Nepal Golden Tips Black Tea

This is a fantastic tea. Worth the praise it receives. Got a sample of this with my other Discover orders from what-cha, and I’m really happy I got to try it.

The leaves of this tea have a great mix of gold tips to darker leaves. Lots of pretty gold tips. The dry scent of the leaves in a warm Gongfu teapot reminds me of chocolate and french fries… which is awesome because I love french fries. Seriously, they’re like my second favorite food after sushi. After the first infusion, the leaves are bursting with aroma! There are hints of black cherry, plum vinegar, chocolate, raisins, apricot, and maybe even a bit of wood and flowers. It’s complex and intense.

The taste of the first infusion is incredible. It starts with an apricot taste and ends with a really interesting dark chocolate bitterness. There’s a little bit of plum too. Reminds me of one of those chocolate oranges you have to whack to break apart, but better. The mouthfeel and taste of this tea are exceptionally clean. It has a really wet, juicy feel, and the bitterness that lingers at the end is really enjoyable. It’s a unique kind of bitterness that I haven’t experienced before… kind of tingles and stimulates the tongue. It’s more a sensation than a flavor. It doesn’t really taste bitter.

After the second infusion, there’s more apricot flavor, and a bit of malt flavor creeping in. As I steep to a third and fourth infusion, the fruit tastes back off and more malty flavors arise, reminding me of the red and black tea flavors I’m used to, but as it cools, there are still hints of the apricot and even a bit of fresh ginger.

Overall, this is a really nice tea. It shows its best features on the first infusion, and after that it’s a smooth ride. Still, I’m incredibly eager to find out what this will taste like in my red/black tea seasoned yixing pot. It has a great tendency to smooth out the flavors, cut out the bitterness and make things more robust and sweet. That’ll be a fun one.

I was absolutely amazed by the first infusion, but later infusions didn’t quite live up to the standard it set for itself. If they had, I’d have rated this tea near perfect. Still worthy of quite a high score!

This was my travel mug that went with me to work way too early this morning. I don’t often take a travel tea with me since it isn’t ever cool enough to drink before I get to work anyway. If I got up more than 15 minutes before leaving the house, it would be a different story, I know. :)

But this worked well to start my day. Still fantastically good. Smooth and malty and hard not to gulp.

The description of this on the sample package Ost so generously sent me says, “Incredibly smooth with gentle malt tones.” The incredibly smooth is incredibly correct, but those gently malt tones are too gently for my tastes. In fact, the taste overall was maybe too smooth and not punchy enough for me. It had a strange aftertaste that kept grabbing at my attention, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Maybe I underleafed? It recommends 1-2tsp per cup and I did 1.5 tsp for my 8 oz cup. I’ll try it again with 2 tsp to see if anything changes.

Today has been a glimpse of Spring in the middle of Winter, at least temperature wise, visually it is all brown and dingy, typical Kansas City Winter color pallete. Even though I am never a fan of the drab part of Winter (give me snow and evergreens, along with the green grass of central Pennsylvania and I am in seasonal bliss) it was too nice of a day for me to stay in, so off to Kauffman Gardens I went to practice some phone photography. My new phone is better than my original camera that I started photography with (a measly 3MP) at 5MP but it pales in comparison to the 12 MP camera I use for nature photography, and my dream one at 18MP, one day I will have that camera! Anyway, this little phone is not half bad, it lacks a macro lens, so I will have to make one from an old disk drive or something, lots of good tutorials for that, and of course playing with all the filters and such is fun. It is an interesting disconnect in my brain, other than cropping I rarely alter my photos taken with my camera, but with my phone I have quite a lot of fun editing them, funny ol’ world we live in.

Since it is Wednesday, that means it is time to take another journey into What-Cha’s epic catalog of tea in my attempt to try all of the teas. Today’s tea is Nepal 2nd Flush 2014 Golden Tips Black Tea, another offering from Greenland Organic Farms in East Nepal in the shadow of Mt. Kancghenjunga. You all know me well enough by now to know how much of a sucker I am for golden teas, and this tea does not disappoint, curly leaves covered in delicate golden trichomes. The aroma rich, a touch on the sweet side, but more rich than sweet. The notes are primarily roasted peanuts, malt, and a touch of sweet potatoes and stewed fruit. At the end there is the most delicate note of rose and pepper, I run into pepper quite often, but the notes of rose were a pleasant surprise.

Once I give the tea a steeping in the bat gaiwan I notice the rose and pepper aroma are much stronger, which is awesome, after that initial spicy and flowery burst there are strong notes of malt and sweet potato with a rich finish of cocoa. Where the leaves were rich the liquid is sweet, notes of sweet potato and cocoa waft out of my cha hai, yes I did have my nose stuffed in this one, luckily I did not burn it, though I do frequently tend to, especially if a tea smells good!

Ok, first steep, it has a pretty strong start, it lacks the usual mildness that a first steep has. The start is quite malty, and here is the fun part, I am skipping over the midtaste because it is even maltier at the finish, like the back of my throat is kicked with malt. The midtaste has a hint of cocoa and pepper, and the aftertaste is rich and sweet, a touch creamy.

Second steeping time, as per usual I stick my nose in my cha hai and give the tea a nice hefty sniff. I often debate when is the best time to sniff the freshly steeped tea, pre pour when it is in the cha hai or once I have poured it into a tiny cup, so far the cha hai seems more fun. The aroma of this steep is a blend of sweet potatoes and cocoa at the front and finish of rose and pepper, still really digging the rose notes. The taste is just as rich as the first steep, and pretty smooth, I would even go so far as to say it is velvety. In fact, this tea has absolutely no dryness whatsoever. The finish has a hint of pepper and leaves a sweet potato aftertaste that lingers for a while.

Third time around, the aroma is not as potent as previously, primarily there are notes of sweet potatoes and a nice hint of malt at the finish. Tasting the tea, well, it is still super velvety and smooth, just like the previous two steeps, and still pretty rich, but it is mellowing out to a sweetness. The notes that dominate this steeping are sweet potatoes and malt with a real nice peppery finish. I should point out that the peppery notes are more the taste of pepper, not the spicy heat, it is always very fascinating to me when flavor notes act like that, or my favorite, when a flavor note is present but it lacks the aroma or texture of the food (or random piece of wood if you are a weirdo like me) that it is imitating. Tea, and the way we perceive it, never stops being a thing of wonder to me.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-cha-nepal-2nd-flush-2014-golden.html

Another from my what-cha order! Trying to balance between the 1023012938109382 samples i ordered from them and the swaps that i’ve recently picked up, in an effort to drink up SOME things before my other teas arrive. I added all the teas from missB in to my cupboard and was at 151 – so effectively double what it was at the end of december lol

This is a tasty offering from What-cha. It’s malty, sweet and delicious! Even cold it still offers up a really nice brew! I’m a fan and would consider reordering in the future.

Backlog:

LOVE! I taste notes of honey, caramel, cacao, malt, flower and fruit. A lovely, delicious, decadent tea with luscious layers of flavor.

A thick, pleasant mouthfeel. It’s been my experience that many Nepalese teas tend to have Darjeeling-esque characteristics but I didn’t really experience that so much with this tea. This reminds me more of a Fujian tea. This one resteeps well too.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/10/03/nepal-2nd-flush-2014-golden-tips-black-tea-from-what-cha-tea/

Very delicious black tea! Thank you for the sample Marzipan!

Malty, bold, naturally sweet. Everything a good golden tips should be :D

Thanks to Marzipan for this sample.

I had to rush this as I thought we had more time before we were out the door this morning. My fault.

I found it a little malty, quite fruity. Nice.

It was cold by the time I got back to it, so I had some, and then I threw it in the microwave. It was still pretty tasty. I enjoyed it.

This tea has been sitting in my cabinet for about 3 months now, overlooked and forlorn until today. Today is a glorious day. I had been debating about how much North Winds from Whispering Pines to purchase on Cyber Monday…..then….well, then I had this tea. This, for me today, is a game-changer tea. Whereas North Winds is a blend of 2 of my most craved teas (Yunnan and Fujian black, I believe), THIS tea holds all that is magical and wonderful in the above blend but does so in a much more organic way, as the flavors come together PERFECTLY, without blending…just as nature intended. The Yunnan is represented by notes of yam, cocoa, apricot….. the Fujian black is represented by the caramelized sugar, raisin… and amidst these are the honeyed malt….. Crikey, this is a wonderful tea. If North Winds holds you in rapture, make sure you try this tea…..it’s truly amazing what nature can do.