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This was sent to me by the generous MzPriss. It wasn’t even a swap, she just sent it out of the kindness of her heart, aww… Sorry it took me so long to try it! :P It’s been a while since I had one of these giant golden fuzzbud (™?) Yunnans. This tea is composed entirely of huge, fat, golden buds that are super fuzzy. Dry scent is very sweet with a ton of honey and apricot and a little hint of cinnamon. The recommended steep was 1 minute but I found it too light for my tastes and let it go for an extra minute.

Mm, it smells like pastry with honey and golden raisins! The taste… Definitely a lot of fluffy, buttery pastry. There’s an inherent creaminess that, combined with the slight grain note, reminds me of soy milk. I also get a very mild sweet potato flavor, definitely with a little bit of butter and honey mixed in. I’m actually a little bit sad that I don’t get that interesting cinnamon scent in the taste… I did a second steep at 4 minutes and it came out very similar to the first with a little bit of a stronger grain note.

Overall, yes this tea is good. However, the price is way too steep in my opinion. I have had very similar teas from Yunnan Sourcing, and they have several other fuzzbud™ Yunnan teas that I haven’t tried yet. And the price is less than half of this tea! So it seems a bit excessive to me, but to each their own. :P

Another lovely Yunnan tea from TeaVivre! I’ve learned to have very high expectations for their teas, whether they’re premium, superfine, nonpareil, or just regular. They’ve definitely become one of my top 5 favorite companies for tea. I’ve tried three of their other Dian Hong teas, and I have a sample of the last one on the way. So I was curious to see how this compared, and where it fell between the Gold Tip and “regular” Dian Hong versions. The leaves are long and straight, and quite thin. I would estimate the golden bud content to be about 40%. Dry, the leaves smell quite sweet with lots of honey and apricot, and some mild malt in the background. Did the usual 3 minute steep. :D

Wow, the aroma! This is definitely the strongest honey scent I’ve ever found in a tea, and it’s accompanied by lovely apricot and raisin notes, and the ubiquitous malt.

I was so surprised by the taste that it deserves a new paragraph… Lol. It has the lovely bread flavor that I’ve come to expect from good Yunnans, but it also tastes like creamy oatmeal and chewy raw grains. This is reminding me a lot of Shang’s red teas with their combination of white and black tea flavors. It has that grain note that borders on being a white tea-like sweet hay flavor. The honey really starts to come out near the end, along with the apricot, and these two form a lovely aftertaste with a bit of graininess still present.

I have to say, this is not at all what I expected! I was prepared for this to fall somewhere between the bready/honey/stonefruit of the Golden Tip and the earthier and more robust “regular” Dian Hong. But this definitely has a flavor profile all its own, and it’s very delicious.

Thanks Angel and Mary at Teavivre for giving me to opportunity to try so many of your teas at little to no cost to me! You have an amazing company and your service is always fantastic!

Edit: Totally forgot to mention that I took a huge mouthful of this, and then there was this pesky tingling in my throat. Of course, I ended up coughing and spewing tea everywhere… Luckily, it was mostly just all over my pajamas and not my laptop. Such a graceful moment.

Purchased this from kimquat in her stash sale (I sincerely hope that her name is Kim and people call her that in person, too cute)! I am continuing my quest to try all the Yunnans! Honestly, it doesn’t say where this tea is from on their website, but I was assuming Yunnan based on the appearance and the smell. The leaves are very long and slender, slightly twisted. It’s almost all fuzzy golden buds with some dark grey leaves mixed in. The smell is mild malty bread with honey and stonefruit notes. I did a 3 minute steep at 200 degrees. I’m always so tempted to overleaf these teas because when I get the leaf in, it looks like so little leaf!

The brewed aroma is all baked bread and malt with the same stonefruit and honey notes from the dry leaf. I catch a little nip of earthy, mineral scent. Mm, this is very delicious. The strongest flavor here is crusty bread and malt, yum yum yum. One of my very favorite notes in tea! This bread happens to be toasted with a little bit of honey and apricot preserve over the top. It’s very smooth and lovely with a silky mouthfeel. I do get that little bite of earthy and mineral somewhere near the end, and I think it adds a lovely dimension, even though earthy isn’t generally my favorite.

Yum yum delicious! Thanks kimquat!

My last tea for the evening… The tea bag smells like a sugar cookie to me! Yums!

Brewed, it smells very similar to the dry tea bag. Very vanilla-y, sweet and buttery like a shortbread or sugar cookie. Definitely creamy as well. The taste follows suit nicely! It’s very creamy and buttery with a fair amount of vanilla. This reminds me of Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride. I don’t really taste the honeybush, it just manifests as the grain portion of the cookie. Yums! :D

More rooibos! :) Continuing my re-tasting of all the Chanakara collection teas that I found at my mom’s place. The tea bag smells delicious, like tart strawberry candy! But not fake strawberry really, just extra juicy and sweet.

Mmm, the brewed aroma is strawberry jam! Deep and concentrated rich strawberry flavor. I’m happy to report that the taste is the same as the smell! YUM-O! It absolutely tastes like homemade strawberry preserves, meaning it tastes like real strawberries but more concentrated and cooked. So good, I’ll have to order this one when I run out of bags! :)

Purchased this from Maria in her stash sale. I figured I’d keep going with trying all of my untasted rooibos/honeybush blends since I’d already started. :P Rooibopalooza! This looks like rooibos with those weird little caramel cubes in it. It smells fairly caramelly and custardy.

Meh… This mostly tastes like rooibos to me. There’s a little bit of caramel and a creamy element, but they’re mostly just accents to the plain ol’ rooibos. Tastes woody and slightly medicinal. Not a big fan!

Another sample from Mandy! There are a few pieces of dodgy-looking coconut mixed in with the honeybush. They almost look (and feel) like paper… weird. I do smell coconut, but it also has that alcoholic flavoring smell that I’ve been finding in so many flavored teas lately. I did a 5 minute steep in boiling water, and used a little over a teaspoon of tea.

The brewed tea smells lightly of coconut, and heavily of vanilla pudding! :O Exciting! Meh… Taste-wise, the flavor is a bit weak for me, I think in the future I’ll use two teaspoons. The flavor this is there is rather good, though! Very creamy and vanilla pudding-ish, with plenty of coconut. I get something resembling crust in the aftertaste, probably just as a result of the honeybush base and not the flavoring.

Overall, this is quite good! I find it to be mostly accurate to coconut cream pie, it definitely has the coconut and the cream down if not the crust as much. Reminds me of pudding, yum! I won’t have any trouble drinking the rest of my sample. :D

Edit: I think the actual coconut pieces in here might be past their expiration… I’m getting a weird sour taste on the tail end of some sips. I’ll remove them and try again another time.

This is from my swap with Mandy. Must try all the almond teas! :D The smell is not terribly enticing, it has that alcoholic “flavoring” smell that tells me nothing, lol! Steeped about 1.5 tsp for 5 minutes in boiling water.

Mmm, the brewed aroma is definitely marzipan! Yummmm! I was fully prepared to be disappointed by this tea, but it defied my low expectations! The flavor is mostly sweet almond extract or marzipan, which I adore. There’s definitely a cherry element here, though. It’s like Jergens lotion! Lol. In the best way possible! I did add sugar to mine. The rooibos taste comes out a little bit near the end, but it’s definitely not very strong.

Pleasantly surprised! :D

Another sample from Nicole! I’m not generally a fan of green oolongs, so we’ll see how this goes! The pellets are fairly dark for a green oolong, and they’re somewhat small. I get a vague fruity smell along with a “green” scent. I did a 3 minute steep at 185 degrees.

I definitely get crisp pears from the aroma, which is lovely. The green oolong scent is also still there, unsurprisingly. Yum, pear! This is definitely a pear tea. The flavor reminds me more of cooked or canned pears than fresh, which is not a problem. There’s a lovely honey note that melds beautifully with the pear. I’m always unsure how to describe the flavor of green oolongs – it’s not really vegetal and not quite grassy. The only thing I can think of is that it tastes like leaves, which just sounds stupid to say. :P There’s a bit of a floral note here, which I pretty much expect from a green oolong. It’s rather mild though, so I’m okay with it! The pear is the star, and it’s very tasty! Thanks Nicole, this one surprised me!

I got this sample from the lovely Nicole (thanks dear). It was two servings originally, but I sent one to Roswell Strange in our recent swap. So technically this is a sipdown, I guess. Hah. Visually, it just looks like short, dark black tea leaves. The smell is vaguely sweet and vanilla, I don’t get any orange. I checked Tealeaves’s website and used their recommended parameters. In hindsight, I feel this should be steeped longer than 3 minutes.

Ah, there you are, mandarin! I can definitely smell it in the brewed tea, along with sweet vanilla. I’m surprised by how specifically mandarin the orange flavoring is, usually I find orange to be rather generic “orange”. But this time it’s definitely mandarin oranges, yum! The vanilla is sweet and creamy, and it rather reminds me of vanilla pudding or custard. There’s the tiniest hint of floral near the end of the sip for me, but it’s a very mild floral.

If I tried this one again, I think I would do a 4-5 minute steep instead. Otherwise, quite delicious! Thanks Nicole! :)