Golden Monkey

Wow, really pretty cocoa and roasted barley notes. Real depth.

Rich and malty, with a slight astringency. Lots of flavor expressions. Smell is slightly smoky.

Sipdown Number ONE!

So this has become one of my favorite teas. By far. I need this all the time. I’m so sad that this is the last of it. It doesn’t help that it’s pretty pricey and I’m gonna have to shell out more than I ever have for tea for a full sized pack. :( Oh well. Thus is life. I really am glad I saved enough for today. I drank like twelve cups of various teas yesterday to drown the pain. Then at around 9pm we got word that my Grandma had passed. So this is at least the start of a new day with a great cup of tea. It’s comforting. I’m raising the rating a bit because I feel like I will do anything for this stuff. It’s so chocolatey! This will likely be my go to morning brew starting next month. Until I find something else I like more. But for now, this is glorious.

We have another sipdown here. I had been working on a sample pouch of this tea for a couple of days and finished the last of it this morning. I used to really enjoy teas like this when I was younger, but had not had one in several years. I was delighted to find that I still enjoy this type of black tea, though I remembered this specific tea as being a little better than I found it to be.

I prepared this tea two ways. The first was a one step Western infusion. I followed Adagio’s guidelines here. I steeped 1 heaped teaspoon of loose tea leaves in 8 ounces of 212 F water for 5 minutes. The second preparation was gongfu. I started off by steeping 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 208 F water for 5 seconds. I then followed this infusion up with 11 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 8 seconds, 11 seconds, 14 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

The Western infusion yielded a smooth and subtle brew. I noted mild aromas of cocoa, oak, and toast on the nose. In the mouth, I noted integrated notes of cocoa, oak, cream, toast, malt, and cinnamon in the mouth. The gongfu session yielded a more complex brew. Prior to infusion, I noted a soft, subtle aroma of cocoa coming from the dry leaves. After infusion, I noted slightly more pronounced aromas of toast, malt, cream, oak, cocoa, and spice. In the mouth, I picked up on a strong flavor of cocoa underscored by cinnamon, oak, pine, toast, malt, and cream. Subsequent infusions introduced aromas and flavors of juniper berry, honey, leather, and black peppercorns. Later infusions were very mild with a slight mineral tinge, though honey, wood, malt, and cocoa notes remained. I noticed that this tea started off strong in the gongfu session, but faded quickly. The first 5 infusions yielded a strong, flavorful liquor, the next 3 infusions were decent, and the final 4 infusions were mostly a wash with very subtle aroma and flavor sensations.

This was not a bad golden monkey, but I have had better. Gongfuing this produced more interesting results, but the Western brews were smoother and more consistent overall. In the end, I could see this being a solid all-purpose Chinese black tea or a good introductory Chinese black tea.

I only had the teabags for this one, but it’s a lovely solid black tea just the same. Smooth and rich. I love to combine the teabag with some second-steeped chestnut, to add a touch of nutty flavor. Very happy to indulge with a large mug of this one today.

Thank you so much for the sale, Ali! I’m always willing to try any of the Monkeys. I expect chocolate but this one seems to be pure maltiness. I used one heaping teaspoon as suggested but I’ll have to try two next time. Maybe an eight minute wait was too long as well. I love malty teas but this isn’t really what I expect from a Golden Monkey. It’s sweet, honey. Not much else to say. This is still a very good black tea but maybe I’ve just had some really good monkeys. This note is for learning for next time, I guess.
Steep # 1// 1 tsp // 8 min after boiling // 3 min
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 min

Beautiful dry leaves with golden oxidized buds reminding me of Golden Curl tea from Yunnan. Rich amber-maple color moving to greenish-yellow near cups edge. Spices, with slight honey-sweet tang conjuring thoughts of cooked fruit followed by a woody, nutty astringent finish which really lingers in the wrong way I feel. I am not in love with this tea… and I really wanted to! I feel like its a little tired which will be ANOTHER sample from Adagio that is not quite that good. They really need to date those packs! I will get more next time I go, as I feel this isn’t the teas fault.

I’m not a huge fan of Golden Monkey teas, but I got this one as a free sample so why not?

Looks like a Golden Monkey tea with the curly leaves.

Smells like a Golden Monkey tea. You know, kind of like honey.

Tastes like a Golden Monkey tea. A bit of natural sweetness that balances the tea fairly well and makes it completely unremarkable – unless Golden Monkeys are your thing, I suppose.

Made a great, just slightly sweet iced tea when cold brewed over night.

I enjoyed drinking this tea both hot and cold, but there are other teas I like better.

Golden by name, golden by nature. Like a featherweight boxer, light on its feet but can hold its own when cornered. The slightest of bitterness to give an edge to the smoothness. Fine with a slight dribble of milk, but consider without.

This is another tea from the european teabox, and a sample I picked to remove more or less accidentally. I needed space and this was in a big original bag with a relatively small amount of tea for the space it occupied, so that was that. And while I lucked out on this selection, I am now feeling sorry i won´t read the next person´s opinions on this, because I really liked it and love seeing reviews by others of teas I liked.

For me it´s a quintessential Chinese black tea, though that is an opinion of a non-expert. It´s light, delicate, full of background flavours ( wild honey? some nuttiness?), refreshing. The kind of tea I really like.

But I confess to being a bit baffled by the descriptions and other reviews and wondering if I screwed up amount or brewing times. They mention this as being full-bodied, but with me this turned out light-bodied and delicate and graceful, a ballerina black tea, a perfect afternoon tea. I also find it a very sweet, naturally, tea.