2-4 cold brews a day, and this is one from this morning.

Thanks to Nicole for this tea! I really like what I’ve tried from Golden Moon Tea, and I’ve had my eye on this one for a while. I’ve never had a black jasmine tea, though I do have a Jasmine Cream from NMT to try out. Ah, my sample backlog is getting overwhelming! Anyway, this tea has all the ingredients for success. It’s got a really nice kind of malty black base, a rich floral taste from the jasmine, and a wonderful creaminess from the vanilla. In fact, it reminds me of cream soda! Only, you know, without the fizz and a lot less sweet. The black base and the vanilla also tone down the jasmine a lot so it’s not perfume-y or overly floral.

While all the elements are there, it’s missing a little bit of pizazz. Don’t get me wrong, I really like it, but it just doesn’t scream “this is a special tea!” to me. I think it would be nice for an everyday iced tea, though it seems to be a bit expensive for that. I am really digging the cream soda vibes though, it’s a nice way to get a sweet fix without having tons of calories!

As Auggy wrote in a review of this tea, it is very similar to Cream Soda. The vanilla aroma is lovely but I think that the vanilla overpowers the jasmine in the tea. I like this quite well, but I’ve had better Jasmine teas and I’ve had better Vanilla teas. I think that the combination does not dance symbiotically. Vanilla takes too much of a lead.

Drinking Vanilla Jasmine was more than a little pleasant but not enough of a knock-out for me to invest in a full size. But I can understand why some palates will award this with a top score of 100.

The fragrance of the dry leaves is wonderful!! A very creamy, rich jasmine tempered with the sweetest of vanillas. Once steeped, the scent deepens into a steamy, candied, hothouse orchid.

The taste is a pale version of the delicious scent. There is a sweetness with just a wisp of jasmine. The vanilla is apparent in the aftertaste—a syrupy tropical vanilla.

For me, this rates high because I’m in love with the aroma! It’s intoxicating. The tea itself is good—just remember to breath in deep with each sip—then it becomes extraordinary.

Life is starting to become busy again but I’m not sure I’m ready for it! Winter session Shakespeare class for one more week and then the regular semester starts. And I finally have a job. At a coffee shop that sells Rishi tea! I’m kind of excited about that. Maybe I can get a discount or something.

In any case, I’m fully stocked up on tea for at least the next couple of weeks. Orders came in from Red Blossom Tea Co, Den’s Tea, and the famed Golden Moon sampler (so I can finally ship my swap box to you, takgoti! Sorry for the wait, it’ll be shipped tomorrow!). There’s almost too much to take it all in and I’m enjoying it very much.

Last night I pored over The Merchant of Venice and drank somewhere in the neighborhood of half a gallon of tea while doing so. I haven’t done the homework & tea thing since high school! It was great.

Anyway, I’m slowly making my way through the Golden Moon sampler and it was either Vanilla Jasmine or Tippy Earl Grey tonight and my housemate chose Vanilla Jasmine so here we are. The dry leaf has a very warm vanilla scent to it. Not too sweet but just nice and rich vanilla. While brewing the scent was lovely. Light jasmine robed in vanilla, not competing but complimenting nicely.

The flavor is full and robust. It’s dominated by vanilla but with nice floral jasmine notes throughout. The vanilla flavor is wonderful. Rich and creamy and the overall flavor of the tea is perfectly balanced. My housemate loved it too.

I love the aroma this tea gives off both in the dry and wet leaves. Ahhh :) A very calming vanilla with a bit of floral jasmine. I just wish I could drink this tea, I think I royally messed it up. I brewed with boiling water for 4:30 (says to do 3-5min on the silver armour). The taste was so astringent in my 12oz mug that I took very few sips. A few while scalding hot, a few slightly cooler and a few much cooler. I just don’t like this tea, but I don’t think it’s the tea’s fault. I think I’ll keep my jasmine teas of the green variety and skip black jasmines altogether.

Golden Moon is one of those tea companies that I’ve wanted to try tea from for a while now, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. Until today! Thanks to JacquelineM I have a sample of one of their teas that interests me most. Jasmine is rapidly becoming one of my favorite tea flavors, and I always love a good vanilla, so this tea definitely seems like it will be up my alley. The dry leaves smell variably primarily like vanilla or jasmine each time I stick my nose in them, but the other scent is always there as well.

Brewed, I get a lovely blend of the vanilla and jasmine notes in the aroma, with some slightly vegetal tea notes as well. Neither seems to really reign over the other, instead they each bring out complementary notes in the other. An early sip while still very hot (too hot for me to actually really pick up in my handleless cup), yields a satisfying blend of both flavors: jasmine at the top, a solid tea base providing the bulk, with the creamy, rich vanilla underlying it all. Cooled a bit, the flavor is much the same, although I feel as if the jasmine is fading away somewhat and I’m getting a somewhat weakly flavored vanilla tea. I think I’ll be experimenting with brew times/temps with this one (fortunately I have enough to do so thanks to JacquelineM!), as between all of the tasting notes on here there is quite a variable range. Still, a very nice tea and I’m glad I finally got to try a Golden Moon tea!

Vanilla and jasmine are two of my favorites, so I was really looking forward to this one! (thanks Nicole for the package of tea!) The vanilla and jasmine aren’t too strong, you really should wait until it is cooling a bit to drink, rather than when it is piping hot. After it cooled, I could smell and taste the vanilla and jasmine much better. Even though the base of green tea wasn’t that strong, it still didn’t let the flavors shine as well as I would have liked. Hoping future infusions are better! But I like the idea of vanilla jasmine!

I’m used to jasmine teas being greens, so having those flowery flavours mixed with a black tea base instead is an interesting change. I think the stronger flavours of the black tea provide a more solid counterpoint to the perfumy jasmine for soemone like me who doesn’t like their tea tasting like a bar of soap. Even so, this black tea doesn’t taste harsh nor does it drown out the flavouring, so I think this tea is a good balance between two extremes. The vanilla is an interesting addition and it works really well with the jasmine making the tea taste sweet, like some sort of candy – cotton candy maybe?

A really fun and enjoyable tea, and I bet this would taste fantastic with some milk.

The irksome thing about vanilla is that, like cinnamon, you give it a little bit of stage time and it wants to hog the entire spotlight. I love jasmine, but couldn’t smell it in the dry leaves, which smelled entirely of vanilla. I could smell a bit of jasmine in the steeped tea, but it was pretty subtle. The tea itself is kind of weak, and tastes like vanilla; I don’t taste any jasmine. Definitely not my thing, don’t think I’m going to get through this mug. On to the next one!

[Edit]: I removed my rating, which was 13. It’s not the tea’s fault that I don’t like vanilla. I reckon if I did, I’d like the tea better in spite of its weakness and insufficient jasmine presence. In any case, I didn’t want to pull its overall rating down with my biased score.

Golden Moon Sample 4/31
I really like the vanilla mint tea so I was looking forward to trying this tea. This tea is wonderfully creamy and minty. The jasmine adds a nice taste and fragrance to the tea in edition to the vanilla.

This tea is confusing, and complex. When I first opened the packet I did a double take – bubble gum! But I was opening tea, not gum…? On a second sniff I could identify the vanilla and in the background found a subtle hidden jasmine note. But overall – bubble gum.

My first sip tasted odd… the flavors were complex and hard to pin down. My tongue was confused. I got some creaminess from the vanilla, but couldn’t really taste the jasmine. But I did get a cooling aftertaste in my mouth after the liquid had passed which I think may have been the jasmine. There was a fleeting overtone of “artificiality” in the brew. When I added a little sweetener, I tasted some of the “cream soda” flavor other tasters have reported. But it wasn’t a strong resemblance.

I then tried it cooled, and enjoyed it much more. The melded vanilla and jasmine each stand out as separate yet complimentary flavors.

As an iced tea, this was wonderful. I can very much see myself sitting outside on a warm night, drinking this tea, and being very content. As a warm tea, it wasn’t my favorite, however I know of many others who appreciate it very much. This is one of those teas you’ll have to try for yourself. But, if you do – make sure to try it iced.

Also reviewed at http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/1064/tea-review-golden-moon-vanilla-jasmine/

At first when took in a whiff of tea from the bag I took a step back and was a little overwhelmed. Just smelled artificial I couldn’t tell if there was a vanilla or a jasmine scent. I was hoping for the best once brewed and it delivered. Very tasty and soothing, nothing overwhelming. Just wished I brewed it a little longer but lesson learned.

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #11:
So as you can see, fate totally rewarded my acceptance of the organic green tea, by giving me Vanilla Jasmine to try! Straight out of the packet, it smelled just like vanilla ice cream – which is actually a different scent than what I associate with just straight vanilla, so already it was giving me the idea of creaminess.

Although I paid enough attention to it to give it a normal steeping time, I was promptly distracted until it had cooled to basically a lukewarm temperature, so I have no idea if the temperature actually makes much of a difference. I know that I liked what I tasted. The vanilla flavoring gave it a creamy taste and texture and really complemented the flowery jasmine quite well. Once again, a very smooth, and super tasty blend was created.

I let my second cup steep longer, and this time the jasmine is definitely overshadowing the vanilla, which really only shows up in the aftertaste. It’s still tasty, but I definitely enjoyed the first steeping more.

All in all, I enjoyed it a lot, but I’m not sure if it’s enough to warrant buying more. I mean, I enjoy flavored teas a lot, but when I want to get more of something, it’s gotta be something that I want to drink often, and I’m really not sure how often I’ll really be in the mood for vanilla jasmine. This kind of floweriness is something I can see enjoying once in every great while, especially after the novelty and yaynewtea! excitement wears off.