Purchased from Iheartteas.com – thanks Rachel! :) Today’s cup is an old Aynsley bone china teacup, that is bright goldenrod colour, overlaid with a heavy gold floral pattern. Small flowers adorn both the centre of the cup and the saucer. It’s a very cheery, yet elegant cup. I admit that it isn’t my favourite, but for some reason, I felt drawn to it today.
Dry – very sweet smelling leaves. Smells like caramel popcorn.
Steeped 180 degrees F, for 3mins.
1st Steeping, 1st cup:
Steeped 180 degrees F, 3mins
Colour: pale yellow liquor
Slight vegetal smell, overlaid with a sweeter, caramel smell. A slight hint of nut.
Taste: Quite light, and refreshing. It’s not a sweet tasting tea, as I had first expected. I can taste the oolong, but the burnt sugar/caramel is along side of it, gently easing onto my tongue. I find the caramel more prominent at the finish.
Quite nice.
1st Steeping, 2nd cup:
Per the Golden Moon Tea’s website, they recommend adding some sugar to help enhance the caramel flavour, as well as some milk to make it a richer cup. I only added a small amount of sugar – they suggest one teaspoon, and I imagine that would be for a larger vessel than the old teacup that I am using. I can always add more sugar if required. I also added just a dribble of milk. Hmmm, this concoction looks a little sad in my cup now. As the liquor was so pale to begin with, it looks like I’ve just poured really watered down milk into a fancy teacup LOL! Ok, I guess it doesn’t matter what it looks like, but how it tastes is what counts, right?
Well, it could just be me, but I’m not sure if the sugar really brought out the caramel. Maybe if I had used rock sugar instead of plain old white sugar, that might have made a difference. The cup is definitely sweeter tasting, but I wonder it’s perhaps taking away from the taste, not improving it. That also could be the milk too. I will need to do some experiments with it….
Another cup, with a wee bit less milk and same amount of sugar has made this grow on me, and I am getting more of the burnt sugar and caramel flavour from it. Tasty!
2nd Steeping, 1st cup, no additives:
Steeped 180 degrees F, 3mins 25secs
I noticed that the leaves had opened up more during this second steeping. Quite frankly, it smells pretty much the same as the first steeping. Maybe slightly more vegetal.
Upon tasting it, I’m not finding the sugar/caramel notes as strongly as I did in the previous steeping. As with the other cups, the caramel swoops in at the finish.
Very enjoyable, although now I’m hankering to add some milk and sugar and amp it up somewhat and make it more dessert-like.
2nd Steeping, 2nd cup, milk and sugar added
I think I’ve found the right milk/sugar combo – yum!
3rd Steeping: 1st cup, no additives:
Steeped 180 degrees F, accidentally lost track of time – maybe 4mins or so?
Just beginning to lose the caramel and sugar notes – more vegetal tasting.
Subsequent cups with milk and sugar still quite good though. Helps bring out the sweet caramel.
Not as punchy as the first 2 steepings.
4th Steeping: 1st cup, no additives:
Steeped 180 degrees F, 5mins 15secs
Becoming more bland but still nice.
