Tea Review time! Today, Yunnan Sourcing’s Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black tea. This is the Spring 2014 batch from Simao prefecture, China.

I first saw this tea when Yunnan Sourcing posted a picture of the leaf on facebook. Immediately the Tea Owl alert went off for “OMG GORGEOUS LOOKING TEA!” With one of my recent Yunnan sourcing purchases I did not hesitate to buy 50 grams of Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black tea. When my package arrive, it was the first tea I cracked into and sampled. With the crazy amount of tea that comes to me and the Tea Owls, it’s a rare site for me to sample a tea immediately.

Dry Leaf

Gorgeous! Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black tea looks like long spindles of gold with black insides. The dry tea has a lightly sweet scent.

Steeping Instructions

I decided to steep Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black tea gong fu style so I can use my black yixing pot. I love my black yixing pot though it has been looking a little ugly these days. With that said, I used 5 grams of tea and boiling water. I started with a quick rinse, and starting the steepings at 15 seconds, adding an additional 15 seconds as I went on.

Tasting of Yunnan Sourcing’s Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black tea

With the first infusion, the color of Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black is bronze tipped with a gold tint – quite luxurious! Sweet mellow creamy scent.

First Infusion: Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black sips in sweet with a heavy, thick creamy body. The flavor is light, typical for a first steeping, with honey notes, a little malt, vanilla with a light nutty finish.

Second Infusion: Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black Tea is ramping up and very tasty! A hint roasted nut notes appear in this steeping along with some caramel honey notes. It’s like drinking liquid toasted nutty candy brittle held together with spun caramel. The color shifted to a beautiful reddish amber.

Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Infusion: The “meat” of the tea session – the flavor of Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black Tea. The flavor has shifted to be quite malty and sweet buried in the thick creamy body. There are notes of toasted nut caramel honey as well. I inhaled these steepings so fast that I only got the aftertaste while waiting for the next infusion to steep, which is a light stone fruit flavor – maybe peach? With each infusion, the tea is getting sweeter and more fruity. By the way, so bitter or dryness in these steepings.

Seventh and Eighth Infusion: The flavor of Imperial Golde Needle Yunnan Black Tea was starting to wane, so I increased the infusions to an additional 30s. The flavor shifted to be more bright, sweet, fruity, malty, vanilla and milk chocolate. The nutty notes are gone and this tea has a ovaltine flavor to it from the malt and chocolate. In these late steepings there is a bit of dryness, 1/10 on the Astringency Meter, with a bit of dryness sticking to the teeth after each sip.

The Tea Owl and I discovered Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black tea is a dupe for light agave syrup!

Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Infusion: Color dropped to a light gold.

The final infusions of Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black Tea are super smooth with plenty of sweetness, light melty cocoa and a chocolate caramel after taste.

Comments

Yunnan Sourcing’s Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black tea is very tasty – easy to drink, enough complexity to enjoy each infusion and beautiful appearance for both the dry leaf and steeped tea. If you love golden bud or golden needle black teas – this is a must try!

The price of Imperial Gold Needle Yunnan Black tea is very good too – around $7 for 50 grams, which is great for a high quality tea. At this time, the same tea is available at Yunnan Sourcing.us (US site) and the Autumn 2014 harvest is available at Yunnan Sourcing.com (Chinese site). I mostly buy pu’er and teaware from both Yunnan Sourcing sites, now I need to try out more of their other teas!

Bonus: Tea Owl leaf inspection!

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