Sugar Caramel Oolong

I can safely say that it was QuiltGuppy who ignited a love of oolongs in me with her samples, to the point that now I want to try every oolong I see! I ordered samples of the three oolongs that Golden Moon has for sale right now, and decided to go for this one today.

I definitely love the smell of the dry leaves, which is sweet and caramelized and caramely (distinguished from “caramelized” by the presence of a creamy note, together with a fairly different greenish floral aroma. Not quite vegetal, but not a flowery floral, if that makes sense. The scent of the brewed tea brings the oolong really to the foreground; the aroma almost makes me think of burnt popcorn, actually, and a lot of the sweetness and caramel has fled the aroma.

Fortunately it seems to have made its way back to the taste. You might think that the flavoring would overwhelm the oolong, but this tea is very “oolongy” to me. The sugar caramel flavor isn’t really the front and center here, more like a supporting role to the oolong. Vegetal with some unscented oolong-type florals, a bit buttery, a bit nutty, with notes of caramelized sugar that really come out in the decidedly sweet aftertaste. This is flavored in a way that doesn’t seem like its flavored, but more like you just got an awesome natural oolong that has those caramelized sweet notes. As it cools it just continues to get sweeter, like I seriously feel like I have just eaten some candy (oolong flavored candy, which actually sounds amazing). At the beginning of this cup, I was enjoying it but I wasn’t impressed to the point of wanting more because it didn’t seem to distinguish itself much from other oolongs I’ve tried. As the cup has progressed (and cooled), however, the taste has morphed into something that I really, really like. Would I go out of my way to buy this tea if it was the only one I wanted from Golden Moon? Probably not, but if I was already making an order, I think I’d throw it in my cart. I have enough for one more cup, so I’ll look forward to trying that one after all of my other myriad of oolongs waiting on me to see how it compares.

Thank you TTB1.2 for this nice selection!
The smell of the dry leaves is of sugar, a nice natural sweetness though, not a fake over the top sweet.
Today I brewed this up in my Dr. Tea glass teapot. I just love watching the leaves unfurl:)
The smell of the tea… I know that smell, can’t put my finger on it. Sugar cookie dough? No, but I do like this smell. Very soothing, calming.
First infusion yields a mild tea with a delicate taste. I LIKE IT! I am very surprised by this since my past attempts with green oolongs were down the kitchen drain before I could say YUCK…but this oolong is different. I will post again as my day goes with this tea. Stay tuned to this Bat channel for updates….

TTB 1.2

As some of you may have noticed, I used the TTB as a chance to try teas that I wouldn’t have otherwise bought for myself. So far this leap of faith has been a successful – including with this tea. I have a horrible track record with green oolongs so I had pretty much written this one of but since the reviews are so great I picked a bit out.

The dry leaves smell extremely sweet with only a slight vegetal quality and are small, tightly rolled green leaves. After brewing, the tea is a medium golden color and has a strong caramel scent. The first sip was quite sweet, smooth, and not vegetal. Really great and once again it makes me crave more after each sip (just like the Silver Needle from yesterday).

I was able to get 4 deliciously sweet and smooth infusions from this tea and I’m definitely going to put this one on my shopping list for when I run out of my sample. I’m also very interested in the Coconut Pouchong (another greener oolong that I had written off) because this one is so great.

I just had a serious craving for something sweet and this looked to fit the bill (I think it’s from reading all of ya’lls amazing caramel tea reviews). The dry leaf smell was amazing like as another poster said maple cotton candy smelling (if there is such a thing as maple cotton candy).

Once steeped I get more of a mapley sweet smell Yum! The liquor is bright yellow and the taste is as JaquelineM described sweet yet earthy in a very good way. This is definently filling the sweet tooth craving I was having. It’s a nice sweet treat that I might be able to find a little room in my cupboard for.

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #1:
Wewt! Got my Golden Moon sampler today, and just had to start trying stuff. I have to say this caught my eye as I was looking through all of the samples, but not in a good way. In fact I was highly skeptical of this combination, while also being worried that the result would be too sweet.
Naturally, when I closed my eyes and grabbed a sample (the only way to choose when faced with 31 different teas), the gods of fate decreed that this would be it. Really, I should have known. The tea itself looks very nice, giant curled up tea leaves and the smell is quite potent. I brewed it up and it’s not the disaster that I thought it would be. The caramel creates the illusion of sweetness without actually being sweet and the base oolong is noticeable in the undertone, although to me it seemed like the caramel rendered the oolong characterless, causing it to devolve into Standard Green Tea Taste™.

I’m on the second steeping now, and the oolong and caramel appear to have switched places with the oolong taking center stage and the caramel creeping in at the end. I will freely admit that much of my oolong experience comes from drinking it iced while living in Japan, so perhaps it is my own expectations that are skewed with regards to this, but I still find the base tea to be somewhat lacking in character.

Still, it’s pleasant enough to drink, although I doubt I’ll be getting more.

For my first GM sample review, it was toss-up between this and Sinharaja. Sugar Caramel Oolong won because I felt like having something sweet! :)

Scent: Like milky palm trees! This smells so green and sappy! Like I imagine palm trees basking in the sun smell like (but I’ve never actually smelled them).

Appearance: The leaves start out tightly rolled, but quickly unfurl into these large, wide leaves! At first I thought, “Oh what a stingy sample!” —because of how small these leaves were wound, it didn’t add to much in my mug. But add the hot water and it’s like boing! the leaves unwind and end up filling half the mug!

Taste: Very fresh and “brisk”. I’m not detecting anything overtly caramel (meaning no burnt or glazed sugar taste). It’s more of a “green” sort of sweetness. Like how banana leaves smell like when they’re wrapped around sweet, sticky rice.

Final thoughts: As the liquid cools, I’m detecting more of a toasty sweetness…but it’s all still overlaid with green. This is very much a green tea. The flavoring is just a bit of enhancement.

this one is very sweet and candy like. you can taste the burnt sugar flavor in it mixed with the flavor of the tea. so far most of my GM samples have not disappointed me in the least! (besides that jasmine pearls) i don know if i will be getting a larger package of this but i will miss it when im looking for that burnt sugar flavor i love.

So…I read “green leaves” and pushed the “green” button instead of the “oolong” button. Oops. I’m going to see if I can get a second steep out of this at the oolong temperature and see how that goes. Aaaaanyhoo…

This is, hands down, the oddest tea I’ve tasted thus far. When I opened the packet, my first whiff of the tea was just sweetness, nothing else. I gave it a minute and inhaled again, and this time I could smell the oolong base. The first “eh?” moment came when I steeped the tea: the sweetness all but disappeared from the fragrance; mostly I just smelled the earthy, vegetal fragrance I associate with green teas. The second “eh?” moment came when I took my first (unsweetened) sip: how do you have sugar-caramel flavour without it actually being sweet? I just don’t get how that works, and it made my brain hurt because the taste didn’t match the fragrance. So I went ahead and sweetened it, as I usually do. I’d left out the sugar because I thought the tea was going to be sweet on its own.

It was upon taking a sip of the sweetened tea that I got my third “eh?” moment: Basically, if you take the marshmallows from Lucky Charms cereal and add them to your oolong base, you get this tea.

Odd, right? See, toldja.

I thought that I would love this tea as I adore flavored/scented/dessert oolongs. The combination sounded just lovely so I poured myself a cup this evening. The oolong was relatively uneventful, though slightly smooth. What bothered me about this tea is the almost sickly burnt sugar flavor. It bothered me so much that I couldn’t finish the cup. I’m quite glad I didn’t order a large amount of this tea. A cup (or about 3/4 of a cup) was enough for me!

I am really behind on logging my teas, but that’s what finals week will do to ya! So, I reviewed this tea on my blog, but man, this is a delicious tea!

The dry leaf of this tea smells amazing. It smells like butterscotch candy, caramel and fresh birthday cake. That smell made me want to taste this tea immediately! The tea liquor was darker than I was expecting, it was a darker golden color, and smelled sweet and roasted with some very prominent burnt sugar overtones.The taste of this tea is much milder than I was expecting, especially with such a powerful caramel overtones in both the dry leaf and the tea liquid. The caramel flavor is strongest upon first sip,when the tea is first entering my mouth, and while I can still smell the caramel streaming up from the cup.

Read the rest of my review plus pictures over at my blog! http://bit.ly/foeM5u

Leaves smell nice…
Tea smells like oolong…
Tastes like both and it blends in really nice. I like this one. A good oolong. Sweet and smooth…

Golden Moon makes gooooood tea, and this is no exception. I love this as a dessert tea, as it’s deliciously sweet, but subtle too. The ‘sugar caramel’ doesn’t overpower the oolong at all. Actually, I’d describe the sugary taste as coming in as an aftertaste and the lovely green-oolong as dominant. My husband thought this tasted like ‘a cup of cotton candy’, but he doesn’t realize how much simpler this blend is than most of the flavored teas I drink…. or does he? Anyway, this was just a sample, but I think I’ll have to get some more of this one.

Here’s the first part of a more scholarly (?) studied (?) dissertation at http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/1099/tea-review-golden-moon-sugar-caramel-oolong/

The name of this tea is somewhat misleading—it represents the ingredients accurately, but doesn’t convey its character well at all. With sugar and caramel as the leading adjectives, I expected a heavy, sweet tea with the flavor of Sugar Daddies that would be fine alongside a doughnut or work well as a dessert tea.

If that’s what you’re looking for, best move on.

But…

I received this tea from Alphakitty months ago, but with moving house, plus pregnancy, plus being home with a toddler means I sometimes forget things. Today, though, I’ve been nursing a cup of this all day, thanks to being able to multi-steep. However, I can’t write a long note since my 26-month-old has decided that she wants to avoid napping in favour of throwing every blanket + plush toy out of the crib, THEN testing her mattress for weaknesses via repeated jumping. This nap = not happening.

This tea = getting me through it all! PLUS, since it’s an oolong and I can steep it multiple times I get to stay hydrated as well. Win/win. I’m loving the caramel paired with creamy oolong… interesting how with each consecutive steep the caramel slowly fades until all I’m left with is the oolong. Yum, yum.

Now, to check on this manic tot of mine… uuuuuuuurgh.

Golden Moon Sample 5/31
and also my 50th tasting note :)
I LOVE this tea. Like many other’s I had my nose buried in the tea packet smelling delicious sugary caramel goodness. Once I finally got around to brew the tea, it tastes just as wonderful as it smells. Very slightly oolong with a sweet caramel pairing as well. I wish there was a little more oolong, however i’m not sure that a stronger oolong presence would create discord in the mixture of tastes.
This is a perfect tea to curl up to during a blizzard (yay for winter weather)

This reminds me a lot of Mighty Leaf’s Bleu Peacock. Like, a lot. Caramel flavored green oolong. This is probably a little smoother, a little sweeter on the aftertaste. They’re similarly priced (Bleu Peacock is $3.25/oz. This is $4.21/oz), so I’d probably buy this instead for variety when my bag of BP runs out, but I don’t drink it that often so… that could be awhile.

Nice, but nowhere near as awesome as the Coconut Pouchong – it doesn’t have the synergy between the oolong and the flavor.

Got this when I purchased a cold brewing tea container – sorry its late I can’t remember the name of it now. Anyway I have been looking forward to trying Golden Moon Teas and I am pretty disappointed in this one. I see how high of ratings this has received but I just don’t understand. Its quite bland and while I appreciate a flavored tea that is not in my face with flavors and of course prefer one flavored naturally over artificially, this one just leaves me underwhelmed. I barely taste the tea itself and really I am not getting the sugar or carmel flavors. Now the tea when dry smells okay – I mean I can smell the flavor but even then is a bit on the weak side.
Wish I enjoyed it more but to be perfectly honest was not even worth a re-steep.

Trying this tea thanks to RachanaC (A.K.A. Rachel)! (If you’re on TeaTra.de, be sure to check out her samplers!) This is only my third oolong, so I am feeling very newbish as I sip this tea. I was thrilled by the way the leaves are rolled up into glossy dark green pebbles.

It brewed up to a pleasant, springlike yellow that makes me think of green teas. (And kinda makes me worry that I used water that was too hot.) The flavor is very nutty, like the description described, with faint hints of caramel. Something sort of reminds me of cocoa in the aftertaste.

All around, this is an interesting and complex oolong. But I think I’m going to have to compare my preparation with everyone else’s before I make another cup, so I can sip and review with confidence.

I got this from Rachel. Thank you so much again!

This tea is a lovely flavored oolong. I like how dark and large the leaves were. The brew was a nice deep, golden amber in color. The scent and taste were like burnt sugar and a hint of nuts and caramel. It is a warm and toasty/roasty blend. I steeped this twice and the nice light flavor persisted. It tastes light and slightly sweet. It is a smooth tea. A good blend overall.

Another sample from Golden Moon – I was a little underwhelmed by this one myself. With such an enticing name as sugar caramel, I was expecting something sweeter and more dessert like. Anyhow, this is still a very nice mild green oolong, does not quite live up to the name but still very drinkable. I probably would not buy this again only because I have had better plain oolongs and much better flavored dessert oolongs – lol!