Tea type
Black Tea
Ingredients
Ceylon Black Tea
Flavors
Cherry, Cocoa, Chocolate, Honey, Sweet, Caramel, Molasses, Oak, Sugar, Walnut, Yams, Plum, Raisins
Sold in
Bulk, Loose Leaf
Caffeine
High
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Teatotaler
Average preparation
Boiling 4 min, 15 sec 2 g 10 oz / 295 ml

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122 Tasting Notes View all

From Golden Moon Tea

For Sinharaja we use rich, dark loose leaf tea leaves that are nourished by fertile rain forest streams in the hills of Ceylon. It has a toasty, molasses-like character with ripe berry notes and a caramelized finish. Serve with a touch of raw sugar and cream for a taste that is smooth, full-bodied and warming.

Our owner, Marcus Stout, drinks a lot of tea. He actually drinks so much that sometimes we think he may start sprouting leaves! And no matter what day it is, he always starts his morning with Sinharaja. This rich black tea is not only one of Marcus’ favorites, but it was also named the #1 tea by the food critics at Gayot. Sinharaja has everything you want in a strong black tea. It is smooth, rich, complex, and can stand up to milk. In fact, that is how Marcus drinks this tea. With 2% milk and a dollop of honey.

Ingredients
Pure Black Tea Grown Bordering the Sinharaja Rainforest.

Preparation
1) Bring fresh, filtered water to a boil
2) Pour over your tea leaves in a teapot
(1 spoonful of tea per serving)
3) Steep 4 minutes
4) Stir, strain, and enjoy!

About Golden Moon Tea View company

Golden Moon is dedicated to offering outstanding, whole-leaf teas of the greatest quality and finesse. All Golden Moon Teas are hand-plucked and meticulously crafted to enhance leaf character, aroma, color, clarity, body, complexity, and above all, flavor.

122 Tasting Notes

86
328 tasting notes

Clearing out my cupboard and came upon this forgotten GM sample. This is my first Ceylon and the Steepster consensus is this is a great one and I tend to agree. It is full, smooth, naturally sweet, malty. A solid tea for first thing in the morning: strong, nothing fancy, but delivers caffeine w/o needing sugar or milk to make it palatable. When I put in my next GM order, I will add this one to the list.

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83
257 tasting notes

Sinharaja was today’s GM sampler grab bag winner. And what a winner it is! I used slightly less than a teaspoon of leaves in my brew basket and a good 12 oz of boiling water. 3-4 minutes and I had a good steep. The flavor was fantastic! Slightly earthy and a little light, sweet. Has a brisk little tannin that gets stronger as it cools…recommend it hot. I put the last little bit of fresh leaves (not enough for a full brew) on top of the 1st steep’s leaves and had another go after 5 minutes. love it. I’ve got a cup or so sitting in the fridge to try iced…i suspect it wont’ be that good, as the the tannin’s will probably give it teeth.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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100
564 tasting notes

Okay, I caved. I opened the enormous bag. Sometimes you just have to have a favorite, and this is probably my favorite straight black. That said it will probably be in my cabinet for a long time (8 oz!), so I’m glad I like it.

This is so intensely honeyed. I love honey flavors but this is so natural it’s amazing. It’s really as if I dumped a large amount of honey into my cup. It’s identifiable as a Ceylon—there are those citrus notes and the lightness of a good Ceylon—but it’s so intensely fruity and honeyed that it’s easy to forget that’s what it is. Such a great way to wake up in the morning.

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96
111 tasting notes

So I’ve read so much on here about this tea and couldn’t wait to try it. I haven’t really been craving black teas since it’s starting to warm up here in TX but this morning is dreary and yucky after last nights rain. So I decided to pull the trigger and go for Sinharaja this morning.

The smell in the dry leaf was just tea smelling to me. Steeped it and took a taste while it was still hot and you probably are going to think I’m crazy but when I went to take my first sip I smelled tomatoes and tasted tomatoes and now I can’t stop thinking tomatoes as I sip this cuppa. I also get slight maltiness which I love and I find no astringency which is also a good thing.

It’s a smooth tasting ceylon I do enjoy this cup and if I find some other GM’s that I like as much as this one in my sampler I will order this one along with the others. Oh and BTW I’m not picking up on any of the berry flavors that is mentioned on the package but I am also not using milk or sugar just drinking it plain as I always do!

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec

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91
158 tasting notes

My GM sampler came in the mail. I confess to having mixed feelings about this event. I’m excited, but I’m also simultaneously overwhelmed, intimidated, and concerned for my health. Overwhelmed because there are SO MANY TEAS to choose from, intimidated because the sample size is enough to permit me one infusion at full strength and if I screw it up I’m in big trouble, and concerned for my health because I am not sure I have the personal reserves of strength not to brew cup after cup after cup of tea, and I may very well wind up consuming so much caffeine so quickly that the top of my skull actually comes flying off, which is the sort of thing that really puts a damper on a girl’s day.

I don’t doubt I’m going to be rating a bunch of teas in the immediate future, so I’m going to try to be more concise than usual (ha, ha, ha). This one is sweet. Before I took a sip, before I even sniffed my cup of brewed tea, I took a sniff of the wet leaves and knew I was going to like this. They were sweet and honeyed and still maintained that hay-like quality I love in black tea, though the hay clippings in this cup would be fresh, not quite cured. The scent is there — in the leaves — but there isn’t much of it in the flavor. I find it every now and then, a little background note of uncommonly bright malt, and I suppose this is the reason that I expected this tea to be an assam rather than ceylon (though to be perfectly fair, I haven’t spent a lot of time sipping on different kinds of ceylon tea intentionally, so what do I know? I’ve always thought of it as being the ubiquitous, universal, and understandably unexciting baseline flavor of black tea). After I take a sip and let myself sit a moment, I get a sudden flash of unexpected sweetness. I’m getting it more now that the cup isn’t blazing hot, but I anticipate that I might lose it again once the cup stopped being hot at all.

Curious about this second steep. I’ll update in a bit.

Edit: The second steep just earned this tea a big bump in rating. The first one is good, don’t get me wrong; brisk and tasty. It’s not so strong that it needs milk, but it probably would manage well enough with a drop or two (too much would probably be overkill). The second one, though, has a liquid-sugar quality that I can see myself finding incredibly addictive. De-lish.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 4 min, 30 sec
kat

haha yeah, the flying skull might just dampen ur day a bit, but hey, it will add excitement and God knows what else. A great visual for those around you! Go for it with the tea- most of the reading Ive done on tea says u should drink it all day long to really get the true benefits..sounds good to me!!! U can never have too much I dont think! :)

sophistre

Haha! Well, who am I to stand in the way of excitement? ^^ Plus, I really don’t know who I’m kidding, I don’t think there’s a chance I’ll be able to keep from indulging.

Especially not after this second steep. Yum.

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81
260 tasting notes

This week has been killing me not-so-softly so I haven’t had time to get on here and do…anything. BUT, I just got a package from Carolyn today packed with tea and OF COURSE I had to make some straight away.

I let this sit for 4 minutes on the first steep, and even though it definitely didn’t make it strong enough for me, I know that I’m going to love this tea. Firstly, the coloring on this tea is absolutely gorgeous, but that’s definitely not all it has going for it. It smelled distinctly of honey, and what surprised me more was that it TASTED of honey. And beyond that I got caramel and a natural kind of sweetness. There’s a complexity to this tea, and it’s rich and smooth and positively, like the name implies, sinful. I drank this first cup pretty slowly, and I can say with some certainty that I like this a lot better on the hot/warm end of the spectrum than on the cooler side, but that’s par for the course for me with black teas.

I’ve got a resteep that I let go for 5 minutes that I’m waiting not-so-patiently to cool. I’m tremendously excited to continue playing around with this tea, and to see what else Carolyn decided to pack away for me. If this is any indication of what she decided to send, it’s probably not just my imagination that hears my bank account whimpering.

I have to get back to this pile of crap I have to finish, but either things are going to calm down soon and I can start catching up with reviews, or I am going to asplode. FUN! In the meantime, I’ve got some likely awesome teas to peruse. [Thanks Carolyn!!!] ACTUAL FUN!

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec
Carolyn

I’m so glad you like it. It is my favorite tea

LENA

yay, tea swaps are the best!

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558 tasting notes

2nd tea out of my sampler. I don’t even know what to say about this tea. My tea taste buds are improving the more I sample better teas, but my vocabulary lacks the words to express what I’m tasting. I do like this tea, I just have nothing to compare it to it to yet.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 4 min, 0 sec
teabird

It feels a little pretentious sometimes, but I try to use the same vocabulary I would for wine; there’s a lot more information out there on wine tasting than tea tasting, and I feel less silly saying that I taste berries or spice or whatever in plain tea when I remember how many things people “taste” in fermented grape juice!

Erin

Someone posted this link in the forums a while ago – It’ll help you put what you’re tasting down into words:

http://www.mad-tea.com/?p=552

Stephanie

I know how you feel,Tea Bird! It’s hard for me to find just the right words to express what I’m tasting and sometimes it’s so subtle that I just want to say “this tastes like tea”! :)
Thanks, Erin for re-posting that link! I’ve bookmarked it.

~lauren.

Great link, I hadn’t seen that one before, it helps me a lot, too! (Oh, dear, such a run on sentence, I think I had a wee bit too much caffeine today…!)

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72
371 tasting notes

It turned out to be an unintentionally Ceylon-ariffic day. I usually wouldn’t do a second black tea in the late afternoon, but I was having a mini-meltdown. I have my final paper due at midnight tomorrow for one of my Library Science classes and I thought that I’d misunderstood the basis of my 8 page paper. The entire basis. After a minute of shock I immediately thought “I need some tea with some oomph – the next 24 hours could be really long.” So I picked this out of the sample basket. As it steeped I took some deep breaths and thought things through. Long story short: from what I understand my basis is sound. I don’t need to get to my library early tomorrow and analyze 50 different books and then write like a fiend. Hallelujah! But I should probably get off the web and stop procrastinating ;)

But now to the tea! I was pleasantly surprised by this :) On the first steep it reminded me of Adagio’s Golden Monkey – not my favorite tea, but it’s got a kick that works for me. I really didn’t taste any sweetness. Then, oh second steep-o-joy! The sweetness came through and made it so yummy! It’s like the French Breakfast tea that I had this morning but more complex. Ah, ’tis all good.

I did try a third steep just for the heck of it. Yeah, not so much. This moves up the shortlist on teas I might purchase after I make my way through the sampler. NE

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec
Erin

This also reminded me of Adagio’s Golden Monkey, which is why I liked it so much! Golden Monkey was my favorite tea until I discovered Dawn.

Rabs

I plan on having Golden Monkey tomorrow morning since I haven’t had it in weeks. There’s this…malty? aspect in both that I’m not a crazy fan of. But this one had a natural sweetness that I appreciated that I don’t recall in the Monkey.

I’ve read the notes on Dawn and the cocoa aspects really make me do a frowny face. I really dislike chocolate (horrible M&M Easter disaster experience as a child) so I’m not so optomistic about it. I shall definitely sample Dawn at some point, but for now it doesn’t sound appealing. I’ll keep ya posted :)

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65
314 tasting notes

Hmm….

Smells a little berry-ish, dry.
The taste is like Thomas Sampson’s second cousin—twice removed.

This a very mild black tea. Very easy to drink. No astringency. No bitterness.

Soft and agreeable, I think.

Slighty sweet toward the end.

There’s not much to say, I guess. It’s a likeable tea, but not memorable, at least for me.

Ricky

Steeping parameters? It was delicious the first time around and the second time it was okay.

Stephanie

I’m not a stickler for steeping, really. But I would say I steeped this for about 8 minutes in boiled water. I’m on my second steeping now and it’s even milder (obviously). Maybe it would be better, like the directions say, with milk and sugar added?

Ricky

Woah…. eight minutes!?!? And only mild? I thought it became a strong ceylon after four/five minutes.

Stephanie

Yeah, eight minutes..I know it’s kinda overboard…but I forgot about it because I was busy reading about pu-erhs on the Bana Tea site.

sophistre

Eight minutes is many minutes. I was wondering about the astringency you found in the pouchong…I’m guessing the water was much hotter than 175, and the steep time longer than 3!

Stephanie

I know that the steeping time was longer than 3 minutes for the Coconut Pouchong. So I’m not sure why the astringency is absent for this. An anomaly, I guess?

Ricky

Astringency in greens usually occurs from over steeping and using really hot water. I think the recommended of Coconut Pouchong is like 185-195F?

Stephanie

Hmm….I will try understeeping it in the future—but even with the astringency, I loved the pouchong! It was my first pouchong, so definitely want to try others!

Stephanie

Wait—I guess “pouchongs” are another word for “oolongs”? In that case, it was actually my third oolong (first being the Ginseng Oolong from Teas Etc and then the Sugar Caramel Oolong). I think I love oolongs in general! ;)

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84
187 tasting notes

Regular Ceylon, move over, Sinharaja is here! Not only does it have a far more exotic name, but the taste matches it.

I’m almost at the bottom of my Golden Moon sampler – just this, Honey Pear, Sugar Caramel Oolong, and Coconut Pouchong. I have scraps and bits from some of the other teas in the box, but the tasting is almost over. It makes me almost melancholic, really. This box was truly the beginning of my tea education.

Anyway, Sinharaja looks pretty gorgeous for a black. The leaves are beautifully brown and wiry, and very long and unbroken. The smell coming off of the dry leaf is pretty basic. There’s an almost grape-berry smell, slightly similar to a Darjeeling, but it’s really more of a traditional black tea smell.

So I steeped this one up, and the leaves unfurled quite a bit more than I thought they would. They floated up and down, up and down, sort of like a madcap carousel. I was really anticipating this one…

And it delivers! Now, mind you, I sort of think I’m a bit blown away by this one because it is actually a Ceylon. I don’t know how super-excited I’d be if it wasn’t. But for a Ceylon, this is probably one of the best I’ve tasted. The smell coming off of the burnt amber cup is very just “default black tea.” Which I was a bit worried about, because honestly… it smells like a typical toasty Ceylon. But the taste…

It’s a bit more brisk than I thought it was going to be. There’s a pretty heavy berry-like note, followed by a delicious, honey-related note. This one is just one of those compulsively drinkable cups, where the flavors are just smooth and satisfying. I don’t know if I’d be craving this one continually, but I have fallen into like with it. In that kindergartner way. It’s light and yummy and sweet and scratches my black tea itch. Mmmm.

All of the other reviews are right. This is a really special Ceylon!

EDIT: Listen to sophistre! Seriously. I resteeped this (4:30, boiling), which I would have never done with a black, unless someone seriously recommended it. And this is the best resteep of a black I’ve ever tasted. EVER. It tastes completely different than the first steep, but somewhat related. Like cousins or something.

I was a bit worried when I smelled the wet leaves after the second steep, because they smelled… spent. That dead-black smell you get after a resteep that just screams, LEAVE ME ALONE I’VE DONE MY DUTY. But those leaves? They lied. Seriously, because this second cup is lighter than the first, without any of the brisk qualities, and tastes like sugared raisins. With some berry notes. But sugared raisins. Mmmmm.

So. Good. Thanks, sophistre, for pointing out the wonders of the second steep on this puppy!

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 30 sec
Ricky

Ohhh, I have to try this with a second steep sometime. I have a huge tin! Yay me! I love this tea.

Actually wait! I think I did try it with a resteep!

sophistre

Woo, this is a great log! Glad you enjoyed the round-two cup as much as I usually do (I even prefer it, honestly). I’m pretty interested to see what you make of all of the samples that you have left, since (for me) they were some of the more memorable samples in the box. I also bought a tin of this, and while it took me a bit to warm up to it (especially when I have Adagio’s golden spring in mass quantities as an option), I haven’t regretted purchasing it once. ‘Leave me alone I’ve done my duty’ made me laugh…so true though. I find that some turbinado sugar is pretty perfect with this one…the molasses flavor is just right for softening the brisk first steep, where sometimes it can tip toward bitter.

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