How do you brew Golden Monkey?
I got some from Radience two years ago, and brewed it this morning with water just off the boil, 2.25g tea in 12 oz water. I let it brew for three minutes. Sadly, this didn’t work out too well; the resulting tea was a bit too woody, not enough other flavors. What have you found to be the ideal brewing approach for this tea?
I feel like a lot of instructions out there make for underdosed tea. That results in a lot of insipid and tasteless cups of tea. When I try out a new full leaf tea, I usually dose at 2g per 4oz of water. That means I would have used 6g for your 12oz cup. Then I go 3-5 minutes for a black tea like Golden Monkey, usually starting at the lower end and seeing what I like best. Then, if the tea leaf is high quality, I’ll do another “1/2 steep” with the same leaves and 1/2 the amount of water for the same time to see if the leaves can deliver another quality cup. I’ve noticed with a lot of chinese black teas, especially from Yunnan, that the sweetness comes out more pronounced at shorter steeping times.
Depends on where I got it from. Some I do for a bit less than 3 minutes, some I do all the way up to 7 minutes. But I do also overleaf compared to the instructions 90% of the time.
With really tippy teas, I sometimes aim for slightly cooler water, like 90C. And my standard ratio is 3g in 10oz for 3min, but I’ll sometimes go with a bit more tea and a bit shorter steep. Or if western steeping isn’t working, try gongfu: 1g per oz in a small gaiwan or cup, start with very short steeps (10-15sec) and then add time if it’s coming out too weak.
Western: 3g 8oz 3min 200F
Gongfu: 5-6g 100ml gaiwan rinse/ short steeps of3/5/7sec . i dont time,its approximately. 200F
i find gongfu is easier, less chance to ruin it, if you dont like 1 steep, you can fix it with the second one ;)
I don’t weigh my tea because I don’t weigh anything, but I eyeball an amount in my “perfect teaspoon” – one per mug. Our mugs are mainly 12 – 16 oz…boiling water and 2.5 – 3 minute steep. Contrary to the above poster, I find most commercial tea instructions make a brew I find bitter and too strong.
I never weigh mine either, because frankly my life is too short when I know that for the vast majority of the teas I like, three teaspoons in the white pot with water up to the middle-to-top area of the spout hole produces a jolly good cup. That would be about 750 ml or so, I believe. For GM, boiling water, four minutes. Five minutes on the second go. Unless I forget in which case it gets rather longer and still produces a jolly good cup.
I generally ignore brewing instructions. The thing about tea is it’s subjective how you like it. Just look at these answers. Instructions are always written according to how whoever wrote them likes it best. It may not be the way I like it best. How could he possibly know anything about that after all? So instructions are something I turn to if my own experience fails me.
Usually bitterness, or astringency, comes from the tea itself or the tea quality, or the infusion time. Dosing should not affect that. But definitely will affect the strength. Eyeballing definitely works for some people, especially once you dial in what you like…
I don’t really agree with you there. I am particularly sensitive to bitterness/astringency and I feel any tea will become bitter if enough of it is steeped for long enough in hot water. The only exception for me is cold brew. I have yet to have a tea go bitter on cold brew. Because of my preferences, I tend to not drink camellia assamica as I find it more innately bitter. A number of my preferred Chinese blacks need a lot of leaf or a lot of time to get bitter but I think it can happen to any tea under the right conditions. This thread sure shows how subjective taste is though!
I think we’re saying the same thing but maybe it wasn’t clear in the way I said it. Some tea cultivars have astringency naturally (i.e., camellia sinensis assamica). Most, if not all, cultivars will get astringent with a long enough steep time.
I would ask one question, how did you store your tea. You said it was two years old. A tea that old will begin to lose flavor with the exception of puerh. If you stored it air and light tight you may not see a difference. It may not be how you were brewing the tea that led to any poor flavor.
I’d second that. Especially if you aren’t sure what year it was harvested, the tea could be quite old.
I stored it air and light tight. Inside a flexible foil pouch wrapped around itself, and then inside a tight-sealing tin.
I just got some Golden Monkey from Adagio Teas. I haven’t tried it yet but their instructions say to brew at 212 F…has anybody tried that? I’m a little wary at brewing at 212 F because I don’t want to ruin the tea.
I always do black tea with boiling. Always. Works for me. Only time I use a bit cooler water is if it’s flavoured, because for me it brings the flavouring out a bit more.
Boiling is what I use as well. If you’re not comfortable though, less is fine. I wouldn’t go too much less, but it’s really up to you.
I use 195 but have also used boiling. It seems to be fairly forgiving. I need to do a comparative cupping but haven’t got around to it yet…
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