Taiwan Monkey Picked (Ma Liu Mie) Tie Guan Yin Oolong Tea

Dry smell: When I opened the package I was first hit with the smell of vegetables. It reminds me of fresh picked produce from a farm. Then on further smelling I can detect a nice roasted smell with light floral notes.

Wet smell: The wet smell is a bit more like a wet smokey smell. I can still smell the vegetable smell but it reminds me more of a nice, roasted oolong.

Liquid aroma: The aroma is very deep and rich. I can definitely still smell the smokiness and now the floral notes are coming out.

Liquid taste: The taste is very rich right off the bat. It doesn’t have the bright green oolong flavor, but a darker note. There isn’t much floral flavor which is nice because I don’t like super floral teas. This is a great relaxing afternoon tea and I will definitely be ordering more

Another sample provided by Angel at Teavivre. This one is smack your lips good! (even though smacking lips is one of my biggest pet peeves lol) Thank you!!

First steep, one min. At first it was mostly just a roasted nutty flavor , which I was enjoying, with an occasional fleeting floral note. As I neared the bottom of the cup it got increasingly sweet and bakey, like whatever oven it had been roasted in was also used to bake bread, and the tea had soaked up bread nuances. Bread is kind a big deal for me. I have several close relatives and friends that are either celiac or gluten intolerant; I’m hanging on to bread with everything I’ve got!! :P
2nd steep, two min. Mmm it smells so good! I’m trying to wait to sip it, my experiences so far have proven that it tastes the best when it’s cooled a minute or two. I busied myself with getting my daughters lunch ready. She has the strangest tastes for a two year old. We had leftovers from a Japanese place and she was so excited to get edamame (Beans!!!) and stir fried noodles (Noodles!!!). Now that she’s preoccupied, back to my tea! So far this steep is primarily roasty, with some barely discernible floral notes. That oh-so-sweet baked bread profile returns somewhere around the middle of the cup, and strangely more floral notes as well. It’s delicious.
This tea doesn’t strike me as a typical Tieguanyin; isn’t it usually greener, and more floral, not so roasted? Either way, I like this tea! I’m going to save the leaves for steepings later, it doesn’t taste nearly done!

I wanted oolong and I wanted to use my yixing pot again. I looked at the leaves and figured it fits in with the whole green Taiwanese oolong thing I got going for it. So I was kind of surprised to see people calling this roasted and I guess right there it says baked taste, but whatever, it won’t kill the poor pot to just get anything that IS actually green right?

Since I bought a sample size, I used one of the two packets. It was actually 8 grams which was fine by me.

I did a rinse just because I felt bad for hiding away poor teapot for a month. It was nice to see him again. I guess it’s a him. I’ll just go with it. So he wanted a nice oolong bath before we got started.

So, drinking the second steep here. It has just a little bit of a baked taste to it, but considering how I have had zero luck so far with actual roasted oolongs, it tastes fine to me. It’s sweet and vegetal, before it fades into the roasted note, which reminds me of brown rice, and finishes up with a floral one.

Third steep: when I took the lid off the teapot, wowowow! It smelled like I had just baked oolong bread or something in there. While this one gets a bit more roasty, it still has floral/vegetal qualities to it, but the roasted notes are a lot stronger now. I am almost afraid to go on but I will. Because I probably just steeped it too long, since I was distracted by carrots.

Fourth steep: less toasty! Back to being very floral! I should go to bed soon but I really want to give it one more go.

Fifth steep: Not getting much else from this but floral and green, which is perfectly okay because now it tastes more like a TGY than anything else, and one steep that crossed over to the dark side (literally?) was enough for me. There is definitely enough flavor in it to keep going but it is 11:30 so it’s time to end our lovely night.

This is a lot better the second time around. I think I used the wrong temp last time (which never helps) Definitely very tasty :D

I always thought that a tea labeled Tieguanyin meant it’s an Anxi oolong from China, but this tea is from Lishan mountain in Taiwain, which would make it more of a formosa oolong. Anyway it doesn’t really matter, I was just a little surprised by that.

I decided to do short steepings of this in the gaiwan this morning.

Steep #1: around 30 seconds and yielded a light yellow liquor which is very vegetal and reminds me a bit of celery. There’s a bit of a nutty quality and a slight sweetness in the finish.

Steep #2: the leaves are just starting to open up here. A bit more of a nutty quality is emerging with a nice sweetness in the background. I went to Teavivre’s website to find this tea is baked and 100% fermented.

Steeps 3 & 4: seem about the same to me. Lightly roasted, vegetal, nutty, a hint of sweetness.

This is a nice, average oolong but I can’t say there is anything about it that causes me to feel it stands head and shoulders above the rest. Might need to try giving it a cold steep to see what happens. Not my favorite tea from them so far, but still enjoyable.

Thank you for the sample Teavivre and Angel!

Thank you Teavivre for this large and beautiful sample!

I began my day with my grandson Ian (11) wandering out from MY bedroom…to see if I was awake yet on the couch. You see, whenever one of the “8” comes to spend the night…they are the king or queen of the house. They get my big comfy bed. We had a strawberry oolong from Butiki with breakfast and then went SWIMMING!
Later, Ian told me that the Puerh I was sending home for him well, he was going to save a piece to celebrate his adoption anniversary. I almost broke down and cried. What a sweet young man.

I took Ian home and arrived back at about 4pm…needing TEA!
Another Oolong? Sure! This was such a sunny day…and I was feeling tired but pretty good.

I used a glass pot with large strainer and steeped 24oz (yep a lot) 4 minutes.

Looking down into my cup…the liquor was golden

My initial impression was sweet honey water. Then my mind wandered.

I remembered a natural spring in Puerto Rico where I went long ago to fill water bottles. The water was sparkling and so sweet but mostly, cool. This spring was in the middle of the rain forest which was humid and filled with wild orchids and ferns, the tree frogs chirping and lizards scattering about. The mist and rain was always dripping down my face, my legs, arms… then circling around me steaming hot. (Not a place to wear makeup!)
I thought of the little hillside house in San German on the Southwest side of the Island where my children and I lived for awhile. It overlooked coffee trees, mango, banana and breadfruit trees. Many trips down the winding road to Boca Raton beach and the salty waves. Sweet smelling sugar cane lining the road and trucks piled so high with it they should have toppled over.
This Oolong had the floral, sweet honey water flavor but also an aftertaste of one of my favorite Island foods, plantain. Not green plantain, but Verdura..sweet plantain. When plantains ripen and become yellow. They are so delicious cooked in a little butter or fried.
Something about this Oolong makes me remember Puerto Rico. The beach at Isla Verde and Boca Raton. Salt Spray and the smell of orchids on a hot day followed by a sweet cool drink. Rock Sugar. Sweet buttery plantain or even yukon potato.

I got scared once in shower when one jumped on me! Pretty sound though!

Backlog. I tried to post a tasting note on this last night, but #$&%@*! Steepster was having One Of Its Episodes.

I… don’t think I have an opinion on Tie Guan Yin. I’ve had two of them now, and they’ve both been about the same; brightly vegetal, a little bright-fruity, a bit on the roasty side. I don’t like it, I don’t dislike it. It’s enjoyable, but not something I would crave or reorder. It’s the kind of tea I have to be in the right mood to drink; unfortunately, usually when I’m in a “tea” mood I’m picturing black tea, so I’m seldom in the right mood for this kind of flavor, unless I’m doing a late-at-night cleansing tea or something.

I have been making a lot of cold brews, and I decided that I really, really, like oolongs cold brewed. I had been using flavoured oolongs, so I thought I would try something straight.

But I failed to take into account that I had been using quite roasty, more oxidized oolongs. This one didn’t turn out so great. Don’t get me wrong, it tasted like a delicious greeny oolong, buttery, nutty, smooth. But something about it cold just didn’t work.

Would be happy to drink this one hot any time, not so much cold.

Love getting tips from Steepster people!

I like to try different methods and decide afterward if it’s for me or not. After reading Charles T. Draper’s review on having this cold brewed, I had to try it! 
( can’t believe I can actually relate to a real life «Draper» guy other than Mad Men Don Draper! What can I say, just can’t get enough of that show!) 

Ok back to tea, I’ve been experiencing a lot lately with cold brewing, AmyHo had told me the reason she makes her iced tea this way is mostly cause it’s easy…hey, I like easy too!
Charles had recommended brewing it for 3 days…ummm, It got me thinking that patience not being one of my strongest attribute, it would be a tad too long for me so I had to try it after 1 day…  it was OK, but I got some kind of metallic after taste along with bitterness that I wasn’t fond of.  

So I waited…NOT patiently! but it was well worth the wait! This stuff is really good, and I can appreciate all the different nuances a lot more. For me, the crisp cold temperature amplified the nuttiness I usually get from the hot brew. Strangely, the bitterness was gone and replaced by some refreshing citrus notes that I thought complemented very well that nuttiness and oolong’s natural creaminess.  I was very sad to see my jar empty and made another one right away!  Now, I want to try more oolongs and greens this way, I have couple of jars waiting in the fridge!  

To TEAVIVRE, I must say I have yet to try one of your tea that I don’t like, they never let me down!

Free sample from Teavivre

Small nuggets of green leaf curled into balls with a vegetal aroma when I opened the packet. The smell promised good things. The first steeping yielded a vegetal flavour, creamy on the palate. It reminded me of asparagus and was very pleasant. There were floral undertones to it, although my wife noticed them more than I did. It’s always interesting getting her view of teas, and it really highlights the differences in our palates and experience of the tea. The second steeping had less of the asparagus flavour and was smoother with the floral notes coming to the fore. I did not really get the baked taste that is meant to be there, but that could just be me thinking it is something else, just a variation on the way I perceive the flavours. We got four steepings out of this tea before we called it a day. Lovely tea. I would be very happy to have this one in the cupboard for regular usage and shall probably get some on my next Teavivre order.