Golden Tips Assam

Yesterday, I tried this tea for the first time, and I was asked on that tasting note if there was any astringency to this tea, and to be honest, the amazing flavor of this tea had me so captivated that I didn’t even notice the astringency, if there was any! So, I decided that I should have another cup today and make it a special point to note any astringency.

The astringency here is light, but it is there. But what is different about this tea from other Assam teas is that the astringency doesn’t hit in the finish. I notice it right at the start of the sip. It is very slight, but then the flavors start to hit the palate and seem to wash over the astringency. The tail has just a hint of residual astringency, but again, this is so faint that it really doesn’t seem to have that dry effect that astringency usually has.

This really is the most different Assam that I’ve ever tasted. The creamy aspect is so amazingly good that I want to crawl into my teacup and bathe in it. I love this Assam. I have quite a few Assam teas in my cupboard, but if I could only have one … this one would be the one I’d choose.

There’s been a post office kerfluffle with the Malachi McCormick that Becky sent me (the tea is somewhere in the US – beyond that the post has no idea), so I picked this up at the grocery store to get me through mornings and fill up my thermos on weekdays.
It’s very tasty, and absolutely better than anything I expected from the grocery store. A lot of full leaves in this tin with a generous amount of golden tips. This tea is malty and sweet, and as I discovered one day very difficult to make bitter/astringent even if you forget it for awhile.

I also found out today that I got a 98% on my first linguistics test. :)

Sometimes my life gets so distracted and busy that I forget I ordered tea, and when it arrives, I feel like I just got presents. Today was one of those days. Stuff from the Tao of Tea and, coincidentally, the Sticky Rice Tuo-Cha from today’s Select company. That’s probably worth investigating before the Select ends! In the meantime:

What an interesting Assam.

When I think ‘golden tips’, I think Golden Spring, those amazing, delicious, fluffy spirals of black and bright gold sitting in a can on my kitchen counter. That’s sort of what I expected when I opened this can, but alas, such was not to be the case…the processing for an Assam produces the same very dark and brittle tea-splinters as usual, though there’s no difficulty in seeing the tips, they just aren’t as dramatic as I (erroneously) anticipated.

The smell of the dry leaf reminded me a great deal of figs. Steeped, the tea has that same figgy, prune-y, raisin-y quality that most Assams have, malted but somehow lighter than the other Assams in my cabinet. I feel as though the tea is missing a ‘bottom end’, if that makes any sense, or has less of one than the extremely punchy teas I’m used to now…which may just be a factor of this tea’s lack of astringency. It has a very mild bitterness (I may need to reduce my steep time from 3 1/2 minutes), but that bitterness isn’t astringent at all — this is a very smooth cup.

As it cools, there’s more sweetness lingering at the end of the sip, which I like.

All in all, it’s a tasty Assam and a bit lighter than what I’m accustomed to drinking, but it has a nice aftertaste without the mouth-drying qualities of the stiff Assams I cling to for dear life in the morning, and I think it will make an excellent option for my afternoons.

Edit: The tepid, room-temperature tea — half an inch — left in the bottom of my cup had the most incredible scent of liquid turbinado sugar…a sweetness that was, of course, not really reflected in the tea, but…yum.

Thanks LiberTEAs!
This is terrific – it REALLY is!!!

Slightly roasted and slightly chewy but not like you would expect. Very creamy! The description says hints of apple and peach flavor…at first I could relate to the peach hints but not really the apple…it was more of a date type hint. Regardless I really enjoyed this cuppa!

I figured I’d make a nice black tea to go along with my Spicy Black Bean burger for lunch, and so I picked this one out from the selections that LiberTEAS sent me.

This is very nice! It’s very smooth and kind of light for a black tea. It doesn’t have a lot of astringency but it is there. What’s strange though is that the astringency can be detected while you’re drinking it, rather than after you swallow when it leaves that distinct dryness in your mouth. The one word I think of with the aftertaste is juicy. It’s very wet in your mouth afterwords (if that makes sense) and it leaves kind of a heavy feeling. It has a nice fruit taste, but not a sweet fruit. More like a savory apple, if that makes any sense. It definitely has an essence of sweetness without being like flat out sweet, if that makes sense. Kind of like a really convincing pseudo-sweet.

A very nice cuppa, thank you LiberTEAS for sending this my way!

I finally got to track down an Assam with gold tips. I happened to be in SE Portland and stopped into the main shop to test out a pot of this. Some Twitter friends mentioned that it might not taste different than other Assams and that “flecks” of gold tips were added to up the premium price. I think they were wrong. What I got was a black tea with a mildly astringent foretaste, followed by straight nectar; a comparison I usually reserve for Yunnan Golds. With the malty kick added, this was more in line with a Golden Monkey – another partially tipped tea that I enjoy. I can finally notch this off my list.

Enjoyed this excellent assam with my breakfast today. It’s leaf is nice a tippy, it’s brew a dark amber. It has a nice malty flavor that is smooth and bold but not too strong. Yummm!

Got a tin of this for pretty cheap in my Iherb order!
So, was expecting a lot more in this tea, but find myself kinda disappointed.
When it was steeping it mainly smelled like wood (as you guys know, I really dislike woody teas).
I ended up over-steeping this one by like a minute or two on accident, But I kinda doubt that that is why it mainly tastes like wood. There was a little malt, but mainly wood taste. :/ Think I will have to try this a couple more times before I decide if I should keep it or not. On the bright side, at least I got it really cheap and I don’t feel like I totally wasted my money! XD