Yunnan Gold, except for some Darjeeling teas, are really the only black teas I enjoy very much.
In a Swedish average tea store (one of those with 90 perfumed flavored black teas and 10 real teas, often of low grade), I bought some low quality “Yunnan Gold Superior", which was not unsurprisingly not as "superior" as it claimed, but it was what got me interested in these teas.
It had only maybe 10-20% golden tips and was very broken, but it was richer and sweeter and more interesting than any black tea I had in my life before, there was this weak tone of leather and the smell of old wooden middle-Sweden 19th century barns (I guess this is the flavour some describe as "earthy" or maybe it's "malty", but I don't know what malt tastes like). This smell of old middle Swedish barns is the aroma that is found in Pu'er teas, specially strong in "cooked" (shu) Pu'er. But at the same time it was very sweet and round (but easily god very strong such flavor) even though it was a low grade Yunnan Gold (these low grade broken ones are called Dian hong sui cha (滇紅碎茶). These are mostly used in English blends as I understand it, and are real cheap and BOP quality leaves but I must say I liked it because of it's Pu'er barn-like qualities.
But later (some week ago) I ordered two types of Yunnan black teas from a Swedish online tea shop that sells serious teas (one of only 4 such in Sweden, it's called House of Tea (
http://www.houseoftea.se) it's in Swedish though, but other Swedish or Scandinavian users might find it useful in case they don't know of it already).
The ones I ordered from that place were:
One expensive with only golden buds: Dian hong jin ya 滇紅金芽 (means like: Yunnan Red Golden Bud)
One cheaper with mostly (~70%) black leaf: Dian hong jin zhen 滇红金针 which means Yunnan Red Golden Needle.
Trivia: 金针 (jin zhen) is a wordplay since it can also mean "day lily bud" which is a golden (orange really) flower bud which is used in Chinese cooking. But the leaves are thin like needles unlike the much wider and softer buds in the Dian hong jin ya. So it means two things, very smart, and the smell of the dry leaves is indeed more flowery in this cheaper one.
The two have this certain Yunnan Gold tea aroma that is unlike anything else but very sweet. The one with black leaves is more bitter, but has a stronger aroma specially of the dry leaves (which are very whole and long). The golden-buds-only tea (Dian hong jin ya) has a much sweeter rounder mouth flavour but of the same very special type of aroma, but it is also much milder, so it needs more leaf, or more buds to be precise. But since the all-golden-bud tea cost 4 times as much, and you need more of it, it's certainly a tea only for rare occasions.