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This is a post I originally made on /r/tea, but re-purposed for my site. As I start to post here more often, I hope to come back and do a “round two” Jin Jun Mei tasting where I drop out some of the weaker teas and add others that I haven’t tasted. This second round of tasting will include more detailed price comparisons, along with pictures and other things that people had asked for in the comments. For now, this is a word-for-word recreation of my original post.
I’m not a professional tea reviewer, and not as studied in tea as many other people on /r/tea; however, I decided I wanted to try a few types of Jin Jun Mei and let others know how I felt about them. I know there is a lot of opinions and thoughts on “real” Jin Jun Mei, and I suppose I should preface this with knowledge that I have never been to Wuyishan or even the Fujian province. I ordered all of my tea over the Internet based on teas that I had seen recommended to other users, and had to rely on information provided from the reviews, sellers, and distributors. My opinions are not about how close these teas are to “true” Jin Jun Mei, but my opinions on teas that are called Jin Jun Mei by various sellers/distributors.
I tasted all of these teas Gong Fu style, using ~5g to a 120ml gaiwan, and a water temperature between 195F and 205F. Infusions were usually done at 10sec increments, increasing by ~5sec for subsequent infusions. When provided, I used the seller/distributors’ instructions; but these are pretty general numbers and amounts.
| Ranking | Company | Tea |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wuyi Origin | 2017 Jinjunmei (honey aroma) Grade A |
| 2 | Meileaf | Gleaming Brow |
| 3 | Old Ways Tea | Jin Jun Mei |
| 4 | Verdant Tea | Tieguanyin Jin Jun Mei |
| 5 | Yunnan Sourcing | Pure Gold Jin Jun Mei |
| 6 | Yezi Tea | Jin Jun Mei |
| 7 | Life In Teacup | Wuyi Jin Jun Mei |
| 8 | Verdant Tea | 2017 Togmu Reserve Jin Jun Mei |
| 9 | Tealyra | Jin Jun Mei Lapsang Golden Eyebrow |
There were actually two teas that I tried from Wuyu Origin – the 2017 Jinjunmei (honey aroma) Grade A and 2017 Jinjunmei (honey aroma). I think they were very similar, with the Grade A being a bit sweeter, and maybe a bit more flavorful overall? The Wuyi Origin Jin Jun Mei is probably my favorite tea in general – I like this more than any others that I’ve tried (any kind of green, black, puerh, etc.). The dry leaf has notes of sweet bread, wood, and some kind of nuts (maybe almonds). After a rinse, the wet leaf has strong notes of chocolate and raisins. It still retains some of the notes of sweet breads/pastries that you could smell from the dry leaf as well. A first infusion has a great flavor – a subtle sweetness. Things like rose water, and sweet pastries come to mind. The taste is clean, and (maybe disappointingly) the tea doesn’t exactly “coat” my mouth like some other more oily feeling teas would. Later infusions dull the sweetness, but a constant taste of fresh bread remains. Overall, this tea was relatively cheap compared to some of the other ones I’ve tried, which makes it easy for me if I want to get some more.
I would highly recommend this tea – even if you weren’t looking to try Jin Jun Mei.
This was a very good tea; albeit, very expensive. The dry leaf and wet leaf were very similar; both had strong chocolatey notes, and maybe some raisin/plumb. Compared to the other ones I tried, this was probably the sweetest, and had the longest lasting sweetness over multiple infusions. This was similar to the Wuyi Origin one in that it had notes that reminded me of rose water and pastries. There were some more chocolate and earthy notes that came with later infusions. This one definitely did leave the feeling that my mouth had a coating of tea after drinking. It was nice, and very smooth overall.
I liked this tea, but it is very expensive in my opinion – I enjoyed it a lot, but it would be difficult to convince myself to buy it again based on price alone.
This was a beautiful tea, with many more golden buds than the Wuyi Origin or Meileaf teas. This worried me a bit because I had heard about teas being picked too early so that there would be more golden buds; however, I don’t think this affected the tea negatively. The dry and wet leaf was very earthy and had strong nutty notes, with some minor grape/raisin notes. The flavor was not as sweet as others, but still very tasty. I would say that this one was a bit more earthy with more subtle sweet notes, which didn’t change a huge amount through to later infusions. The sweetness may have actually intensified after the second infusions, which brought out a lot of grape-like flavor. I think this was closer to the later infusions of the Meileaf Gleaming Brow.
I would definitely recommend trying this tea out, even if it isn’t as sweet as the others.
The dry leaf smelled like wood, with some subtle sweet notes. This will sound somewhat strange, but it also reminded me of the scent of a Lipton tea bag. The wood notes were probably the strongest. The wet leaf smelled very different, and the sweeter notes of raisins/grapes and plumbs came out. The taste was okay, but not as good as the others. There was a kind of “generic black tea” flavor to it, with the same raisin/grape notes from the scent of the wet leaves. There was a bit of a bread-like taste as well, but the aftertaste was very smokey and malty.
Overall not necessarily a bad tea, but not necessarily as good as the other Jin Jun Mei I’ve had.
This tea seemed to have too many golden buds – so many that the first few infusions (after a wash) completely clogged my filter with the clumped up golden hairs. The smell of the leaf was very strong, and had some obvious sweet notes, but maybe some smokey notes as well. I did not enjoy the first few infusions, and it seemed to leave a bad taste in my mouth. Later infusions tasted closer to a generic Lapsang Souchong than a Jin Jun Mei (at least compared to the other Jin Jun Mei I’ve had).
While this tea looked amazing because of how golden it was, and how the gold buds contrasted the very dark buds, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.
The dry leaf had a strong notes of nuts and wood, with some “generic Lipton tea bag” notes as well. Water brought out some chocolatey and spicy notes, with subtle notes of raisins. With later infusions, the tea had a kind of smokey scent, but it never impacted the taste of the tea. The taste was okay with notes of chocolate and raisins, but the aftertaste was very “clean” and the flavor was not very lasting. Overall the tea seemed kind of thin, and upon closer inspection of the leaves, I realized that there was a large number of twigs/sticks in the “leaf.” This is very disappointing because it detracts from the taste of the tea. While the taste had some potential, it wasn’t nearly strong enough to give a good review in my opinion.
####Life In Teacup – Wuyi Jin Jun Mei {#life-in-teacup .yellow}
Kind of continuing along the lines of teas that are less sweet than the others, the dry leaf in the Life In Teacup Wuyi Jin Jun Mei had a very smokey and musty scent. There were some nutty/almond notes, and maybe a bit of chocolate as well; but the smokey notes were a bit stronger. I’d also note that there were many broken leaves in the package I received. This may have been because the tea had been shipped in an envelope rather than a box like most of the other ones I had gotten. I cannot say that this did not impact the my opinion of the tea, as I do not typically drink tea with so many broken leaves. The wet leaf was closer to the scent of other Jin Jun Mei that I’ve had, with sweeter raisin/grape notes, and subtle chocolate notes. The flavor was not bad, but definitely had a smokey taste similar to the smokey taste you get from a gunpowder green tea. There were also notes of some kind of spice and maybe pepper? The aftertaste was not bad, and kind of “clean” with no mouth coating.
This wasn’t really my cup of tea.
This was unlike the other Verdant Jin Jun Mei that I had, and surprised me quite a bit. The dry leaf had a very sweet bread-like scent with notes of wood and nuts. The wet leaf was similar to others with a bit of a chocolatey scent with subtle notes of raisins/plumbs. The taste of the tea was actually very good as well, with some lite grape-like notes and maybe some hazelnut nuttiness. There was also a slight coffee-like taste that was surprisingly good in later infusions. After the first few infusions, I definitely tasted notes of what I buttery biscuits which was very surprising.
The one thing that was very off putting from this tea was the aftertaste. It was very smokey and eventually tasted very strongly of cigarettes. The taste of the actual tea was very good, but this strong cigarette aftertaste lingered. The aftertaste heavily impacted my opinion of this tea, as it would have been much higher in my list had it not existed.
This was the biggest surprise out of the bunch. I do not like to talk very negatively about tea or different companies, but I do not have anything positive to say about this tea. As soon as I opened the package, I was hit with a strong campfire scent. After weighing and dumping out the leaf, the entire room was filled with the strong smokey scent and a fake bacon-like scent. It was strong enough that other people in my house commented on the scent; and pouring hot water on the leaf only made the scent stronger. Smelling the wet leaf directly, I couldn’t pull out any sweet notes; there was only fake bacon and barbecue sauce. I didn’t drink more than four infusions before I decided to throw it away. The taste was basically like a smokey barbecue sauce, with an aftertaste of a generic black tea.
After throwing it out, and washing (with hot water) and wiping out my tea ware, the scent still lingered. I ended up having to use a very mild detergent and scrubbing quite a bit to get the scent out.
I would not recommend this tea.
Would you rank any of these differently? If you’ve been to Fujian and have actually tried Jin Jun Mei while you were there, would you compare any of these to the taste you experienced? I know that Jin Jun Mei is sometimes a… touchy (?) subject due to the nature of what is considered “real” and what is not. Although other peoples opinions might differ from mine, I thought this could be useful for other people who may want to try some teas that are listed as Jin Jun Mei.