Golden Fleece

2023 An Ode to Tea – G

Finishing one pouch of this classic.  I feel like golden teas must be overleafed the older they get.  So I just dumped the remainder of these leaves in the infuser.  I forgot they are so unique looking!    Delicious, but again, I have noticed that golden teas lose a massive amount of flavor when they age.
2023 sipdowns: 24

This is such a treat. So silky smooth I’d hardly recognize it as a Yunnan black. I don’t think I can describe it better than anyone already has, but I’m on steep 12(?) and it’s still going strong. I’ve just been enjoying all day. This doesn’t have the kick I usually get (and enjoy) from Yunnan blacks, but it is a great way to delve into the flavor.

Between how much of Rishi’s China Black I’ve been drinking, and the deliciousness of this one, I decided to rechristen my one (barely used) yixing pot – I got it from Samovar, and made Maiden’s Ecstasy in it once or twice, but I’m just not that into puerh (yet), so it’s been sitting unused in my cupboard for awhile now. Sad :( So today, I boiled it in fresh water for a while, then let it soak in a pot with a couple steeps of the Golden Fleece and some China Breakfast. I’m excited about this change!

The first time I tried this tea in a sample from Bonnie, I had no idea that this was a difficult tea for Verdant to obtain. So, my first cup was consumed without knowing how difficult it would be to get. What a shame! Beautifully flavored tea and as someone before me stated, has the oddly beautiful scent of mushrooms.

After Christmas, I finally had time to get back into my tea collection and enjoy a few cups with my new tea kettle. This one was the first one I decided to try again. There’s nothing like sipping a beautiful cup of tea while watching the snow fall. This tea is delicious and I’m tempted to buy out the remainder of Verdant’s supply, despite the fact that I am poor. Thanks Bonnie for parting with some of yours. Now that I know what I had, I definitely appreciate your sending me some. You’re the best!

Verdant don’t ship to Australia so I am getting to taste this tea thanks to Sil who has very kindly sent me a whole range of samples to sip through. Thanks again!

Sil offered to send me these teas because I posted in the discussions that I wasn’t convinced that Verdant teas were as good steepster made them out to be, I mean, can any one company on a website that ranks hundreds really be performing so well without some kind of bias? I had no way of knowing because I had no way of trying Verdant teas.

So what do I think of this tea and Verdant after my first tasting?

I’m impressed. This is a really lovely tea with complex flavours and that natural sweetness that I just adore in tea. I tend to separate my teas into two camps, the “pick me up” teas and the “chill out” teas, for me this is a chill out tea. Probably not the best choice for right now as I have a thousand chores and some grocery shopping still to do and not many hours left in the day.

This tea is obviously of very high quality and if it an indication of the quality of all Verdant’s offerings, maybe I was wrong. I also have a sample of the coveted Laoshan Black which I am really looking forward to trying.

Got this as a sample with my order along with the hand-written thank you note. I love when people pay attention to detail. It definitely matters to me.

This is very rich and deep. Slightly peppery with notes of cinnamon and honey/sugar. What I like the most, however, is the silky smoothness of this tea.
I wanted to have this with a small piece of chocolate but turns out I don’t have any left…. That must be rectified tomorrow.

Loose
Appearance: large bicolored brown leaf
Aroma when Dry: toasty cinnamon cookie
After water is first poured: sweet
At end of first steep: sweet, deserty brothy
Tea liquor:
At end of first steep: deep meadowy brown-yellow
Staple? No
Preferred time of day: unsure, first tasting
Taste:
At first:bodied, slight bite of black notes, then fuzzy sweet almost day old cinnamon roll
As it cools ? notes get deeper, sweeter, more fuzzy closes with a American mocha-like cloying syrupy note
Additives used (milk, honey, sugar etc)? No
Lingers? With deserty, incresingly sweet, fuzzy, light astringency

Second Steep (2 min)
Aroma when water is poured: caramel cinnamon
Taste:
first notes: layered black tea astringency, then cinnamon black coffee notes close
As it cools: generic black astringency with whipped cream closing notes, then salted broth finish

This tea is AMAZING!!! Based on the reviews of this tea, I knew it would be good. However, I didn’t expect to be blown away by this tea! When I set out to brew it, I first did a quick wash (as David on the Verdant website suggested) then I quickly snuck in and took a whiff of the beautiful vapors coming off of the leaves and I was instantly in heaven! So, I quickly brewed it for about 4 seconds. Then I took a moment to relish in the aroma… MMm It reminds me of the trips I used to take as a child to the local apiaries where my mom and I would buy fresh honey! That’s it! The taste, the aroma, the texture…. This tea reminds me of walking through the sunlit gardens towards the apiary, with the smell of bee pollen and warm honey vapors wafting in the breeze. I am, and will forever be in love with the fine tea…

I feel that I’ve come to an important step in my tea odyssey to drink this tea. When I first started hanging around steepster I kept seeing references to this ‘golden fleece’, whatever that was. Everyone was raving about it. So, here I am, with a cup of this famous limited harvest tea in front of me, all the way from China just for me to enjoy. It’s a pretty cool feeling.
Sniffing the brewed tea I accidentally stuck the tip of my nose in the brew. :P Whoops.
Okay. I read this tea was silky, so I felt I was prepared. But I was not prepared for this tea to just slide down my throat like that! It’s like I went to swallow, and bloop, it’s already gone.
Whoa, there’s the sweetness.
I just finished my first cup and the aftertaste is really hitting me. This is a tea to be followed by no other at a tea party, that’s for sure!
Second steep I’m really picking up on the spiciness. Still really nice and mellow. I’m also picking a bit of cocoa; I can definitely smell that in the wet leaves.
Third steep the tea is changing a little; I don’t how to say so, but it is. More earthiness maybe? Perhaps this is the morel showing up here? I have no idea really, but it’s good.
Fourth steep those morel notes are coming out further. I also taste mineral; that warming spiciness is still there.
At first I was hesitant to spend $4 on only 7g of tea but I am glad I did, especially now that it’s out of stock and I may never get to have more! This tea would be perfect on a snow day; you could hours picking part it’s nuances or just plain enjoying it.

I haven’t had a ton of them,but this best dian hong ive had…100ml gaiwan 8g=yum

Seeing as how this had such a high rating on Steepster, I had to buy some despite the cost. And, tasting this, I hate to say this would probably be my regular go-to black tea if it weren’t so expensive!

First off it looks so darn pretty—all that shiny fuzzy gold—so I’m already intrigued. After brewing it has an aroma that’s both rich and delicate at the same time. It has a distinct cocoa note that I also get in the taste but there’s a really light sweetness I can’t really place. It’s not as heavy as a honey sweetness but more like something else… Ooo darn I can’t think of the word :( It’s really bold without being too heavy and intense, like the assams that I always try but never seem to like.

Later on the next few steeps the cocoa flavor becomes less intense and then both the sweetness and a new, more earthy flavor comes out. It kind of reminds me of the earthy flavor that is associated with mushrooms but this tastes nothing like mushrooms. Hard to explain but I like it.

I managed to get 5 steeps out of this and on the fifth I was afraid it would be bitter so I added a tiny pinch of brown sugar (instead of just rock sugar because I felt the brown sugar would bring out some of that sweetness in the tea better) and oh my that was yummy. I’m also starting to taste some spices after so many steeps. I wonder if I can get one more…

Overall incredibly yummy tea and I would drink this every day if I had more money :((