Dry leaf, consisting almost exclusively of unbroken golden tips, is extremely aromatic and fresh, with the characteristic quality that all black teas from Yunnan province seem to have, but fruitier than normal.

Upon brewing, the leaf turns darker in color and produces a rich brown cup.

Like other Yunnan Dian Hong "pure gold" teas that I've tried, this tea is very smooth and has a muted quality to it. It actually reminds me substantially of TeaVivre's Bailin Gong Fu.

Aroma is strongly fruity, almost like raisins or dark grapes, and also bready or biscuity. Flavor is very smooth, with a muted bitterness that emerges in the middle of your sip and then vanishes. There is a sort of strength to this tea, almost like a suggestion of edginess with the edge taken off. Finish is oddly astringent given how low this tea is in bitterness. There's only a hint of the peppery sensation that most Yunnan Dian Hong has.

Overall, drinking this tea leads to a very interesting experience. There's a lot going on both in the aroma and the sensations on the palate.

I found brewing this tea to be pretty easy; it infuses relatively slowly for a black tea, and the character does not change much based on how long you steep it, it just gradually becomes stronger. It is also good for many infusions, at least 2 long or 3 brief ones, brewed Western-style. One caveat: TeaVivre recommends brewing this tea with 185F water; I tried this and, while I found that it brought out faint melon-like tones absent when brewing with boiling water (suggestive of silver needle white tea), the overall result was a blander, weaker cup that had a lot less complexity. I prefer using boiling water.

This tea is not cheap, but Yunnan gold made exclusively of buds never is. I also preferred this slightly to the pure bud Yunnan gold teas from both Adagio and Life in Teacup.

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