Golden Fleece

Of course I ended up buying some! And now I am finally trying it. I’m using my little gaiwan and I even took a bottle of filtered water from work to use with it (my first time using non-tap water lol, I knoww… but I think Toronto tap water is actually quite good as far as tap water goes). First I did a rinse.

First steep – I have never had a tea like this! This seems to be my first impression trying every tea from Verdant, lol, but it’s true. There’s something earthy about the smell of the dry leaves that makes me picture a forest after the rain, and it comes through in this first steep. When I close my eyes I see the forest from Totoro.

2nd – This steep is a little lighter. I can taste the same soft pretzel-y baked goods flavour I’ve found in other Yunnan teas. And there is a definite sweetness in the finish, mmmm. Almost like icing.

3rd – The sweet flavour is really coming out, it’s a bright, sugary taste, but subtle too. I had no idea what to expect with this tea, but wow. It seems like it would be right for any season, any time of day, as long as I had time to sit down with it.

4th – Slightly spicy, still sweet. The forest imagery has been staying in my mind the entire time. I feel like I have to comment on the texture, it feels somehow soft and makes me think of mushrooms. Everything comes together to create something I feel lucky to have experienced.

I got up to 7 steeps and it’s still going strong. I have to go somewhere but I’m gonna save the leaves and come back to it when I get home… I don’t want to waste any! This is obviously a really amazing tea, it’s like a secret place I didn’t know existed but am totally in love with.

Cleaned up my desk today (gasp!) and found a pile of tasting notes that I hadn’t posted yet :)

Thanks for this sample from Autumn Hearth

The dry leaves are plump, furry golden buds with a deep honey aroma.

1st steep I over-brewed a bit, but the tea was still very mild and smooth. Malty brew with rich brown sugar and yam flavors, and a touch of mineral and linen qualities. Later steeps showed a bit of nutty pistachio flavors, and progressively became richer and creamier with vanilla notes. Towards the end it began to thin out and better display the black peppercorn flavor.

The best part of this tea was its thick, silky, almost syrupy mouthfeel, which really set it apart from other Yunnan blacks for me. Very smooth and creamy.

Very nice tea!

Thank you Indigobloom for sending me a sample of this tea along with all the other tea goodies!

My fiancee was over when I opened the sample of this tea. He had been hearing me rave about how good this was supposed to be, so he went through the steeping process with me. He only got to stay for one steep though.

This tea is called Golden Fleece for a reason. I feel so decadent drinking this. The leaves are golden and the liquor has a golden tint to it throughout all four steeps.

The first steep took me back to thoughts of what Victorian summer garden parties would be. It was vanilla-sugar sweet, but it didn’t taste like you dumped a spoonful of sugar in. The mouthfeel is so silky and the smell is just divine. I have a hard time just describing the smell because it is something you really have to experience first hand.

The second steep was sweeter and darker at the same time. The taste started to morph to a more raw sugar sweet instead of vanilla. There is a slight spice also starting to come out. It is hard to determine which spice I am tasting because it just blends in so well with the rest of the flavors.

The third steep I had this morning. It tastes similar to the second steep, but it has a little bit more richness. The sweetness is more like brown sugar. The spice is a bit more pronounced. The closest spice I can think of is more like allspice or maybe a bit of clove.

I am currently working on the fourth steep and I never want it to end. Smooth and silky honey with just a shaving of dark chocolate. It is mingled with clove. This feels like something the ancient gods would drink or maybe even old kings and queens. It is like nothing I have ever tasted and it is just wonderful.

Thank you again Indigobloom for sending me a sample. It is a gorgeous tea and I am going to have to keep an eye out to see if I can get myself a tin if this comes back in stock (and if my funds will allow it).

Sipdown
This tea is so delicious hot or cold brewed. I have been brewing, resteeping, and then cold brewing, using all the same leaf. 1T for 16 oz of water.
Delicious. Every. Cup

Mums the word on who sent me this one, but you know who you are and I appreciate you sending me some of your favorite tea to try.

Dian Hong is my go-to black tea, but this is a Dian Hong like no other. I never expected to taste a black tea with such a smooth, silky texture, but there it was. The flavor was just a little sweet at the beginning followed up with a hint of spice at the end. It was a truly amazing tea and I’m quite sad that it is gone.

Thanks to David at Verdant Tea for enclosing a free sample of this more pricey tea in my recent order. Other places just throw in the same cheap stuff no matter what you order-I’m talking about you TEAVANA Youthberry, among others.

Quality Yun Nan Dian Hong is kind of a special tea to me. It’s relaxed and mellow, meant to be savored. I only drink it when I know that I have time to get 3 infusions out of it-no one and done cups like with a breakfast tea.

The dry leaves here are medium-long, tighly-rolled, and colored golden brown. The brewed leaves turn chocolate brown and contain notes of cinnamon and sweet potato. Liquor is a pleasing copper hue.

The flavor tastes mostly of the sweet potato and cinnamon (no orange citrus notes like in some Dian Hong). I also detect some other spices-perhaps clove. The cup is very smooth. Zero bitterness or astringency. Good stuff.

I have had 3 infusions so far, brewing one minute longer each time. Very nice.

I’m so behind on reviews.
I’m still drinking tea but I keep finding better things to do than come on Steepster. Like going for walks and I recently decided to start watching Dawson’s Creek again from scratch. It’s been like 15 years. News flash, this show is BAD. So dramatic it’s hilarious. Was I this angsty? Who knows.

Anyway, this tea…. Finally cracked open my bag from my recent Verdant order, it’s good stuff. It’s like if someone cut all the golden tips off a tippy sort of black tea and filled a whole bag with them. Except these leaves are long and fuzzy and really nice.

And the tea is pure sweet potatoes, without the maltiness that you get from a black tea. It’s sweet and slightly cinnamon and very tasty.

I made it western style as always. Maybe someday I will get a gongfu pot of some sort!

So to summarize – tea good. Dawson’s creek bad.

Sample from Bonnie. Thank you.

This tea scares me. I’ve been put off it because the reviews are all so good, it is rare, and I feared that I might not be able to do justice to it with my tea-making skills. Worse yet, because of all of the above I felt that I needed to set aside a goodly amount of time to appreciate it properly. So, today I decided to take the bull by the horns, gird my loins and leap before looking. I’m glad I did.

I made it in a small gaiwan, thus giving myself enough leaf for another session, and I followed the guidelines of very short steeps. This has worked beautifully. The tea proved to be creamy and mellow. At first I got cherry flavours at the back of it and then it evolved into a winter spices taste that made me think of Christmas. It is lovely and I am pleased that I finally took the plunge. Better yet, I am only six steeps in, so I still have a goodly number of steeps left to drink when I return to it. It will make a fitting reward for getting some work done this afternoon. I had better get writing so that I can enjoy more of it …

This is my 3 session with this tea and I must say I like it,but I don’t love it. I notice the texture that everyone is talking about and it is interesting. I am not getting any astringency from it which is a nice surprise from a black tea. It is a very smooth tea and it has a nice morel mushroom taste to it. I get the cinnamon in later steepings. I am happy that I got to try it.

Holy ambrosia! I now understand how Jason felt after prying the legendary golden fleece from the clutches of King Aeetes. This tea just makes you feel powerful, like you’re caressing some coveted treasure of the gods, attempting to hide it from their jealous eyes. Remind me again why I waited this long to order some of this tea?

While not the most complex tea flavor-wise, it is a magnificent textural tea. Please don’t get me wrong, this tea’s flavor is supremely balanced, and oh-so delicious—a tea with top-notch character. But really where this tea shines is in the mouthfeel. I will reiterate what most others have already claimed: it is silky smooooth. However, it’s not static from what I’ve tasted in my sessions with this tea. I wrote twice as many notes on textural fluctuations than flavors throughout steeps. I’ll outline my notes:

Steep 1-2: airily light, silky, melts away as swallowed
Steep 3: becomes heavier and thicker, like velvet
Steep 4: becomes lighter, but more creamy and soft
Steep 5-6: light and silky again
Steep 7: same as last steep, but with a sparkling texture that tingles the back of the throat
Steep 8: back to creamy
Steep 9: back to silky

As for the flavor details, this dian hong tastes like candy. Especially during the first steeps where the liquor is smooth and melty, I can’t get those Werther’s Original caramel hard candies out of my mind when I’m sipping. These combined with raw cane sugar, a hint of cloves, and malt make up an amazingly well-balanced body in the first few steeps. Going on into the third and fourth steep, the heaviness of the liquor compliments darker cocoa and mocha flavors as spices gently increase and a honeyed sweetness meets them midway. These notes are very well complimented by strong, wafting aromas of chocolate and toffee from the wet leaves and liquor, respectively. Continuing on, caramel flavors increase, accompanied by a new tapioca-like taste, while the intense sugary tastes subside for a steep or two.

At this point, an aftertaste has been well-established, as hints of licorice and toffee play in the back of the throat. Onto the seventh steep! The liquor’s aroma becomes quite strong now, whereas it had been lighter and less pronounced in the beginning. Playing on the sparkling texture, the flavor develops a syrupy sweetness that meshes with increasing malt and tapioca flavors. Steep eight is really where this tea came out for me. It was nicely thick and creamy, developing some complexities of an earthy or mossy quality and some faint astringency, which added nice depth to the taste established by the previous steep. From this point on, this tea mostly reverted back to the flavor profile of the beginning, creating a nice and even bell curve of flavors, if you will.

Other miscellaneous notes:
- The evolution of flavor after a sip is really quite fantastic. It starts off full of flavor, but it keeps gradually expanding, becoming full-bodied before slowly fading away into an aftertaste. I think this has one of the most lingering flavors of any tea I’ve had recently.

- The leaves are really quite amazing. Beautiful colors and sheen when dry, with an interesting springiness to them and a soft texture. When wet, the quality is even more apparent. These are probably the most consistent appearing leaves I’ve seen; every single one is exactly what it should be, nothing extraneous. Oh! And they smell heavenly. Honey, vanilla, a light dusting of spice, dried fruits, and caramel. There was something else that I couldn’t put my finger on, but after just reading the other reviews, I must agree there is an uncanny sweet potato aroma to them.

- After most steeps, a delicate layer of tea oils is visible.

Sorry for the length! Thanks for sticking through the whole thing!