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

Tea type
Oolong Tea
Ingredients
Oolong Tea Leaves
Flavors
Astringent, Bread, Floral, Fruity, Honey, Roasted, Smoke, Stonefruit, Toast, Brown Sugar, Butter, Char, Cinnamon, Cocoa, Cream, Dark Wood, Dried Fruit, Grain, Grass, Herbaceous, Lemon Zest, Orchid, Peanut, Plum, Raisins, Vanilla, Vegetal, Green, Roasted Nuts, Caramel, Lemon, Meat, Sweet, Sweet Potatoes, Wood, Smooth, Sour, Apple, Autumn Leaf Pile, Toasted Rice, Peach, Creamy, Nutty, Flowers
Sold in
Not available
Caffeine
Medium
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by TeaVivre
Average preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 1 min, 45 sec 6 g 6 oz / 176 ml

From Our Community

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118 Tasting Notes View all

  • “I let my cupboard get out of control. It’s great to have a lot of tea, but it isn’t great to have large amounts of really good tea that you can not ossicle drink while it is at its best. In...” Read full tasting note
  • “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...” Read full tasting note
    87
  • “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...” Read full tasting note
    94
  • “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...” Read full tasting note
    90

From Teavivre

Origin: Lishan, Taizhong, Taiwan

Ingredients: Evenly and tightly rolled tea leaves

Taste: Baked Taste with a smoothly and soft flavor

Brew: 2-3 teaspoons for 8oz of water. Brew at 212 ºF (100 ºC) for 1 to 3 minutes (exact time depends on your taste – a longer time will give the tea a stronger taste and color)

Health Benefits: The substance in the tea helps to prevent the decaying of teeth and halting the plaque build-up and also reduce the growth of glucosyltransferase. Monkey Picked Tie Guanyin contains lots of vitamins. Vitamin A can prevent from scurvy; Vitamin B can help digestion; Vitamin C can enhance immunity; Vitamin E can resist aging. As the saying goes that rarity enhances value, you will benefit a lot from drinking a cup of it every day.

About Teavivre View company

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118 Tasting Notes

92
69 tasting notes

(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.

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3294 tasting notes

Hello Steepster!
I’ve been missing you, my tea friends. Life has been busy, & will continue to be for the next couple of weeks, as the Harpy HoliDaze gigs started yesterday, with me playing from 7:30 – 9am in office buildings, but I have a few minutes to stop by, read a few reviews, look at some instagram pics, & comment about this tea.

This is a lovely oolong, kind of nourishing today, & a pleasure to drink multiple steepings of after I came home from this morning’s gig. Something about this tea reminds me of rice crispy treats. I haven’t had them in years, but that’s what this tea brings to mind, today, anyway: popped rice, marshmallow cream, & a kind of fruity sweetness.

Thank you to Angel & Teavivre for including me in the oolong sampling.

Kittenna

How’s your finger holding up?

Sil

my life misses you.

mrmopar

We miss ya!

Terri HarpLady

the finger is coming along. It’s sort of currently fixed in a rigid hooked shape, but I’ve been assured that if I keep doing my painful PT exercises it will eventually soften up. I have exercises that force it to bend further (using the other hand to bend it, I can’t get it to move on its own), & exercises & a little appliance to force it to straighten, which it also can’t do on it’s own…yet! Meanwhile, I’m playing my gigs, & even though harpists don’t pluck with their pinkies, it does have a little bit of an effect on my 4th finger.

Sil, send me your address. I still need to send you your tea, plus if you want any other teas, let me know. We need to hang out! We haven’t hardly talked since you came to st louis, & that’s way too long!!!

MrM, awesome car, Dude ;)

Sil

Facebook doc has my address…..wil try and remember to message you again when I get to work with it haha

Kittenna

Glad to hear you can play again :)

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72
709 tasting notes

My husband won the Oolong sampler from Teavivre in their recent giveaway and it finally arrived on Friday. Therefore, new tea! Whee! He was obsessed with trying this one first because he loves the idea of monkeys picking tea. He was very disappointed to learn that it is highly unlikely that a monkey touched these tea leaves, but he got over it.

I am not much of a Tie Guan Yin fan but hubby is, so between us we should have a balanced review. I still don’t care for greens or green oolongs but I sometimes see the appeal. This is actually being paired with a fairly brisk breakfast of scrambled eggs with vegetables so hopefully it doesn’t get too lost.

I followed the Western style instructions from Teavivre’s website and steeped the 7 gram packet at 100C for one minute. This yielded a light smelling liquor that has what I think of as a fairly typical TGY taste. It verges on being astringent but it doesn’t really develop. I was worried about the boiling water, but it does work. I am not getting any of the peaches and cream I usually get from this sort of tea but I don’t know if these leaves aren’t like that or if the water muted the flavours. This is a perfectly enjoyable cup though. Lightly sweet, nothing grassy or “green.”

The second steep at 2 minutes tastes much the same. The hubby says it is like a light green, and doesn’t find much of a difference between the two. He seems a little disappointed but I reminded him that gongfu would have given him a bigger variety of flavours but we were lazy. Ah well. :)

Will report on further steeps later. For now, it is groceries and then a return to GTA V and reading and crosswords and Supernatural and tea and lovely Sunday afternoons at home.

TeaLady441

GTA V, reading, crosswords, Supernatural AND tea?
Wow. That sounds like a very lovely afternoon. I tried to get my other half to watch Supernatural with me (I just started S1 and am on episode 13 now – long way to go!) but it’s just not his thing. So he plays GTA V while I watch on the tablet. It works. :P

And I have this tea – I’ll have to see if I find it as mild as you did. I bought the samplers because I wanted to learn more about oolongs and how to compare them!

Uniquity

We have been together since teenager-hood and share a lot of common interests. I had him buy me GTA V the day it came out and we have been squabbling over whose turn it is since then. We also have seen all of Supernatural already but love it so much we wanted to start at the beginning. Again! It was a good day. :)

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80
230 tasting notes

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!

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45
557 tasting notes

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.

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91
250 tasting notes

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.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C

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93
98 tasting notes

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.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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83
735 tasting notes

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.

Preparation
Boiling 2 min, 0 sec
ashmanra

I do have the one frm Thinkgeek that is actually picked by monkeys! Now hubby says he wants platypus picked tea. I will certainly keep an eye out for that…

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91
300 tasting notes

Oooo no wonder I’m loving this!!! I didn’t realize this was a) from Teavirve or b) from Taiwan. My taste associations make much more sense now, though I’m kinda glad it just said the name on it and I didn’t look it up prior to drinking, kinda like a blind taste test! This sample is courtesy of Michelle thank you so much!

This is bringing up all sorts of tea memories for me, Verdant’s Taiwanese Orchid Oolong, Twig Tea, Bancha, and the fabulous roasted Tung Ting I had at my first tea house. I love the cool sweet bakey roastedness of this. It’s a bit woodsy and also reminds me of ginseng, though I haven’t had a ginseng oolong yet, something that will change very soon thanks to Michelle’s magic box which is suited so well to my tastes and teas I need to experience!

Started off with short steeps and have increased it to a min and still going strong. My stomach hurts a bit, but I’m attributing that to food and not tea. It is a type of tea I would seek out again in the future, win!

ashmanra

Nom nom! I bought this one!

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97
257 tasting notes

I always know that a treat is coming when I reach for a Teavivre tea. Even when the tea isn’t of one of my preferred types, I consistently admire Teavivre’s rendition of it.

Oolong is one of those types that I don’t pursue or drink often, but I’m always willing to entertain new attempts to make me a fan.

I love the title of this tea. Is it really picked by monkeys? Do monkeys drink tea or eat it? Those are questions that will have to be answered another time. Now, on to my sampling of this tea…

I steeped this tea at 212 degrees for three minutes as Teavivre suggested. The brewed beverage was a light greenish yellow in color.

Brewed and unbrewed, the aroma was grassy and similar to some milder green teas that I tried.

The taste of this tea was sweet, grassy, and fresh. The flavor was very light and smooth, yet full. There was no bitterness and it seemed to go down my throat extremely easily. In fact, I had to restrain myself from chugging it a few times. It is one of those teas that I ENJOYED drinking.

This is simply another perfect tasty tea from Teavivre. I’m not sure if I’m an Oolong fan yet, but I am DEFINITELY a fan of THIS Oolong tea.

In case you are wondering about all of my glowing reviews of Teavivre teas, I need to specify that I am not affiliated with Teavivre in any manner. I am not obligated to write tasting notes (positive or negative) about these teas. I’m also not compensated for my Teavivre tea tasting notes whatsoever, other than the prior receipt of these wonderful samples for which I am extremely grateful.

I personally consider all of Teavivre’s teas to be among the top of the best that I’ve tried during my 10 months as a Steepster. The Monkey Picked (Ma Liu Mie) Tie Guan Yin Oolong Tea has only reinforced my assessment!

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec
tigress_al

Enjoying their wonderful teas is compensation enough! Lol

Stoo

You’ve got that right, tigress_al! All of their teas are incredible!

Bonnie

Stoo, don’t stress, we all are getting the tea from them and love their tea. It is good. We are honest about our reviews and you are honest too! You can tell a phony!

Stoo

Thanks, Bonnie. You are right. All of my reviews come from the heart…or is it the mouth? ;-)

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