Imperial Mojiang Golden Bud Yunnan Black Tea

While I have a very well trained palate when it comes to black teas, I have to say that I don’t always have the vocabulary to back that up. I have similar issues with describing wines and whiskey, even the ones that I love. I’ll try to do my best though.

Dian hong teas have been my daily drinkers for the last 5 years, and pretty much the tea that made me a tea junkie. I’ve only recently started looking past my local vendors and this tea was part of my first YS order based off of a reddit recommendation. Oh boy, it sure did not disappoint.

Even though I’ll often have yunnan blacks western style, I decided to steep this in my gaiwan. I used 5g of tea in a 150ml gaiwan, starting off with a flash steep and moving slowly up to about a minute. I got 8 really good steeps out of this one. It started off with a light golden colour, becoming darker and perhaps the strongest in flavour on the 3rd and 4th steeps. Absolutely no astringency and hints of caramel and a bit earthy like a ripe puerh. The malty flavour that I love about yunnan blacks is definitely there too.

Most definitely one of the best yunnan blacks that I have ever had. This will surely be a repeat order. Looking forward to trying this western style too.

I’ve suddenly lost the ability to describe the flavour of black teas, weird. This is a lovely golden bud tea, of which I was lucky to get a sample from Nicole. I put the whole 3g sample in my 100ml gaiwan. So far I’ve done two steepings, of 30 and 40 seconds. The wet leaves have a spicy, baked-good scent that is amazing, but unfortunately not really coming out in the tea liquor, which I suspect is because I’m not yet brewing it correctly. Ok, I just tried a longer, 60sec steep. The liquor is an amber/gold colour, like whiskey. The flavour is a bit earthy and sweet, like I expect from a dian hong, but there’s an acidity that I’m not thrilled with. Just tried another 30sec steep, and the flavour is smoother, but not as aromatic. Hmm, I’ll try a few more steeps but this tea and I don’t seem to be connecting today. Oh well, can’t win ’em all. :) Happy to have had a chance to try it, though!

Another lovely tea from the great selection that DigniTea sent over. Thank you!
This is a thumping good Dian Hong, with a smooth chocolatey that is addictive. I’ve been rushing to finish the last two papers for my MA, so I haven’t had time for a proper Gong fu session in ages, but I am definitely saving the last of this for a Gong fu brew. Which is hard. Because it is delicious. I’m starting to type silly things here because I’m not feeling well, and it’s evening, which means that my temperature has probably spiked. But I do stand behind my original assessment of this tea – a delicious, smooth, seductive, chocolatey companion. Recommend.

I like this! Thanks to Stephanie for the sample. I am trying to get through some samples today since another TTB is due to come tomorrow.

I under leafed the first cup. The big wiry ones are hard to measure, so I eyeballed it (despite having a scale right there). It was pretty light. So for the resteep I added the rest and it’s all yummy yammy goodness.

I drank a cup of this earlier this morning. Thanks Terri!

I feel bad because I wasn’t paying attention enough to write a good note while I drank it. I wasn’t blown away but luckily I have a couple more servings to work with it…

I won’t be drinking any tea this afternoon because I got peer pressured into a fancy iced coffee beverage on my lunch break. They were buy one get one FREE and my friend wanted one…also they offered to make it for me with soy :)

Happy Friday folks!