Tea type
Black Tea
Ingredients
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Flavors
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Loose Leaf
Caffeine
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Edit tea info Last updated by Cameron B.
Average preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 4 min, 0 sec 16 oz / 473 ml

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4 Tasting Notes View all

  • “This Yunnan was shared with me by Auggy and I have to say I’m sceptical as soon as I see the word ‘Yunnan’. However, as you may recall, I had a rather nice Yunnan the other day which didn’t have...” Read full tasting note
    82
  • “First point of advice for this tea: DON’T LISTEN TO THE COMPANY’S STEEPING SUGGESTION! I had a momentary flash of insanity and steeped the first cup of this for 3 minutes, per the suggestions on...” Read full tasting note
    78
  • “Tasting this tea ruined a fierce certainty inside of me : that tea had to be green and that I would never go for black … That gray dark heavy rainy late winter afternoon, i opened that little...” Read full tasting note
    90
  • “This was a sample size that the extremely nice lady at the shop gave me when I purchased the Grand Cru Yunnan. She said “So you can compare!” And so I did. :) I may prefer this one. I still have...” Read full tasting note
    83

From Palais des Thés

This is one of the finest, the most delicate and the most subtle of the Yunnan teas.

Golden Yunnan is an exceptional crop of a rare delicacy that Palais des Thés experts source directly from the plantations, something which is very difficult in China because the distribution of tea is still very centralized on a regional basis.

Dry leaves
Appearance: large well-rolled leaves, rolled lengthwise, with plenty of lovely golden buds.
Color: golden, black and brown.
Scents: woody, undergrowth and honey.

Brewed leaves (infusion)
Color: red brown.
Scents: woody (waxed wood), honey (chestnut tree), vanilla, caramel and undergrowth.

Liquor
Color: amber.
Texture in the mouth: velvety and full in the mouth
Flavor: acid
Aromas: an attack with plenty of honey, waxed wood, undergrowth, mushroom (truffle), spices and animal notes.
Aromatic profile and length in the mouth: a lovely rich length.

About Palais des Thés View company

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4 Tasting Notes

82
1353 tasting notes

This Yunnan was shared with me by Auggy and I have to say I’m sceptical as soon as I see the word ‘Yunnan’. However, as you may recall, I had a rather nice Yunnan the other day which didn’t have that flavour of hay, and it reminded me that all Yunnan is not created equal and that some of it is actually quite nice. So therefore I am going forth with this, safe in the knowledge that Auggy has come to know my tastes very well.

So is this one of the nommy Yunnans or one of the meh ones? The aroma isn’t really giving me much of a clue. It’s quite chocolate-y and sweet spicy, but there is also a tinge to the spice note that say, “hay, there!” (Did you see what I did there? Teehee!) Mostly though, it’s sweetie-like in the aroma so I go forth, still not completely put off.

So that was the leaves. The cup after steeping smells less chocolate-y and far more sweet spicy. I have to say it reminds me most of all of ‘brunkager’ 1 which is a very traditional Danish Christmas biscuit. Funny to find that in tea! On the tail end of summer no less. It does indeed bode well for the flavour, especially as you can see that I didn’t find any of those hay-like notes here.

So flavour. Disappointingly the association to Christmas biscuits stop here. And yes it was a disappointment, because the aroma in the cup was SO like it, that my tongue was already preparing itself for that particular flavour. And all it got was tea. Which is all good and well but not really what it was looking for at this point. How tricksy this aroma is!

Rather than a spicy biscuit, it’s actually more sort of broth-y. I’m still getting the spicy notes, but it doesn’t show itself as so sweet here in the flavour. My first and foremost association is actually to a time when I was served a soup which was spiced with these same spices. There is a whiff of that hay in the background, but it never really comes out in any significant manner, and there also isn’t any of those cocoa or chocolate notes that have tended to be a good sign of a Yunnan that I would actually enjoy. There is a pleasant sort of malty, creamy aftertaste though, which pulls the whole thing in a third direction.

This one comes out fairly in the middle of the two experiences with Yunnan that I’ve had and with a pointer towards a thirdk and that makes it difficult for me to work out what to do with it. I think I’m mostly enjoying it, but I probably wouldn’t go out and purchase it. I expect with those spicy notes, from a Danish point of view it would work excellently in a Christmas blend.

1 http://www.food.com/recipe/danish-brun-kager-brown-cookies-13614 2

2 Look, Nik showed me the other day how to do footnotes! Isn’t that neat?! :D

K S

care to footnote Nik explaining how to do footnotes? :)

K S

That was fast. Thanks!

ashmanra

Too cool!

Daisy Chubb

ooh footnotes! very cool! Also a wonderful review of course :3

Azzrian

Nice! This sounds quite lovely. I enjoy hay flavored teas and haha yes I saw what you did there!

Auggy

Warning: not everything in the package will probably be to your tastes. Some of them (like this one) I shared so you can try them since I figured you’d never actually buy a whole pouch of it! :)

Angrboda

Azzrian, the hay is usually a bit of a turn-off for me. :)

Auggy, yes, I noticed the selection was a little eclectic. :) That’s good though. Some of them, had they been available to me, I wouldn’t have tried otherwise. It just wouldn’t even have crossed my mind to have a second look at all. (Your care package is going to be a little similar to that in that I’m packing things down for it as I get/think of it, so I haven’t actually tried everything yet. I just started packing it down right away so I wouldn’t accidentally drink anything I had wanted to share. :p There are a few things that I expect will be well received though. I’ve run out of small tins too, so now I have to drink up some of yours so I can wash the tins and send them back!)

Auggy

Ha! I ran out of tins, too! (As I’m sure you could tell.) And I’m all for samples of teas I wouldn’t otherwise try. Sometimes something new can be discovered and other times it’s just nice to have had the experience without having to drink to 50 or 100 grams of it!

Angrboda

I thought I had tons of the small teas, but I used a lot for the stuff that you sent me. I’ve made the labels ready, though. So far it seems to lean more towards the unflavoured, though. I haven’t actually got much of anything other than samples that are flavoured at the moment. Lots of blends, though.

Auggy

As much as I seem to buy flavored teas, I definitely like unflavored better – and blends make me happy! I need to make some room in my pantry so take your time! :)

Angrboda

I’ve got all the ones I want to share now, so it’s just a question of emptying and washing tins. I’ve got three more tins ready now, although one of them might not be usable. It had the decadent black in it, so I suspect it may need to air out for a few months before it can be used again. :)

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78
911 tasting notes

First point of advice for this tea: DON’T LISTEN TO THE COMPANY’S STEEPING SUGGESTION! I had a momentary flash of insanity and steeped the first cup of this for 3 minutes, per the suggestions on the bag. How could I have been so silly? I mean, look at these lovely leaves (See? http://flic.kr/p/cSiS9C Lovely! Well, okay, a little luster-less but I still find them pretty – long and twisted in a way that reminds me of roll your own cigarettes). So if you want to take these pretty things and turn them into a big one-note cup of acidity and harshness that is basically an attempt to be coffee instead of tea, then sure, go ahead, steep for 3 minutes (or more). But that wasn’t what I was looking for with this. Cutting down the time drastically for the second steep didn’t give me what I wanted either, so I decided to give this another go with fresh leaves.

This time I went for one minute. The overall result was much better but still not quite what I was hoping for. Let me explain: the dry leaf smells so lovely. Like when I visited the brew store with the husband and got to smell (and sample) all of the lovely malted grains used for home beer making. Sweet, musty, grainy and just delicious! So I had this marvelous smell – and I wanted it to come across in the taste. It definitely doesn’t at three minutes – it’s harsh and almost burnt tasting and way too tannic.

At one minute, the taste more matches with the smell but it isn’t quite as light as the smell lead me to believe it would be. It’s definitely more of a stout Yunnan, but it has nice notes of sweet malt and a dab of honey. It’s enjoyable but for the fanciness of the leaf and of the price, I was expecting for something a bit softer.

Instead, this reminds me a lot of Adagio’s Yunnan Noir. Don’t get me wrong, I like Yunnan Noir. It’s kind of my go-to tea when I want something stout and energizing without needing to add milk or sugar. So I like this. But $19.50 for 3.5oz or $12 for 4oz. Well, I’m sure you can guess which tea will (continue to) be my go to stout Yunnan.

(I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll be sniffing the leaves a lot on this one, though.)

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90
9 tasting notes

Tasting this tea ruined a fierce certainty inside of me : that tea had to be green and that I would never go for black …
That gray dark heavy rainy late winter afternoon, i opened that little sampler from Le Palais des Thés and the first string of smell just changed my instant world. In one second I found myself in the heart of a golden autumn forest, let’s call it paradise.
It’s already some days I tasted this tea, that’s sad, i couldn’t describe the entire feeling, but that was wonderful, that sooo rich spicy woody smell. It would do for all the perfumes I’ll never wear anymore, all the alcohols I’ll never drink anymore. I can’t explain. if that fragrance was a world, i would live in that world forever !
Then I pour it in that little yellow outside white inside cup where i like to pour my dry leaves to admire them. Oooohhhh those golden buds (is it like that you call them in English ?) and those long black leaves, so nicely rolled … I never thought I could admire just a simple leaf with such a passion. The most beautiful lady of the world wouldn’t do that effect on me anymore (hmmm … no really … sorry ladies … I can live on tea and cookies forever now)
You remember ? I said it was one of those really drag-down afternoons, one of these days you have worked so late into the night, slept some hours and woke up in that pouring skies gloomy light. Body empty of energy, mind turned all the way to numbness. The next second I was bathed in that golden spirit with an incredible feeling of completeness, happiness and well being.
I have noticed these last weeks that the smell, colour and taste of every kind of tea brings me memories from my far away childhood. Every tea I had the chance to taste brought me that millisecond flash of a forgotten moment of my childhood. But I could never concretely describe that.
The impression tea leaves on me is still beyond the reach of my vocabulary …
I’ll get there i think …
Cheers !

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 0 sec
Teasaway

Hey i’m glad you liked it. I know this is not a proper way to write a tasting note, since I didn’t even mention the tasting in itself. i thought I would like to learn more how to write about a tea experience ..; If it is something you can ever “learn”

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83
790 tasting notes

This was a sample size that the extremely nice lady at the shop gave me when I purchased the Grand Cru Yunnan. She said “So you can compare!” And so I did. :)

I may prefer this one. I still have enough left for one more cup of this, so I should try them side by side. Maybe this weekend. It would be nice to prefer this one since it is the less expensive one, that’s for sure! :)

I had 2 steeps of this today. One at work with filtered water and one at home with tap water. Cameron B. has been commenting in some of her recent reviews that she is having problems nailing down her water. This is a perfect example for me of how water does matter and bottled or filtered is not always the best for my tastes. The cups I had at work with filtered water were unremarkable. Very plain. Not even really sure I could have said it was a Yunnan – just a black tea. Or as gmathis says, “brown leaf juice.”

At home, the cups I had have been malty with some honey and wood. I’m not sure what they mean in the description by “acid.” I don’t get anything I would say is acid. That conjures up bad thoughts, not nice tea thoughts. :) I do get the “animal notes” though. I’m not even really sure how describe it. Like burying your face in a warm cat or puppy. I had never thought about it in those terms but a lot of Yunnans give me the same impression. No wonder I like them! Nothing better than face fuzzies!

Not sure I’d buy either of the Palais Yunnans I’ve had especially in the 3.5 ounce sizes (the only sizes available online). I know I’d get this one over the Grand Cru Yunnan Buds, though.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 16 OZ / 473 ML

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