Anhua 2013 Golden Flower Brick

Gongfu Sipdown (706)!

Picked up one of the samplers from Mansa Tea because the teas seemed interesting/intriguing and I was in that kind of mood where I needed a bit of retail therapy – and my go to retail therapy is, of course, buying tea. I also wanted to try out a new company and I’ve literally never heard anything about this company so it seemed like a good opportunity to have a completely fresh and blind experience and form my own impression…

I don’t know why I started with this tea in particular – I think I was just curious!? I’ve actually never had a Golden Flower tea before even though I own several of them. This was a nice one session size sample so it was the perfect way to dip into one and get a first impression. Another interesting this about this company is the tasting/flavour notes they’ve included on their packaging – they’re really specific and atypical sounding, and in some ways remind me of the style of tasting notes that August Uncommon does? I was critical of how accurate they’d be – but excited to see if I could understand what the company was going for. So, that said, here’s my write up from instagram:

…to be completely honest the pink apple note described is actually EERILY accurate to what this tea tastes like, especially in the first few steepings! Hooray for my former grocery store/produce clerk knowledge kicking in and allowing me to know specifically what a Cripps apple tastes like!? Aside from the taste of sweet, crisp apple notes I’m also getting a medium bodied and relatively clean tasting earthy note throughout the sip, along with sort of stewed fruit/“fruit leather” and oat undertone, and a bit of a molasses & black pepper-ish quality. Really enjoying this tea a lot; perfect cap to the week!!

So overall conclusion? I liked the tea a lot and I think it was a good intro to this company, and maybe golden flower teas in general!? Certainly makes me curious to explore some of the other ones I own and have been sitting on for a little while now…

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B27su98Am5U/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srq1FqFPwj0