Tazo

I just realized that the Tazo Golden Monkey profile is yet another of my personal tasting note blogs, since no one else at Steepster owns it or has rated it! This of course induces a sense of responsibility to say something … anything … rather than simply logging the glass.

Still very good! I have been neglecting this tea, because my cupboard runneth over (to put it mildly). Recently, however, I resolved to finish all open packets of tea before I embark on my adventure to the other side of the planet. I’ll be in New Zealand for most of 2015, and it has been brought to my attention that opened packages of plant-derived matter will be confiscated by customs! Yikes! I don’t want to go postal and be turned away at the border, so I am going to consult a few more Kiwis to see whether they believe that unopened packages will be allowed entry. Otherwise how in the world will I survive????

Until then, I am sipping down open packages such as this always delicious Tazo Golden Monkey. To be honest, if I truly want to finish all of my opened tea, I’d probably have to imbibe non-stop, 24/7 from now until my flight out of Los Angeles at 10pm on March 2, 2015. Well, I’ll do what I can…

I’m in a mild state of mourning regarding the demise of Tazo. I just feel that Starbucks really dropped the ball on this one. They focused on coffee in the stores, where most of the people are coffee drinkers, and then wondered why the Tazo tea did not sell. The only place to buy the loose varieties (which were always the best) was online at the Starbucks site (again, the last place where tea drinkers are going to be looking for tea!), and in one store in NYC, now closed down.

Teavana, meanwhile, had their own huge network of franchises, so obviously they were bound to make more money than the Tazo acquisition, even with primary sales of “chunk o’ food” blends. The Tazo Collection series of high-quality whole-leaf loose tea came packaged in excellent ziplock foil envelopes about a million times better than the nonsensical paper bags provided at Teavana as a ploy to get customers to buy their humongous and ridiculous canisters. Bad management, and the end of yet another once good company, eaten up through the avaricious forces of corporatization.

So today’s afternoon black brew was Tazo Golden Monkey. My first Golden Monkey, and invariably wonderful. Beautiful golden shimmery leaves make up most of the dried tea, with gold dust to go with it. An unsweetened caramel flavor suffuses this rich and luscious brew. I love this stuff. Fortunately I have one more large envelope to go…

I was feeling groggy, so I brewed up a small pot of this action-packed Golden Monkey from Yunnan. Delicious—and I do feel better now!

second infusion: better late than never… I just discovered that the second infusion of these rich brown twisted leaves produces a fantastic batch of decaf black tea! The liquor was almost as dark amber as the first infusion, and the flavor is better than most any decaf black I’ve tried! Holy cow—so much excellent decaffeinated tea has been dumped down the drain!!!!! Well, at least now I know to reinfuse the apparently spent leaves from the initial (not the final) brew!

I really needed to drink something delicious this afternoon, so I brewed up a big pot of Tazo Golden Monkey. Yum, yum, yum! My current favorite China black tea, bursting with delicious burnt caramel flavor coming only from the leaves.

I noticed that the leaves are still tightly rolled in the bottom of the drained pot. Now I’m wondering whether I should be making multiple infusions of this tea. Have I been dumping precious servings down the sink?

To satisfy my caramel cravings (unslaked by Kusmi St. Petersburg, despite the caramel scent of the dried tea), I felt the need to brew up a beautiful glass of Tazo Golden Monkey, my favorite caramel tea—with nothing added to produce the gorgeous caramel texture and taste of this Yunnan-origin marvel. As usual I drank this delicious brew with light cream.

Yum, yum, yum!

I just love this tea. Rich caramel texture and taste. One cup invariably leads to another… Great with light cream.

I oversteeped today—distracted by imminent-move-induced ADD—but the brew did not suffer as a result.

Many cups of delicious black tea doused with cream lie in my immediate future, as I am recovering from two weeks of trudging through ice, snow, and antarctic cold to locate a suitable abode. To celebrate the end of that interesting but all too exhausting process, I decided that I should drink only delicious black comfort teas for the rest of the day. I was debating where to begin, and the winner ended up being Tazo Golden Monkey.

I love this tea. I truly do. It has all of the wonderfulness of caramel—minus the sweetnesss! That may sound strange, since many people think of caramel and sugar as intimately linked. In fact, they are not, as I have tried some cheeses which manage to convey a caramel flavor without being sweet at all.

This stuff is great, and when I get to the bottom of my 4 ounce bag—and I shall!—I’ll definitely be ordering some more. A truly delectable flavor coming all from the tea, no additives whatsoever. I really do appreciate le thé pour le thé! The fewer the bells and whistles the better, in my Teeweltanschauung.

My favorite Yunnan tea, hands down. I do believe that a second cup is in order!

I have to say that Tazo Golden Monkey is very different from most other yunnan teas—not at all smoky, and with a burnt caramel flavor but without being sweet.

This gorgeous reddish-brown brew is so ridiculously delicious. The caramel finish is perfect and greatly enhanced with light cream. This is definitely my top Yunnan-origin tea.

I have increased my rating to reflect my enthusiasm. This is how all tea should be: beckoning me to go brew up yet another cup because it is so irresistibly wonderful. Why settle for less?

I enjoyed another lovely batch of this dark reddish-amber-colored brew this afternoon. A perfect beverage for snowstorm #100 this year. Seriously, how many times can it snow in one winter??

Once again, I drank Golden Monkey with half and half, and I have to say that it is delicious. I am a big fan of Assam teas for their substance and heft. What is really nice about this single-origin Yunnan tea is that it has the richness of Assam with the complexity and nuances of lighter teas. The burnt caramel finish is simply delightful.

I feel obliged to increase my rating after today’s pot!

As predicted, this rich reddish amber tea is greatly improved with cream! The cream both smooths out the rough edges and enhances the burnt caramel quality, creating a velvety finish.

Delicious!

My rating for this tea when served with cream (I used half and half): 80.

I have been looking forward to trying this Yunnan black tea from Tazo, Golden Monkey, as the dried leaves are especially intriguing. They are wiry but also crisp like parched twigs. Upon infusion, they unfurl into long and narrow chocolate-brown full leaves.

The liquor is dark amber with a slight reddish cast reminiscent of Assam. I guess that I am a bit surprised that the appearance and taste of the brew are closer to Assam than to Darjeeling. I usually drink Assam with cream but don’t have any on hand, so today I am enjoying this pot au naturel. It’s smooth and rich, and rather dark, with the heaviness characteristic of blends such as English breakfast.

I like this tea, and next time I will try it with cream!

Not bad for a chai, but not the best. I’m realizing that it’s better to just get the masala and add your own teabag to it. I think the trick with chai is to really let the spices brew for a long time, which you can’t do when there’s black tea mixed in. This one isn’t bad, and it’s fine black (also fine with milk and sugar), but I’m going to finish up my current box of it and that’ll be it. If you’re looking for a quick, easy chai, this one would do it.

I thought I really liked this tea. I had a cup at a meeting once, with a bit of honey. It was quite good. Then I made this mistake of buying a box for myself. I don’t know what to say about this tea, other than I don’t like it. The green tea flavour is a bit off, the ginger flavour is a bit off. Sweetened or unsweetened, this just doesn’t do it for me.

Tangy and fruity and slightly acidic. Apparently I’m going against the grain but…I drink it all the time. It’s great hot, I like it iced. I agree with reviewers who say that it’s very tart, but I actually like that. It’s great on a second brew as well. This is great as a little pick-me-up in the middle of the workday. I never add any kind of sweetener to it as I find it to have just the right amount of sweetness. Lots of great orange flavor.

This was very thin and had next to no taste. It was like drinking warm water with an aftertaste of caramel and a hint of Red Apple Jelly Belly (the jelly beans) which are totally my favorite flavor so I really could have done with way more than that. Pretty disappointing considering it smelled like cinnamon and the other delicious things I mentioned.