Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black Tea * Spring 2017

Another adorable baby swap sample from Arby! (I think…) Lovely feathery golden fuzz sticks!

I sipped this while working and didn’t pay nearly enough attention to it. It has that lovely light golden Yunnan flavor, with oodles of bready sweet potato and malt. There’s also a light savoriness reminding me of French fries, which contrasts nicely with a bit of wildflower honey sweetness. I also get a nice fuzzy apricot note, which is a bit stronger near the end of the sip.

Fuzzy Yunnan noms, yes please!

Alright, I’m getting around to reviewing this tea earlier than planned. I usually wait until I have finished what I have of any given tea before editing and organizing my session notes and then posting a review at some point afterwards. Well, I am not doing that with this tea. I think I have around 5 or 6 grams left in my 50 gram pouch that I plan on polishing off later in the evening. I have a pretty good grasp on what this tea has to offer right now, though, so I am going ahead and posting a review here. I think everyone knows that I love Yunnan black teas, but I can actually be pretty picky about them. I tend to look for lots of aromas, lots of flavors, and clearly defined texture, and if something seems out of whack or too timid, then I can get pretty critical. I can’t do that with this tea though. There just really wasn’t much for me to criticize about it.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea buds in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 18 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea buds emitted aromas of chocolate, baked bread, smoke, pine, sugarcane, molasses, malt, and sweet potato. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of roasted almond, marshmallow, honey, banana, and caramel as well as subtle scents of eucalyptus. The first infusion saw the emergence of stronger eucalyptus aromas as well as the emergence of a buttery scent. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of chocolate, baked bread, honey, malt, sugarcane, pine, and smoke that were balanced by hints of molasses, butter, and eucalyptus. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of vanilla, fennel, roasted walnut, black pepper, sweet cherry, and orange zest. Marshmallow, roasted almond, sweet potato, and caramel notes appeared in the mouth alongside stronger molasses and eucalyptus impressions and hints of banana. New notes of minerals, cream, vanilla, fennel, black pepper, roasted walnut, nutmeg, ginger, orange zest, sweet cherry, and cooked green beans also appeared along with subtle hints of roasted chestnut and earth. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, malt, baked bread, roasted almond, chocolate, marshmallow, caramel, and sweet potato that were chased by hints of butter, vanilla, orange zest, molasses, honey, sugarcane, black pepper, ginger, roasted chestnut, fennel, pine, and eucalyptus.

This was an incredibly complex tea with wonderful body and texture in the mouth. If I have one complaint about it, it is that some of my favorite aromas and flavors faded slightly sooner than I would have liked. That is really nitpicking though. This was a great Yunnan black tea, and it did not seem to have lost any vigor in storage. If you have yet to try any of Yunnan Sourcing’s Gold Needle black teas, you really ought to do so at some point in the near future.

We live in a cottage in the middle of a pine forest, and the stone on our house has accents that mimic the color of the pine bark, the paint was inspired by lichen and green pine needles. This tea deserves a permanent place in my home for its looks, alone. The needle shaped leaves with their beaver pelt brown color look so similar to the loblolly pine needles on the forest floor surrounding our home.

This is an interesting and complex black tea. There are the typical notes you expect in most black teas like the dark chocolate, the maltiness, honey, and sweet potato, but there is more to this. It is highly perfumed. There are some spice notes that remind me of chai, but not as bright or as strong. It does not have any citrus ginger notes that I can detect, but more of the nutmeg, cardamom spices in chai.

Mouth feel is thick and very creamy. No bitterness or astringent qualities when brewing this with short sessions of 15-30 seconds in a small gaiwan. I don’t really care for cream in my tea, but I decided to try it, since it reminded me of chai. It certainly holds its own with the cream and powers through it. If you are a fan of chai, you may really like this tea with a bit of cream and honey or simple syrup. I prefer it straight up. It’s a keeper.