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I see lots of golden fuzz on the inside of the bag, but I don’t see golden tips in the tea. Dry leaf smells of yeast, malt, pollen? Wet leaf smells of yeast. Dough before baking. Taste very similar to wet leaf. As the steeps get to 3 min, I get some brown sugar. The taste is too sharp to be malt. Some malty sweetness once the steep time reached 9 min.
I steeped in a gaiwan, but I’ll probably steep the rest of this tea westren style.

Dry leaf smells of light roast and green. Tasting this tea was more about mouthfeel for me. I didn’t get discernable flavor from it. I did feel it was comforting. Smooth, slightly minerally, juicy. Later steeps were creamy. I liked it, but it didn’t taste like much.

Dry leaf smell- cream, fruit, sweet, floral
Taste- floral, cream, though I wish the flavor was stronger. Short steeps had better flavor, longer steeps were smoother. My notes have a lot of question marks by this tea. Couldn’t quite get it right somehow.

Today’s the day for trying tea that I didn’t like in the gaiwan to see if a different style of steeping changes the flavor. And I’m mostly over the death cold.
Dry leaf- caramel? Small rolled balls. Dark roast off wet leaves.
30s- sweet caramel, no roasted taste. 45s- more roast, sweet. After that, I got a lot of roast but lost the sweetness of the early steeps. 1min30s serious astringency on the roof of my mouth and tongue. I wish the taste had panned out more. I got lost in the roast.

I’ve tried this both westren and in the gaiwan. Dry leaf smells sweet and roasted. Clean smelling. Nutty smell taste in 1st steep, little bit of sweetness. Flavor from following steeps never matured for me. I didn’t see any point in continuing with this tea.

Dry leaf smells flowery-lilac? Half of cake to gaiwan. 1st steep at 15s – lightly roasted. Wet leaf smells sweet and flowery, honey. Rasting honey, creamy, light roast. Further steeps adding 15s to each one. Continued to get flowery sweetness with creamy mouthfeel. I ended up getting 11 steeps out of the tea. Soft, but distinct in flavor. I could continue with the leaf for longer if desired.

I finished the other half of the cake this morning and I have to say I had a nice repeat of this session. Floral, creamy, sweet and light roast. Very happy with the purchase of this tea.

I’ve had this a couple times in the last two days trying to help kill the cold I have. Both times I’ve been so stuffed up, I’ve not been able to actually smell it. The only thing I could smell was the ginger. I had 3 or 4 infusions of gingery tasting tea. It did a good job of clearing things up for a while. When I had it again this morning, I got ginger and berries. Both sweet and tart. This cough is evil. It definitely worked to help clear my sinues up. I’d like to try it when I can taste it.

Cold brew – sipdown. Flavor of this one more prominent cold. I still think this tea is confusing. I get the silky feel. Mandarin makes me think of citrus, but I don’t get any. Just the weird flowery taste that I had before, which is probably the oolong itself. Maybe a bit of vanilla? Maybe a very little bit of citrus at the end?

This tea was better cold brewed. Refreshing pear flavor, delicate but present. Faint spice at end of sip. White tea mouthfeel. I am surprised at the nice flavor present. I didn’t get most of the flavor profile before. Glad to find a way to drink this tea down enjoyably.

10Mar16 – I’ll preface this review by saying I’m sick and therefore my sense of smell/tastebuds are somewhat impaired.
Dry – smells like caramel cookie.
195F (not boiling, I learned my lesson last time thanks) Steeped this twice 2 and 3 min. It was definitely better at 3 min. I liked it, though it’ll be good to retry when I’m not sick. Tasted cookie-ish. Darn you cold…