Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Teavivre
Tea Description:
Coming from Fujian, the Golden Monkey is made of the fresh buds and leaves of Fuding Pekoe, by lightly sun withering, rolling, fermentation and drying. Golden Monkey has the particular aroma of black tea. You could scent the fruity flavor through every sip of the tea.
The golden hairy tips truly make this tea more attractive. This is one reason why it is called Golden Monkey. Another reason is its monkey-claw-liked shape of the dry tea, which is in golden and black color. When brewed, the Golden Monkey Tea tastes brisk and smooth for the first sip, presenting a distinctive flavor. If you like stronger flavor, you could brew for a longer time. The sweet aftertaste could act faster for thicker liquid. You could only feel it when trying by yourself.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
In my opinion, Golden Monkey is a Teavivre classic – one that all tea lovers (and particularly black tea lovers) should try at some point. It’s a cupboard staple for me, perfect in any season, and at any time of the day or night. It’s a real comfort tea, for me. Reliable, versatile, and tasty to boot! I used 1 tsp of leaf for my current cup, and gave it approximately 2.5 minutes in boiling water. The resulting liquor is lightly golden, the scent sweet and malty with an underlying hint of grain. I’m drinking it without additions today, hence the reasonably low steep time on this occasion, but it also works well with a 4 minute brew and a splash of milk.
One of the reasons I like this one so much is its almost intensely chocolatey initial flavour. It’s like a square of high quality dark chocolate; bittersweet, with an edge of dark, dry cacao. The malty notes emerge in the mid-sip, and make this a much sweeter prospect, which becomes a little reminiscent of molasses. It’s by no means overpowering, though – there’s just a hint of something treacley lurking in the background. Notes of baked bread, grain and a light nuttiness develop towards the end of the sip, along with a smooth caramel richness.
I like that this can be a layered, nuanced cup without milk – there’s a lot to taste, but it all somehow works together to create a flavourful, full-bodied cup that’s immensely satisfying. It’s a little more generic with milk, which seems to flatten some of the flavours and drown others, but I can enjoy it either way. A cup with milk typically features, for me, a stronger note of baked bread, a little chocolate, and a similar level of malt and grain. It’s a slightly altered, less intense flavour profile, but sometimes that’s exactly what I want. Golden Monkey is tea that suits any mood. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll never look back.
Caramel au beurre Oolong Tea from Dammann Freres
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Dammann Freres
Tea Description:
Natural velvety notes of an oolong tea here combined with those sweet and savory of a caramel aroma. A subtle balance between vegetal notes and the greedy notes of toffee that many will taste with treat in a delicious and gourmet cup.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Caramel au beurre sale from Dammann Freres is quite a fragrant tea. It smells like a caramel lovers heaven. I count myself as a fanatic of the caramelized sugar crowd, so consider me on cloud nine. The tightly rolled dark green nuggets of oolong goodness looked almost like a dark roast in the package, which got me worried. I am not a huge fan of dark roasted oolongs. But brewing this up in my gaiwan, the hot water turned these nuggets of pure magic into bright green leaves, almost exploding out of the cup.
This tea is, in short, like drinking liquid gold. I am, of course, assuming that gold tastes like the best, creamiest, richest, homemade caramel you have ever tasted. The tea soup is thick and smooth. The oolong base is well-paired with the flavors of the rich caramel. The smooth floral notes of rose and lilac sing out with the sweetness of the caramel. And don’t even get me started about the aroma. It’s so good it would knock the whole town of Werther, Germany off it’s feet. (In case you did not know, Werther is the name of the town in Germany where the Werther’s caramel hard candies were named after.)
The French do a great job with flavored teas. They are gaining quite a following throughout the world. Even countries that have been producing their own classical teas have been exploding with growth in these areas. These tea boutiques provide the aesthetic that looks like wealth. Drinking French tea in an English style teapot is a fashion accessory the same way a Burberry coat and a Coach handbag displays wealth. While I do not own either, I am happy to sip my fancy French tea from my chipped gaiwan. Whenever I feel the need to be fancy, I will put on my pop-bead pearls and sips this tea daintily!
Sugarcane Black Tea from Canton Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Tea Description:
This black tea is wilted and then fired briefly in Yunnan red cane sugar (an unprocessed sugar similar to muscavado). The tea maker learned the sugar technique from a Fujian tea master in Wuyi, and brought it back to Yunnan to make it his own. Just a small amount of sugar is used in the firing process, it is mixed with water and added to the wilted tea leaves during the frying stage of the processing, giving the brewed tea a pleasingly balanced sweetness. Having proved popular with both Tea Club customers and Canton staff, we had to bring this tea into our collection.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The name of this tea attracted me to it right away – Sugarcane Black Tea. Just the sound of it sounds like it’s going to make my sweet tooth very happy. So, when Canton Tea Co. sent me a sampling of it, I was very excited to try it!
I read a little bit about the process this tea undergoes to earn the name “Sugarcane Black” – apparently, the tea varietal used here is Zheng shan xiao zhong which is the same tea that is smoked to become Lapsang Souchong. But instead of smoking this tea…
… freshly picked tea is wilted and then briefly fried in tropical Yunnan muscovado style (un-processed) red sugar. The sugar is mixed with water, and used sparingly in the frying process of the leaves …
To brew this tea, I used my Kati Tumbler. I measured a bamboo scoop of the curly leaves into the basket of my Kati and added 12 ounces of boiling water to the tumbler. Then I let it steep for 3 minutes. The tea brews up lighter in color than I expected. Lapsang Souchong tea tends to be very dark, but this is a color that is somewhere between amber and light copper.
The flavor is delightful! The sweetness imparted onto this tea from the processing described above is delicate – this isn’t too sweet. There’s a nice balance between sweet, sugary notes and the natural fruit and floral notes from the tea. It’s very mellow and pleasant.
There is an overall lightness to this cup – it’s not a hefty or robust type of tea. This isn’t the tea you’d want to grab for that first cup of the day. Instead, this is the kind of tea that you’d want to share with guests or enjoy on a quiet afternoon when you can curl up and simply relax and take in the joy of this tea!
Really nice. A rather unique tea – certainly something that I’d recommend to all those who enjoy something a little different.
Anji Bai Cha Green Tea from Nan Nuo Shan
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Nan Nuo Shan
Tea Description:
Anji Bai Cha owns a delicate, soft and relaxing taste, with a light sweet aftertaste.
Characteristic of this green tee variety is the colour of the leaves, rather white than green; in Chinese, baimeans white. The lack of pigment is due to the low chlorophyll content of the plant.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The dry leaf of this Anji Bai Cha Green Tea from Nan Nuo Shan is so beautiful! It looks almost like pine needles – but it doesn’t smell like it! It has a delicate aroma, smelling lightly sweet and slightly vegetal.
To brew this, I suppose I could have reached for my Gaiwan (they are very similar to a silver needle, after all) but I decided to grab my Kati Tumbler instead. I couldn’t measure this leaf with my bamboo scoop because the leaves just didn’t really work very well for it, so I simply used my fingers to pinch some tea out of the packet and into the basket of my Kati and eyeballed it when it looked to me to be about a bamboo scoop’s worth.
Then I added hot water (175°F) and let the tea steep for 1 1/2 minutes. The brewed tea is so light in color – a pale, yellowish green. The aroma is also quite light and gave me the initial impression that the overall flavor would be equally as light.
But it isn’t! This is a very flavorful tea despite it’s rather delicate appearance and fragrance.
Sweet! I taste notes of sweet grass and hints of flower in the distance. It’s a very smooth and relaxing flavor. There is some dry astringency toward the finish, it’s almost as if the tea is gently patting my palate dry to ready it for the next sip.
There is a light ‘airiness’ to this tea, like the flavor of the air in a meadow. The grassy notes and whispers of flower that mingle in the air as a gentle breeze filters through. As I continue to sip, I taste notes of melon – a sweet, juicy melon!
A delight to sip, this sweet tea that calms me with each sip. This is de-stress at it’s best!
Tai Ping Houkui Green from Min River Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Min River Tea (However it’s no longer available)
Tea Description:
Hailing from the foothills of Huang Shan’s eternally misty peaks, Tai Ping Monkey King is one of China’s most distinct green teas. The mellow and refreshing Monkey King is processed from a special cultivar prized for its large leaves. Its leaves are individually flattened resulting in the typical often finger-long blades featuring a beautifully deep green colour.
Learn more about this tea on Steepster.
Taster’s Review:
Looks like I’m a little late to the game; Min River Tea has closed up their virtual doors and this tea is no longer available for sale – however I’m still going to review it because I think that even though you can’t buy it anymore you can certainly learn from it!
Personally; I’m way out of my comfort zone here. Not only am I not really big green tea person in general (though that is slowly changing) apart from roaster greens and matcha, but I’ve never had a Tai Ping Houkui before – though the concept has interested me for a long time. Personally, I think the dry tea leaves are one of the most visually interesting and stunning of ANY tea type.
For my first tasting of this I went with a cold brew, purely because my mason jar I use was the only brewing vessel I could think of that was actually deep enough for the very long leaves – each one is nearly an inch longer than my finger, though I do have tiny baby hands so maybe that’s not saying much. I didn’t really know how much leaf I should be using for a cold brew; in the end I wound up using six or seven of the long, steamed leaves.
I’m thinking that was pretty too lightly leafed; the taste was subtle and watery. Although, there were some differences though! The liquor was a very pretty, pale green and the taste was clean and grassy with some light seaweed seaweed notes and some sharpness. There was also a touch of sweetness that reminded me of honey. Honey and green tea is a great pairing; so it definitely worked.
I can’t say that I necessarily loved it, but I also didn’t hate it and to be perfectly fair I was also a little bit strained tasting it too. I definitely plan to repeat this cold brewing process again with more leaf to see how that changes the flavour and my impression.
I’ve also heard about the tea leaves ‘dancing’ when brewed hot so that’s something I’m eager to try as well! For now, I probably wont seek out this tea type but should it happen to find its way to me through a swap or something like that I’m definitely going to be very receptive to the chance to try different company’s take on this one.
As someone who’s done so little exploration into the world of green tea there’s always something really fascinating to learn and taste! I hope to grow to love the taste of this tea type enough to want to put more effort into tapping into that pool of knowledge.
