Hunan Golden Twist

Second tea of the morning…. (SRP #39)

We are at the end of my malty tea with hints of bacon and light smoke! I may get more one day, but it is time to get a handle on my stash. Farewell, Hunan Golden Twist. You make an awesome breakfast tea!

Usual teapot method.

Tea of the morning….AKA Hard Core Black of the day…

I cannot get past needing a good cup of black tea in the morning. It is a good thing, because I have a serious backlog of black tea to drink. (I know someone around here called their tea stash a backlog, rather than an overabundance…)

I do really like this one. The leaves are long and twisted with golden tips. The liquor has a bit of red to it, but mostly amber colored. Definite notes of honey and malt. Maybe the slightest hint of smoke. It is on my chopping block…..I am not replacing it right away, if at all, but it is too good on its own to add it into my Franken-Breakfast Blend. I only have about an ounce left, but I will enjoy it!

Usual teapot method.

Hello 500! And tea of the afternoon……

I owe the consumption of this tea to the lovely ashmanra. She sent me a sample a while ago, and that is the reason this tea made it onto my most recent Harney order. Thank you, again!

Love this….cocoa, honey, slight smoke, and yes, I still get bacon. Yum!

Steeped in the teapot by the usual way…..

Second tea of the morning……

I tried this one as an afternoon tea yesterday, but it just did not go as well as it does when I have it in the morning. It must be the smokey notes of bacon! Definitely smokier than the Wild Wuyi Black I just had, and very good. I will just have to make sure I keep it as a morning tea! I am not really wanting to rehome this one, because I think it is different enough from others that I have to keep it on the shelf.

This was the first tea served at tea party today. Our main snack – Tollhouse cookies fresh and hot from the oven, made with freshly ground hard red wheat flour. I wanted to serve this first with the cookies because I felt that the full body and flavor would be an excellent contrast to the sweetness of the cookies. It was, and it worked. They complemented each other nicely.

This is a great, all around black tea, strong but not aggressive, smooth yet not wimpy. Thumbs up from both myself and my tea guest today.

It’s tea party day! Hooray!

We reversed the way we usually serve tea today. Customarily we would serve the lightest tea first and progress to flavored or bolder ones. But today I really wanted to start with our warm, fudgy brownies topped with chilled sugared strawberries, and I was in the mood for a heartier tea to go with it, so we began with Hunan Golden Twist.

What can I say? It was better than ever and tasted delicious with our food. It is malty and bready, yet smooth with no astringency at all. There is a light smokey maple bacon taste, but that was less noticeable with food. So sad we can’t get this anymore!

Celebrating the return of both Sandy and the white throated sparrows! Now, Sandy we will only have for a few weeks before she is off again, but the sparrows will stick around until May-ish, and my happy meter goes up by fifty points if I can hear their sweet title voices before I even get up in the mornings! So to celebrate all this fall goodness, I drank tea with caffeine even though it was late! (Paid for it, too!)

This was the first time Sandy had Hunan Golden Twist and she seemed to really enjoy it. In fact, she took one sip and averred, “This is GOOD tea!” I think is planning to put it other order.

The leaves have a very powerful aroma but it is all natural, no flavorings. The steeped tea has a pretty strong aroma, too. Deep, dark honey and thick raisin-y sweetness, but yes, with that sweet bacon bite. (Is that maple bacon? I have never had it.).

I don’t recall ever resteeping this one, but I may give that a try this morning.

And tonight, Sandy and I will stick to those delightful samples of honey bush teas that Jenn sent! Sandy hasn’t tried any honey bush yet, so I am happy to introduce them to her, since she is the one who got us hooked on loose leaf!

I don’t know what happened the first time I tried this. I found all sorts of notes in the aroma and flavor that reminded me of teas I love, yet there was something I couldn’t put my finger on that bothered me about it. I wasn’t sure that I really liked it as much as I had hoped to like it.

There was definitely something different today! Last time youngest didn’t even like it, today she thought it was very good. My guest and i felt that it compared favorably with Yunnan Royal Gold from A Southern Season, having those same sweet potato notes only darker and stronger.

This tea did develop a wee bit of astringency as it cooled, but not too much. We were not even motivated to add milk to mitigate the effect. We just didn’t pick it up at all on the first cup, and noticed on the last.