White Persian Melon

This is a delightful white tea – the melon is so sweet without being too sweet, and it is a delicate melon taste to match the gentle flavor of the white tea. My first couple of sips, I noticed a wine-ish kind of note right at the start.

Sipdown no. 23 of 2023 (no. 681 total).

Had the rest of this last week as a take it to work tea, and the melon flavor was still as I remembered it and predominated. Fortunately, the flavor kept the tea from that planty weirdness I don’t like in a lot of white teas.

I still don’t really get white tea. As much as I would like to get it, I don’t. I’ll keep trying, though.

The scent is wonderful—very dewy and fresh! Almost like honeydew. The taste is only faintly melon-esque. I taste mostly the white tea overlaid with a suggestion of melon. The white tea itself seems outstanding—just slightly vegetal, no bitterness or astringency. I think I detect some creaminess?

This is a very refreshing tea, overall. But it’s so ephemeral it’s almost “not there”. Like a dream of a tea.
(…did I drink this…or not?…)

the only reason this didnt get a 100 is because i wanted more watermelon flavor but its amazing! The dry leaves didnt smell too good and reminded me of adagios white pear so i was a bit confused. as soon as i poured water over the leaves it was all melon! <3 the scent of the tea is honeydew and watermelon rind where the taste is cantaloupe with the tea flavor. i LOVE melons all kinds so this is like a nice winter treat! i will more than likely buy a bigger container of this but i have 1 cup left in my sample so we will see (and i plan to resteep the leaves i used for this cup) every time i sip i find more things i like about this!! :D

TTB #11

The thing about flavored Golden Moon teas is that they are extremely subtly flavored. So is this one. I barely detect any melon flavor in it, but it is certainly there and pairs with the base tea very nicely. I’m guessing it would make a delicious iced tea, as the melon is the most prominent when the tea is cold, but since I am not a fan of iced teas that quality is mostly lost on me.

It is a top-quality white, fruity and brisk, with a hint of lovely, juicy watermelon. I might consider getting at least a few samples of it in the future, if I don’t feel like committing myself to several ounces just yet.

200th Tasting Note!!

Thanks to Alphakitty for the swap, I can break out of my DAVIDsTEA rut! Don’t get me wrong, I do own other teas besides ones by DT, it’s just that all the other places are a little trickier to get to and DAVIDsTEA is a mere 15-minute bus ride away.

I digress though, so on to this tea… which to my gluten-deprived (AKA intolerant) taste-buds highly resembles a brewed loaf of bread. Hmmmm, odd indeed. I do get a little of the melon at the end of the sip, but mostly all I can smell and taste at this moment is liquified baking bread. To solve this I simply plug my nose while drinking and it transforms into the delicate, melon-laced white tea I was expecting… to which my husband says, “You look ridiculous.” To which I say, there are certain baked goods that do well in tea form—cake, pie, cinnamon buns—and bread is not one of them.

The leaves are long and pale green, a white tea and smell faintly of melon. Not really like the green melon I thought it was, it smells more like cantaloupe. Anyway, steeped this tea up, hot, no additives, was aiming for 3 minutes, but forgot about it-so it actually infused about six minutes, no big deal.

The aroma coming off of this tea is very sweet, almost sickeningly sweet, like a nectar or extremely fragrant flowers, actually reminds me a very sweet wine. The tea itself, tastes like melon and is very sweet, but not overpowering, which is weird, because based on the smell I would have thought it to be sweeter. I am glad it is not as sweet as it smells, that would have been too sweet.

The tea wasn’t bad, it was pretty good but too sweet for me to enjoy on a regular basis. This of course could have been from the over-infusion, so I might have to get another sample and find out.

The dry leaf smells like honeydew rind. Distinctly melon but not very juicy or as sweet as the meat of the fruit. Brewed, the tea smells more like very ripe cantaloupe.

Taste wise, it’s very melon-y on the front and transitions to a sweet nectar taste at the end. It’s very sweet. I mean very. Melon and nectar. There’s not a lot of depth to the flavor as both tastes are pretty high and sweet. Honestly, I think it may be a little too much for me. At the same time though, as this cools, it’s less super-melon and more… buttered melon. Melted butter instead of creamy solid butter.

I can get behind the buttered melon thing, but the initial hot taste of melon and nectar is just too sweet for me. Maybe if paired with a darker tasting white tea, this would be more my thing as the melon flavor is very nice. But ultimately, too overpoweringly sweet for me.

I received two small sample sizes of this from Golden Moon with my iced tea set. I am a bit puzzled by it. The dry leaves smell great but when this tea brews up it definitely smells like alcohol as a few other people have mentioned. It does smell like a melon scented beer. I am not sure if I like the aroma.

The taste of it however is very nice, perfectly smooth and sweet . I am not sure what else to say, it was interesting but not something I would purchase for myself.

Last of my Golden Moon samples. I haven’t quite taken to white tea so far… it’s not that I dislike it, but I have yet to have one that’s blown me away or had me coming back for more. I suppose Harney’s Winter White Earl Grey is a possible exception. Anyway, I do love melons, so I had to try this one anyway.

The leaf is fairly long and twisty with some long stems, and a fair amound of fuzzy leaves too, and I’m not sure that I ended up with enough tea in my infusion basket. It smells amazing, like the freshest, ripest, sweetest juicy canteloupe, with perhaps some light honeyish notes underneath. Brewed, it smells melony but subdued, and the tea has come forward a bit.

I’m afraid I didn’t put enough leaf in the cup, because the flavor is very light. Still, the melon is definitely present: sweet, juicy, like having a slice of fresh canteloupe. The tea adds a flavor almost like when you eat down to the rind and you get that green, fresh flavor. I’m really enjoying this one even a little weak; it’s delicious and pretty unique, at least to my tea cupboard right now.

Edited: Ok, I took my already steeped leaves and dumped the rest of my sample pack in with them. I know Golden Moon sample packs are only supposed to be one serving, but they usually include a little more leaf than I would typically use in my 12oz cup, so I’ve been measuring out what I usually use and then I’ll see what’s left after that. Since the white tea is so light I put the rest of it in and steeped as before. The liquor is much darker this time, but the tea is, surprisingly, not as good! The melon flavor is just not as evident and it lacks the natural sweetness of before. Too much leaf this time? I dunno, but this isn’t doing much for my experiences with white teas!