Filled up the bottom of the gai wan with leaf. Delicious roasted, toasted aromatics.
First steep without a wash is very soft and sweet, a little floral but also bread-like. Delicate, and yet decadent.
Second steep changed to a more toasted rice kind of quality. Also something else in there, like a sweet seaweed quality. Interesting and good.
Third steep: darker, more pungent (stronger tasting), toasted kind of quality, though still soft in the mouth. It’s a curious starchy, salty, toasted kind of taste. Slight astringency in the background, too. No bitterness at all.
Fourth steep: More of the same, though also starting to flatten out a little bit. Clearer sense of astringency.
Fifth steep: a bit flat to me. Not bad per se, but just a basic ‘spent’ black tea taste.
Overall yummy tea that’s definitely worth drinking multiple times. A 100g bag will last a while when in rotation with other teas as you only need 4-5g for a good session. It’s above average to me, but not great. To me, a lot of gentle black teas start out real strong and fade pretty quickly. It may be worth doing a full teapot or hai cha worth of tea instead of gong fu. I’ll check that out next time.
Forgot to mention – I am commenting on the Spring 2023 harvest of this tea.
I haven’t had a Golden Monkey in a while. Once my buying ban is lifted I need to try this one!
Well, I have limited experience with “golden monkey” teas. But this one definitely has my approval. Usually I have to drink a tea quite a few times before I decide how I feel about it and maybe write a review. This one, though, I knew it right from the first cup that I had a winner here.
To clarify – This is everything I am looking for in a breakfasty-type black tea. There are other classes of black tea which are quite a bit different, for example a Darjeeling 1st flush, from which I would desire some different characteristics. But for a nice black breakfast tea, this is the tea for me!
It sounds worth trying, for sure! Is it sweet potato-y? I find some Golden Monkeys have that note.
Ashmanra, I’ll have to try it again tomorrow and let you know! I find sometimes the “sweet potato” element in black teas is similar to the “chocolatey” element. When it is less intense, it might feel more sweet potato-ish to me, but when it is stronger it moves into the chocolate spectrum.
Ashmanra, I’m drinking another cup of this tea right now, and I think it is firmly on the side of chocolate. More of a milk chocolate or a lighter dark chocolate, and not nearly as chocolatey as some teas I have tasted. On the other hand, I do still get a few sweet potato notes, but they aren’t so noticeable and definitely on the lighter side as far as that goes. I have a Yunnan “pure bud” bi luo chun black tea which has a much more pronounced sweet potato flavor by comparison.
Good to know! Thank you for the update!