Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Darjeeling Tea Lovers
Tea Description:
This special lot from Goomtee comes from the super fine plucking of China classic plants which usually produce teas with sweet almondy qualities. The woody bouquet makes it a highly sought-after Autumn Flush Tea.
This is a very sweet and relaxing tea, with strong almondy and vanilla aromas. The taste is pleasantly sweet, with a stronger almond flavour coming through, followed eventually by the familiar earthy flavours.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Oh! The aroma that wafts from my teacup at the moment is absolutely delightful! This Goomtee Autumnal Classic from Darjeeling Tea Lovers smells amazing!
This tea really does have a strong almond and vanilla essence! It’s quite remarkable! It’s a pure, unflavored tea but with a truly remarkable flavor that evokes thoughts of something warm and baked, like a vanilla almond cake. YUM!
There is more to this cup, of course. Pleasant earthy notes with a woodsy tone provide a satisfying background of flavor while the creamy, sweet vanilla and nutty almond notes play in the foreground. It is sweet and enjoyable.
The sip starts out with a sweetness that is at first, difficult to distinguish. After a moment, my palate recognizes this flavor as sweet vanilla with almond. As the sip progresses, I start to notice the woodsy tones with a mellow earthy note. At the finish, the almond comes in strong, and it ends with a lovely creaminess. This tea has a light astringency to it that seems to cleanse the palate a little so that the creaminess doesn’t feel heavy or overwhelming to the palate. The aftertaste is sweet and lightly creamy.
A really enjoyable tea. I’m so happy to have more teas from Darjeeling Tea Lovers in my stash!
Goomtee Black Dragon Oolong First Flush from Darjeeling Tea Lovers
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Darjeeling Tea Lovers
Tea Description:
Goomtee Black Dragon, an OOLONG comes from a prestigious tea estate of Darjeeling. Gomtee produces some of the best teas that we have tasted so far. This oolong is a stand alone tea from their house. Long semi fermented leaves when steeped for 3 minutes gives a roasted chocolate flavour which makes this tea a must try for tea lovers.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
So far, the teas that I’ve tried from Darjeeling Tea Lovers have been all Darjeeling teas, so I was excited to finally be trying this Goomtee Black Dragon Oolong First Flush from them! An Oolong from the Darjeeling Region, even! Exciting!
The aroma of the dry leaf was earthy and sweet, with notes of an indistinguishable fruit … it had a fruit-like sweetness to the scent but, it was difficult to place exactly what fruit I was smelling. The brewed liquid smells more fruity … a fruit note that lies somewhere between plum and apricot and nectarine. I also smell a distinct “sweet” note that reminds me of cocoa with hints of burnt sugar.
The flavor is superb! Peach-like notes with floral hints. The promises of chocolate from the fragrance come alive in the flavor as well. Not a strong chocolate-y presence but certainly a welcome one. The chocolate notes seem to be more distinct when I aerate the sip with a slurp, so this is a tea that is definitely worth slurping! Yeah, don’t worry about it, nobody’s listening … go ahead and slurp!
The chocolate notes are not “slap you in the face” kind of chocolate notes … but, that’s OK. Yes, the chocoholic that always says more chocolate = better just said that! That’s because I love it when I find a pure tea like this that has natural notes of cocoa. This tea is pure joy!
The texture is soft and smooth and there is some astringency toward the finish. The aftertaste is sweet with just a hint of “tangy” from the stone fruit notes coming through. Subsequent infusions bring the chocolate notes into the foreground! Chocolate lovers … you’ll want to indulge in several infusions with this tea!
I am in agreement with the description above – this tea is definitely a MUST TRY for tea lovers … and for chocolate lovers too!
Goomtee Silver Green 2nd Flush from Darjeeling Tea Lovers
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Darjeeling Tea Lovers
Tea Description:
GOOMTEE SILVER GREEN is a visual delight for GREEN TEA LOVERS. This tea comes with a lot of SILVER NEEDLES to add glory to this wonderful and rare tea. Each sip is an instant trip to blissful nirvana.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Oh… this is nice!
I am absolutely loving this Goomtee Silver Green! It’s not at all what I expected when I first opened the package. As I usually do when I first open a package of tea, I inhaled deeply to take in the fragrance. It had a very vegetative and earthy fragrance, reminding me of the forest floor here in the Pacific Northwest – earthy, mossy, and woody.
Once it’s brewed it takes on a stronger vegetative tone, reminding me a bit of the smell that I’d experience while walking through the “green” section of the produce area in a natural foods market. Very green. Very fresh.
The taste is not quite as vegetative as I would have expected given the strong vegetative and earthy tones I experienced from smelling the dry leaf. Sure, it’s still vegetative, but, it is more like mild vegetables, like something between a steamed artichoke and steamed spinach, with a lovely buttery undertone. It’s remarkably smooth and free of that bitter grassy tone that green teas can sometimes possess. It has a slight astringency to it … but again, not nearly as much as I would expect from a Darjeeling green.
But it still has much of what I would expect from a Darjeeling green, too. It has that crisp, vibrant taste that is almost bubbly. Hints of fruit notes, although with this green variety the fruit notes are not as strongly pronounced as they might be with an oxidized Darjeeling. Hints of spice as well, but again, a mellower spice note than what I might experience from an oxidized Darjeeling.
A spectacular tea, I just love the sweetness of this cup, as well as the deliciously satisfying broth-y taste. It is very comforting, a nice cuppa to enjoy with the cooler weather of autumn.