Premium Loose Leaf Chinese Oolong Monkey Picked Tea.
A superb oolong. Lightly oxidized.
Exquisite all around.
In ancient times, the monkey picked tea was presented to the Emperor and was enjoyed exclusively by the Imperial Court. As time went by, it became more accessible to common people.
Nowadays, monkey picked oolong simply refers to the highest quality Ti Kuan Yin (Tie Guan Yin). It has alluring taste with fresh orchid aroma and fruity flavor. You are recommended to brew it Kung Fu style.
There are many benefits of drinking monkey picked oolong tea, including help with weight loss, teeth strengthening, combating the aging of skin and so on.
Legend goes that monkeys were trained by monks to pick the choicest leaves from the tip-top of wild tea trees for the rare tea blend. Another version goes that monkeys began to pick the leaves and presented to their master upon seeing their master pick tea leaves.
Nurtured by clouds and mist, the large and twisted leaves unfurl to yield a fresh, earthy aroma with sweet palate. Highly prized and hand-picked, excellent for multiple infusions.
A little while after starting this blog, I was contacted by a representative of Teavivre asking if I would like some samples for review. I of course responded with an emphatic yes, stating I like oolongs best but would love to review anything they'd send me. Soon enough, a box came in the mail with plenty of goodies to try.
What does "monkey-picked" mean? As Teavivre themselves state, "Legend has it that the cliff [on which this tea is grown, in Lishan, Taiwan] is too abrupt for people to pick the tea leaves. Therefore, monkeys are trained to climb the cliff and help tea farmers pick the leaves." In the modern age, "monkey-picked" teas are rarely actually picked by monkeys but they do tend to be of very high quality.
But back to this beauty of a tea; little did I know that I've been sent the best example of Tie Guan Yin I've had to date - which has me extremely excited to get to reviewing the rest. I've never had a Teavivre tea before, but if they're all like this they can count me as a regular customer.
The leaves are tightly rolled and so deeply brown as to almost appear black, with some visible streaks of green. They have the bark scent commonly found in darker oolongs like this, along with some subtle floral/orchid undertones.
Those undertones come front and center when steeped - in fact, it is almost as if the earthy notes and floral notes switch places as to who's in charge. Tie Guan Yin is one tea I find absolutely unmistakable by its scent, and even at this step of the process I knew I had something special on my hands.
The liquor came out a perfect, pure gold with a - not to keep using the word - perfectly nutty scent. When I worked for a local tea shop, Tie Guan Yin was most often my recommendation to customers looking to get into oolongs - I find it straddles the line between roasty blacks and grassy greens well enough to demonstrate why oolong is considered a distinct type of tea.
At first, the liquor tastes just as it smells, with a pleasantly full mouthfeel and roasty quality. That flavor then mellows out into a (can you tell I like this one?) perfect mix of grass and earth tones, with the floral notes present in the dry leaves showing up more and more as the liquor cools.
I generally prefer this varietal iced - Ito En's fantastic Golden Oolong iced tea uses TGY as its base - but Teavivre's is one I will drink hot again. If you're new to oolongs or just looking for a great example of the varietal, you can't go wrong with this.
Steep: 195°, 2 minutes. Second steep: 195°, 3 minutes.
Score: 10 / 10
Teavivre's Tie Guan Yin Oolong is available for purchase from their website.
For me, Tieguanyin is a good representative of the transitional times in the history of our tea world. It is one of the oldest and most beloved of tea traditions, that Iron Bodhisattva tea, always elegant and refined, with that characteristic 'yun' note of long lingering fragrance in the palate. It was also, for hundreds of years, a generally darker and more highly oxidized style of oolong, with a ripe plum flavor that I love. Today however, due to historic sea changes in the tea producing nations in the 20th century, that old style of Tieguanyin has fallen out of favor and replaced with a style mimicking a light floral Taiwan oolong. I love the Taiwan oolongs. I loved the old Tieguanyins. In its attempt to maintain relevance and appeal to the new generation of tea drinkers who are more inclined towards Taiwan style teas, the Tieguanyin producers have gone more and more green, stripping out the oxidized borders of the leaves to create a light yellow cup of tea with a very light body. The trouble is, Tieguanyin refuses to be anything but lightweight. Its thick fleshy leaves are full of nuanced flavors that demand to be elicited and balanced and presented properly. It's like putting a General in the role of a foot soldier. Or perhaps my imagination and nostalgia has gotten the better of me. In any case, for the last few years, we have asked our good Tieguanyin producers to make us an old style, custom roast called 'Monkey Picked', fired by charcoal heat for almost 30 hours, and with the leaves completely intact. The brew is dark, almost like a preserved plum over a BBQ. I went the opposite extreme !
