Kimberley's Kyusu

Hey there Teacups! It’s time again for another Let’s Talk Tea post, this time around I’m going to be reviewing JK Tea Stores – Jin Mao Hou (Golden Monkey – Black Tea). I’m sure by now you’re all sick of me telling you all how much I love black tea, so you can only imagine how excited I was when I saw that JK Tea had included this in the package they very kindly sent. I’ve never tired a Jun Mao Hou tea before so I with it being completely new to me I simply had to choose this one to review first.

Dry Leaves

Tea Tasting Notes

You all seemed to enjoy the way I talked through my steeps in my last post so I though with this being another session I did using my gaiwan I might as well do the same for this review. For this session I used 3g of tea, my glass gaiwan and with this being a black tea I did use boiling water.

Steep 1: 10 secs | Sweet – Malt – Honey – Vanilla – Orange Peel – Toffee | Flavour wise it reminded me quite a bit of T2’s Grand Yunnan | Dark Amber in Colour | Very nice in taste mostly sweet and malty but there is a slight smokiness in there as well.

Steep 2: 20 secs | Stronger Malt Notes – Still Quite Sweet – Stronger Smokey Notes | Toffee – Wood – Malt – Honey – Orange Peel – Lemon Peel – Treacle | I was a little bit nervous when I first saw this tea in my package from JK Tea but how could you not love it with a flavour profile like this.

Steep 3: 30 secs | Sweetness Calmed Down – Malt Notes Are Much Stronger – Vanilla – Slight Citrus (Orange & Lemon Peel) – Toffee – Treacle | No Astringency at All
Steep 4: 40 secs | Pretty much the same as steep 3 just a little bit lighter and much sweeter.

Steep 5: 50 secs | Pretty much the same as steep 4 but it had a much stronger vanilla note and the Smokey note had completely disappeared. To be honest the Smokey note left after steep 3 and everything else because a little more muted.

Steep 6: 60 secs | Everything about the steep was light almost all of the best aspects of this tea were either completely gone or extremely muted and as a result I stopped my first session with this tea here.

I stopped this tasting session initially at 6 steeps but just like the taste tasting session I did I just didn’t want to miss out on something I hadn’t yet discovered in this tea because I didn’t try and push it just a few more steeps so I did 5 more with it and I’m very glad that I did. Recently I’ve really enjoyed taking breaks in tea tasting sessions and coming back to teas after a few hours it’s nice to be able to carry a tea through a full day.

All in all, I really enjoyed this tea in fact it’s probably one of the best straight/unblended black teas I’ve had in a while. It’s got such an amazing flavour profile and I could easily see myself drinking this every single day. A big thank you goes to JK Tea for making my love for black teas even stronger. I’ve been drinking from the sample they sent to me for a while now and I’ll be sad once it’s all gone. I’ll do doubt be ordering some more though when it runs out because this really has been one of the best black teas I’ve had in a good while and I just don’t think my tea collection/stash would be complete without it. JK Tea very kindly sent me a bunch of samples to try and I think I’ve started off with the best one. I can’t wait to see if the rest are as great as this one is.

As always Teacups if you have any questions at all either stick them in the comments or send them to me on either Twitter/Instagram @teaisawishblog and I’ll answer them as soon as I can.

Speak to you all on Wednesday. Happy Steeping! – Kimberley