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This elegant dry leaf brews up to a somewhat lackluster tea. I have tasted green teas that had tons more character and I’ve even had white teas that offered more.

I think, however, that the problem is ME and not Golden Moon. I’m one of Swift’s over-sized Brobdingagians in my taste and my temperaments. I like the huge big bow-wow and Snow Spout is like one of those delicate tiny humming-birds: blink and you don’t see it. I think that lovers of green tea might like this a lot and it’s worth trying for lovers of white tea.

I’m thinking of Stevie Smith’s charming couplet:
“That Englishwoman is so refined,
She has no bosom and no behind.”

This tea has got no bosom, no behind, but it is most certainly refined.

Many many thanks to the benevolent RICKY who sent me a generous sample of Honey Pear. Like others have said, the dry tea does not give away much in its odor. The brewed tea is sweet and delicious. It is very pleasantly sweet, just slightly astringent, and while the aftertaste of pear emerges quite nicely, it does not taste overtly of pear.

All in all, I don’t think I would buy a full order of this tea, but I might consider it. I think that the flavor of pear is elusive and delicate and hard to capture. When I think of Golden Moon’s Melon Tea, which I adore, I think that this one is a failure—perhaps a noble failure, but it just does not hit that great mark of prominence. If I wake up tomorrow jonesing for this tea, I will be certain to revise my note.

One aspect of tea that is important to me is “memory”. Do I remember the tea when it’s not in front of my face? Do I think of it fondly? Do I make up endearing little nicknames for it? Do I anthropomorphize the tea? I can remember good teas that taste wonderful. That’s a bit different than remembering a tea because of the time and place (you can bet I was thrilled with myself to be drinking tea in London’s Tate, but I am not certain that it was the tea as much as the location and the Turner excitement).

So we will see if Honey Pear makes another entry into my life. Will it be a very minor character or will it become a friend? Is it merely going to flirt with friendship? Or am I the one flirting with it?

“Th’event”, as Shakespeare often and very economically said to indicate that time and the future will reveal the outcome.

Today was the War of the Roses chez moi. I had consumed, with great pleasure, Rose Congou by Upton Tea Imports and then thought I would try another rose tea at hand, TeaSpring’s Rose Keemun.

The verdict is in: we have two winners. Upton’s offering decidedly has the greater rose aroma and taste but TeaSpring’s Keemun tastes more like a deep, rich, cup of tea. Rose Keemun has a lot of rose petals in it and looks very attractive yet the dry leaves don’t have much of a rose aroma. They smell a bit smoky, but not like a Souchong. Steeped, the tea liquer is a deeply satisfying and delightful Keemun—somewhat smoky and very layered and nuanced as a tea. The tea hints of many flavors—rose is among them. If I had a blind tasting I don’t know that I would identify the “rose” but I would get right away that it’s a high quality Keemun of distinctive and delicious flavor. I know that the congou is a Keemun tea, but TeaSpring has more of a distinctively “keemuny” smoky taste than does the Upton congou.

This Rose Keemun also has a very attractive “price-point” as Donald Trump would say (why doesn’t he just say “price?”) and I will order more. TeaSpring is a speedy and reliable shipper of teas direct from China.

I must thank LORI for sending me this delightful tea. Rose is an aroma and a flavor that I really enjoy when it is executed properly and does not seem synthetic. Upton Tea Imports, always reliable, always steady, always dependable, does a fantastic job with this blend.

If you like rose teas, I am confident that you will like this one. The aroma and taste are strong and steady and a tiny bit spicy, but the sweetness is never overbearing or cloying. I will order a full size next time I place an order with Uptons. It’s a great afternoon tea.

I liked this tea but was not in ecstasy. I think it’s a great oolong but it fails to win top grades with me simply because its identity is a bit too diffuse. I can tell and taste that this is a tea of great quality but drinking it feels as if I am standing in the middle of an enormous gallery at a fine art museum and I can only get impressions. I would want to move towards an individual painting to get a closer look but instead I cannot do that. It’s a vast canvas of a tea with a lot going on in the scene, but I cannot see if all.

It’s all true: buttery, vegetal, malty, yeasty, like wine, like fruit of various kinds. I think what I’m wanting is some sort of dominant note to ground the tea so that it can define itself more clearly.

I like 52teas a lot; I like the concept and I like some of their wild and crazy blends that turn out to be not the least bit crazy when you drink them. I have subscribed for almost 6 months and will probably continue my subscription, although I worry that they have a silo full of rooibos someplace.

I like the classic PBJ combo and I generally like what 52teas does with peanut flavors. But this “tea,” as others have noted, was a disappointment. I could not find the flavor. I hope that 52teas will start a subscription program where one can simply opt out of rooibos. I have so many of their rooibos packets dismally waiting for the love they will never find at my house. How did rooibos get to be a tea anyhow? Would the world of wine permit cranberry juice or Kool-Aid to be counted among its vintages?

Oh, 52teas! Please lavish your love and your ingenuity on the black and green tea blends that I love so much.

Random Selection from Golden Moon Tea Sampler—perhaps #18? I have lost count.

I had read the reviews of this previously and when I opened the package I was initially enchanted by the aroma. At last a Golden Moon Tea sample with some real character—which I have not seen since their wonderful Melon tea. Then I thought of a comment that Rabs had made about how this dry tea smells like Pledge furniture polish—-the thought popped into my head—I had read her review but it seemed like a long time ago.

So there i was with the proverbial mixed emotions: wanting to try a tea that kept oscillating in aroma between a good strong bergamot and Pledge. A sequence of ancient Pledge commercials paraded before my eyes and then led to a vision of that Ty-D-Bowl guy—-a miniature of the actor who played Murray on the Mary Tyler Moore Show—navigating the waters of a toilet on a small raft singing an eerily awful prototype of a raggastan number.

So I had digressed mentally but my nose had ferreted more deeply into the aroma and I was set to enjoy the tea—visions of New Lemon Pledge and Ty-D-Bowl notwithstanding. (The thing about popular culture is that it wraps itself around society including those virtuous people who don’t watch television but yet have somehow learned by magical Osmosis that Cyndi Lauper and Sharon Osbourne are on the Celebrity Apprentice kow-towing to Donald Trump—-and yet there was not one single mention of Britain’s parliamentary elections of yesterday in my local newspaper).

Another digression. The brew was a fairly decent Earl Grey but not one that made me want to sit up and salute. It’s a good Earl Grey but I continue to search for the definitive Earl Grey that I will want to always keep in my cupboard. There are a couple of candidates thus far, but this one just does not quite make it—sort of like the political parties in England—there is no clear winner yet and I will keep on trying Earl Grey teas but I don’t think I will end up with this as my standard of Earl Grey Excellence.

Not at all a bad effort, just not a stunner.

Plucked at random from Golden Moon Sampler Basket
Tasting Note circa #18 or 19

I tried to make this a success. I really did. I try to meet a tea and its demands 100%. I don’t think I can spin gold out of cat food but I do think I will try my hardest to bring out the best in the tea. I had a small sample and therefore only used about 3 ounces of water. The dry tea smelled faintly like one of those very mild soaps that they sell for use with babies. I could not pick up on the ginger at all.

Brewed, the golden tea looked ok but still did not present itself with a discernable aroma. Maybe if I conjure up vegetation in my mind it’s slightly vegetal but that might have been one of my Jedi Mind tricks (the limits of my Jedi Mind tricks are remarkable: pretend that the spinach has a romaine overtone—that sort of thing).

Ultimately, I think that I still prefer big, bold flavors and I like my ginger to be all full of huff and stuff. This is probably my least favorite of the Golden Moon Teas I’ve tested thus far.

I really like Vanilla so I ordered a fairly large bag (3.5 ounces) of this from the American Tea Room. Imitating JacquelineM I cut up a fresh Madagascar vanilla bean and allowed it to sit in the bag for about three weeks. The result is a deep, rich vanilla tea. I am certain that the flavor has been well-enhanced but also it may well have been quite strong before my addition.

Because of the strength of the vanilla, my tasting note may be a bit off. The black tea support seems to be excellent but also chosen as a backdrop to promote the vanilla.

If you like vanilla I would highly recommend JacquelineM’s method and get the best vanilla bean you can find and doctor the tea. I did not taste the tea previously, because I put the smallest hole in the bag possible to add my vanilla bean segments. It’s delightful and not the least bit ersatz!

Thank you so much to RICKY for sending me a sample of this tea. It’s sort of “meh”. The sprinkles are a nice touch, but they are a superficial bauble. The tea itself is too “generic black” to get me really interested—but it’s not a weak black. I think that the overtones of vanilla are a little too muted for me to appreciate them. Ditto with the caramel.

It’s a personable tea and a nice idea, but I don’t feel tempted to purchase it.