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

I’m very excited to try this one because it says in the product description that Vitamin A prevents scurvy…since I have been ‘workin’ my alter-ego as a pirate lately…I decided it might be a good idea to slurp some Vitamin A…just in case…

On a more serious note…

This tea infuses to a comfy-cozy light to medium orange-brown in color. It’s VERY YUMMERS. It’s a little malty for an oolong. It’s also a tad brothy…the texture is thicker than I anticipated. I like that. It’s satisfying. It smells a little like charcoal but it doesn’t really taste like it. There is a bit of floral flavor right in the middle of the sip…not really at the beginning or at the end, oddly.

This is…Rrrrrrrrr-right…MATE-E!

What a lovely Oolong!

Sweet, delicious, roasty-toasty nut flavors with hints of browned butter that has been drizzled over mild steamed vegetables, and a lovely peach-like taste in the background. Honey tones too!

YUM! I love this tea … I’m on my second cup (third and fourth infusions, combined), and I am noticing now a hint of vanilla starting to peek through, as well as the peach tones emerging more. The vegetative tones have softened some what, as has the charred roasted taste that I experienced with the first cup.

A really enjoyable tea… I need to spend more time with this one!

Yet another of my free samples from Teavivre… thanks so much for the opportunity to try all these teas! I really consider Teavivre to have greatly contributed to my tea education with all of their samples.

When I opened the sample pouch and sniffed the tea, I was kind of surprised by how super vegetal the leaves smelled. Like, woah spinach and greens. I sniffed some more and started to get roasty scents, and the faintest hint of butteriness. Definitely not like the super green tieguanyins I’m used to drinking. I steeped it up and smelled a super roasted, toasted grains aroma from the liquor. At first it seems like that is the only note, but after smelling it a while I start to detect the slightest hint of sweet florals hiding out. Intriguing.

I have to say I was pretty prepared not to really be a fan of this tea because I don’t tend to like roasted oolongs. But Teavivre proved me wrong. I’m not head over heels or anything, but this is a tasty cup of tea. The roasting is light and doesn’t take over the flavor. It just kind of nicely hangs out there, adding some nice warm, toasty notes. The other main flavors are the slightly floral sweetness of the tieguanyin, with some light vegetal notes, but nothing like it seemed when I smelled the dry leaf. As I’m drinking it the sweetness is growing in my mouth adding to the tastiness of each successive sip. Definitely a tasty tea, and it surprised me by making even this nonfan of roasted oolongs enjoy it.

This is my first tea other than Lipton in many days. All through Memorial Day weekend I was feeling fluish. Sick. I had know idea how sick I could get. Finally on Wednesday I called my Mother and she took me to a doctor. When he took my blood pressure and it was 50 over 35 it was off to the emergency room. After explaining my pains, the nurse asked me if I was bit by a tick. I said yes. According to my symptoms they treated me for Ehrlichiosis. The IVs went in and it was 5 days of intense fever, coughing and body aches from hell. This is my first good tea since then. I am sipping it slowing. I will comment more in depth later when my sense of taste returns. In the meantime, this tea has made me feel so much better.

Second tea of the morning….. (SRP #41)

My computer hates me today. I just lost my review.. Anyway, the short version of my intro is that I appreciate the new way they are packaging free samples. Less waste is always good in my book. Also, I appreciate that they have moved toward putting labels on the small manufacturer packages of samples, too.

This sample was provided by TeaVivre for review. I think I am on my last round of these. This has been so fun! Thank you so much to Angel and her team for introducing me to teas beyond my favorite China black teas.

The leaves are a tight ball and dark green. The liquor is an amber yellow rather than golden like greener oolong varieties. I am pretty sure the leaves are slightly roasted in this tea. It could just be the variety, but there is a light roasty or baked scent as well as flavor. It really reminds me of roasted green vegetables. The notes of butter with the heavy mouthfeel are there, but the roasted flavor is the most prevalent. I generally prefer greener oolongs, but this is good. It lies somewhere between the green and dark oolongs as far as flavor.

Mug method, 2 minutes, 185 water. No additions. Getting ready for a resteep.

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

Seriously, who could resist trying a tea with this clever name? My latest round of samples arrived yesterday. (Yeah!) I did not intend to break into them this soon, but they were there. Well you know how it is. Actually this one was not completely sealed. I might not have noticed but there were monkey droppings in the bottom of the big pouch ;) Being sealed in the larger pouch, the tea is still fresh and no harm done. Since it is open let’s have at it.

The nuggets look like normal tiguanyin. I forgot to sniff the dry leaf. Steeped in my press for 3 minutes with boiling water. The brew is a green tinted amber. It is extremely clear yet dense. That probably makes no sense but I stared through the press at it for a few seconds as I found its beauty fascinating. This is my first monkey picked oolong. The rich roasted aroma coming off the brew caught me by surprise. I try not to read other reviews or company flavor profiles before tasting. You can also catch the oolong in the scent. The leaf did not fully open on the first steep.

The sip is like a wave crashing over the tongue. It begins as a hearty roasted blast breaking on the taste buds. Next, splashing up is a moment of intense milkiness. Then as the flavor begins to recede, the tiguanyin is revealed. The aftertaste is somewhere between tgy and watermelon rind.

Second cup I went 1 minute. I got interrupted and the cup sat after I poured for several minutes. This cup is very different from the first. The roasted notes are much more subdued. This tastes like a mild genmaicha has been brewed with the tgy. There is also another note, not exactly earthy, but not really woodsy in mid sip. Looking over the other notes at this time, I guess this is what others are calling nutty.

Third cup back at 3 minutes. Pretty much this is now a straight mild tiguanin. Sweet. It has a nice lingering fruity aftertaste.

Thank you TeaVivre for the sample. This is another winner.

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.

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!

soooo random teavivre sample of the day! I pikced this one, and of course didn’t realise, half asleep that i was, that this was an oolong. Now, to be fair I picked up some oolongs, greens and blacks from teavivre as my first order, to try and branch out from my blacks.

When the water hit the leaves, it was the smell that woke me up. There is something about the smell of green oolong that just makes me cringe. I was originally going to take this to work in my travel mug, but as it sat there steeping and the smell intensified, i just couldn’t do it. I was close to just saying i give up and dropping it down the drain, but instead i poured it into a mug and let it sit there…watching me…taunting me.

So i did it. I took a sip (albeit it was after i’d brushed my teeth, so maybe that influenced my tongue) and it was kinda good. While the smell was OOLONG, the taste wasn’t quite the usual oolongy taste that I’ve come to associate with oolongs. I did manage to drink nearly all of it while running around the house getting ready for work and brewing up my other teas to take to work.

I’m going to hold off rating this one because i didn’t take the time to experience it and really focus on it, but all signs point to this possibly being something i might enjoy, if i can ignore the smell. I have the leaves i can resteep tonight, as well as another package i can try.

Soooo for now, thank you teavivre for this. I drank almost a whole cup of greeny oolong! woot woot!

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!

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!

Thankyou Angel and Teavivre for this generous sample!

I used 1.5 teaspoons

Colour: yellow/amber
Dry leaf smell: overwhelmingly like spinach…..I was pretty worried at this point because I don’t like really vegetal teas.

Steeped leaf: smelled less vegetal
Taste: roasty, slightly vegetal, nutty, with that buttery/milky mouthfeel. A couple of sips into my cup, some floral and sweetness started to develop in my mouth.

2nd steep: 3 minutes, my favourite steep, less vegetal, but still nutty and creamy

3rd steep: 4 minutes, starting to diminish in flavour but still delicious

I like this just as much as the regular TGY Teavivre offers.

I find TGYs to be very comforting. Whether the emotion is happy or sad, TGYs know how to celebrate or soothe the soul.

(Free sample provided by Teavivre. Thank you!)

Setup:

- Vessel: Gaiwan 85 ml (3 Oz)
- Leaf: 5.8 grams (2 3/4 tsp.)
- Water: 100 C
- Time: 25s, 35s, 45s, 55s, 65s, 75s, 85s

Leaf & Infusion

Dry leaf – Rolled with dull shades of olive green to earthy brown, various in size – small to medium large when compared to average TGY. Smelling reveals roasted and smokey notes with some flowery notes underneath.

Wet leaf – As quantity of leaf overcrowded gaiwan in seven steeps the complete leaf unfurl is seldom. The wet leaves are closer to darker tones of olive green and look ripped, which prevents identifying its picking tandard. Aroma that arises from this heap is generally roasted with hints of flowery notes and a certan heat and a whiff of butter. There aren’t many stalks and most of them are thinner when compared to your average rolled oolong.

Infusion – Deep golden liquour tone stayed pretty much the same throughout numerous steeps. Initial aroma takes off with strong roasted aspect and touch of orchid. First steep gives away rich and full mouthfeel with pleasant amount of bitterness and finishes with pleasant amount of lingering bitterness in throat. After few sips there are some honey notes involved that gives the impression of Dan Cong oolong. Later steeps tend to shift to more astringent-citrus-fruity aspect still in pleasant range followed by its usual lingering roasted background. At third steep flowery notes seem to have completely dissapeared which makes room for fruity peach impression to take its form. As the session is half way through fruity aspect starts to decline and shifts more to herbal aspect which strongly reminds of Bai Mu Dan white tea at last steep.

I used this tea as my first try at gung-fu brewing in my new gong-fu teapot.

I did 4 steeps. In each steep I got different flavors, flavor profiles .Overall it was a slight sweet flavor with slightly vegetal notes. I was so focused on trying the tea and the process of gung-fu brewing that I forgot to take notes at every steep!! (oops) I got really into the pattern, the close control over temp/time, and the process.

Luckily, I have enough tea from my Liberteas Sample Box packet that I can try this again gung-fu or my conventional manner when I get a chance.

Overall an enjoyable sweet, honeyed taste.

Also, I discovered I LOVE the process of gung-few brewing. Now, even though I JUST got the teapot I want a gaiwan! Oh, tea as a hobby, you will be the reason for no $$$ in my bank account!

Tastes vegetal and toasty, smell is very vegetal, it is kinda nice tho and gets more roasty tasting after a few steeps even almost nutty which was very nice but i’m afraid this one may just a tad bit too vegetal for my personal preferance i wouldnt drink it very often but its still pretty good.

Another sample from Teavivre.

I let this steep for three minutes, enduring the enticing aroma until the tea was done. The end result is a very nice Tie Guan yin: Fruity, buttery, a hint of saffron. I don’t taste any grassiness, but the taste lingers for two whole minutes in the hard palate of my mouth, which definitely marks this as a really good quality Tie Guan yin. I can’t wait to see how it develops.

All right, after several false starts and a few interruptiuons, here is the second steeping for this Tie Guan Yin. It retained most of the flavor from the previous infusion, with the creaminess actually being a bit more prominent, along with nice development of the saffron flavor. A hint of grassiness might have developed, but it’s really faint, and I might be tasting it because I’m looking for it. Anyway, the aftertaste still lingers for a minute 45, which is pretty impressive. I’m liking this tea more and more.

Third infusion, still no grass. The taste has lost a bit of the creaminess it had, and is starting to get a bit weaker. It also only lingers for a minute now, but other than that, it’s still very good. I also want to note here that this tea is MUCH better if you drink it when it’s warmer. If it get’s cold, it isn’t as vibrant. Unfortunately, this is my last cup of the day, since I need to be able to get up for my internship tomorrow, but needless to say I’m going tosavor the rest of this cup.

So this is another of my free teas samples that I got from Teavivre. It seems like it might be something interesting, so here we go.

Dry Smell: Like peanuts, more specifically when you open a new jar or tub of peanuts from the store. Making me hungry.

Wet: Smells like wet spinach with a little bit of the peanut smell lingering in there.

Taste: Like peanuts and spinach. It’s kind of like a salad, which is interesting. I would drink this again.

Alright, after a week of tooling around, drinking iced Earl Grey and bottled stuff, it’s back to my “tea homework”.

I’ve never had a monkey picked oolong, but they seem to be very popular. I’m sure they aren’t actually picked by monkeys… right? That seems like a health hazard. Anyway. It brewed up to a pleasant shade of yellow after two minutes, and smells different from most oolongs I’ve tried. This smells like it has been roasted. I’m getting sort of a nutty scent, along with cooked veggies. Interesting.

As is my habit, I made it over ice. Wow, is this different from any oolong I’ve ever had. Where most of Teavivre’s oolongs have been gentle and fruity or floral, this one is very hearty. It tastes like straight up roasted nuts and maybe a hint of sesame oil. It’s a very foreign flavor to me, but I like it. I could certainly get used to this. I want to pair it with wakame salad or maybe satay chicken. Mmm.

It was hard to move onto another tea after enjoying Teavivre’s Jasmine Silver Needle so much yesterday, but I am glad I tried this today.

Sometimes Tie Guan Yins are a little….harsh…in the aroma to me. This one is much smoother than some I have had. The first impression is of a dark, baked scent, not smokey, not ashy, not harsh, but comforting, like your grandmother’s iron skillet has some slow roasted delicacy in it, an exotic vegetable that has been cooked low and slow to develop wonderful dark tasting sugars and caramelize. The taste is growing more fruity as I sip, with a hint of the frosty note I find in some white teas. This is a monkey picked to love!

Thank you, Angel and Teavivre for this wonderful sample!