Golden Monkey

This tea is rapidly becoming my second favorite (next to Darjeeling!). It was my first cup this morning, and I’ve continued drinking it through the day. It has a beautiful deep golden color and sweet, rich flavor.

Loved this tea, will need to get more. When I opened the bag the aroma hitting my nose was one of carmels. Could not wait to brew this one and take my first sip. I was not disappointed. The flavor was smooth with no bitter after taste. This tea is worthy of a place in the tea cupboard.

Really good, bold smooth flavor.

Sorry I haven’t been on in quite a while! I’ve recently been promoted to a key-holder/managerial position at Teavana, so I’ve been a bit busy during the holiday season. I sat down and ordered a bunch of teas from adagio, and I’m finally getting to it.

The first of my new batch I’ve tried is the Golden Monkey. I’ve had three other Golden Monkeys before, and I must say this is the most bland and uninteresting Golden Monkey I’ve ever had. The flavour is there, but the malty undertones and subtle smokey flavour I get in Teavana’s and Elaine’s (Wild Orchid Teas) are missing. The leaves are missing the more aggressive hay smells before brewing, and faintly promise at least a subtle smokiness. I’m sure at one point this tea was just as good as Teavana’a or Elaine’s, but I’m fairly certain that it just got stale – the leave’s length indicates a very high quality black tea. It arrived in a sealed bag, so I must wonder as to how airtight it actually is.

I never thought I’d rate a flavoured tea lower than a straight one, but there you have it, folks…

I was pleasantly surprised when I received this with my tasting set that I purchased from Adagio. When I opened the package I was hit with a nice spicy chocolate aroma from the dry leaf. I decided to brew this in the tasting set, and was happy with the results….although I did spill a little.Tasted like cayenne pepper on a dark chocolate bar. I was taken aback by how much I enjoyed this tea.

This is interesting for it being a black tea. It is sweet with a bit of a malty flavor and the smell is unusual and wonderful… it ‘s a sweet smell like a honeysuckle mixed with a fresh made bread if that makes since. It’s quiet nice.

Update: Totally bumping this one up because I seem to crave it more and more and only had one tsp left.

Golden Monkey is a sweet black tea that is very smooth with chocolate notes. (You can see my general addictions here). It’s the tea I always recommend to non loose tea drinkers because they see the light in one sip. They toss those silly bags aside and start drinking hardcore. (Teabags are sadly just a gateway drug for this).

Anyhow, this was one of the first real quality hardcore black teas I tried and was hooked. I had had other loose black teas in the past, but this was an important one.

I recently got a bunch of dian-hong-esque teas from Adagio. My favorite tea in this realm is Chicago Tea Company’s Golden Bi Luo, and that’s become my benchmark. I’m looking for something that can beat it. Haven’t found it yet.

But Golden Monkey manages to go off in its own direction. Despite being a dark, malty brew, it has less of the molasses note that I’m used to in these teas, and more of a…what is that?

Soy sauce. I think it’s soy sauce. Mostly in the nose, and of course without the salt. There’s a rich, dark soy brew flavor in there. Surprisingly I really like it. It’s almost savory, like a pu-erh, but it’s not a meal in itself.

Actually, the flavor on the palate seems lacking to me. I used a generous teaspoon for my cup and gave it almost 4 minutes, but the mouthfeel and palate is thin and unimpressive. I wouldn’t want to steep it longer; the nose would be overpowering. Stimulant-wise, it’s definitely a morning kickstart.

It doesn’t break the Golden Bi Luo’s record, but I’ll probably get more of this. Maybe I’ll try a second steep later.

I’m from close enough to the South to have a great appreciation for Sweet Tea. I’ve had Golden Monkey hot and liked it, and the flavors led me to believe it would make a nice Sweet Tea. Rather than test this theory, I just jumped right in, brewing about 1qt of concentrated tea, adding sugar, and diluting to 2qt. Now I’m sitting down with my first glass.

It is exactly as fantastic as I had hoped. It’s very sweet, like Sweat Tea should be, but more importantly, it was fantastic layers of flavor. It is refreshing and fantastic.