Golden Monkey - Golden Monkey Black

Sample sipdown! Thanks again to VariaTEA for the swap. :)

Really enjoying this one this morning. I overleafed this last mug, not wanting to be left with a sad half-mug’s worth of leaf, and it took it very well without any bitterness. Because of that, it has a nice POW stick-to-your-ribs sort of strong flavor and body.

I am getting cocoa today, hooray! Along with the usual suspects of bread, caraway, oodles of malt, and a bit of dark, syrupy dried fruit. It has a very savory taste as well, which only adds to the thick & satisfying quality.

Nommy. Raising the rating a little, as I felt this one got better with each mug I made. Will definitely need to get some Golden Monkey into my cupboard on a more permanent basis once I’ve cleared things out a bit. (she says optimistically…)

Gongfu Sipdown (2631)!

Sipping down the last of a rather old sample of Golden Monkey black tea that, if I’m being honest, I actually thought I’d finished off a long time ago. Despite age, this tea was a banger. Robust and full-bodied with notes of bittersweet dark cacao, roasted almonds, caraway, fresh baked rye bread, and malt. Though, mostly the notes of rich chocolate and nuts with the cacao particularly clinging to the bed of the mouth post-sip. If memory serves, it used to be even sweeter and more fudgey when the leaves were fresher, but I’m actually not minding the lack of overt sweetness. Sometimes, it’s really nice to experience more of these decadent and more stereotypically “dessert like” tasting notes but with a more savory edge to them – and I might not have noticed tastes like the caraway if my attention was more fixated on other tasting notes.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C-Nnq6ZOIu7/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHiwQ10E-no

Gong Fu Sipdown (327)

I won an instagram giveaway and got a $40 voucher for a company whose teaware I’ve been eyeing for a while now. I definitely spent over the $40 but ended up with a bunch of new lovely teaware, including a lovely new tea tray, a glass gaiwan, and a cute monkey teacup. Pictures: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-N1BobAOo-/

The teaware showed up and of course I had to break it in and this tea just ended up standing out to me. I got about 8 steeps with the main flavor notes being cocoa, leather, and malt. At times, it got smokey. At other times, some raisin came through and in the last steep, even a touch of baked bread. It was smooth and full-bodied and quite a nice session of steeping while watching the Masked Singer on Wednesday.

I had a bit of a food misadventure tonight. I was trying to make a lazy/quick jambalaya. I’ve done this several times before, but I of course cook by instinct rather than recipe. I just toss in whatever I think should go in and hope for the best. Most times it works out. Tonight I didn’t add enough liquid before putting it in the oven, so the rice wasn’t cooked properly. At that point the only option is to mix it up, add more liquid and put it back in the oven. This breaks the awesome crust on the bottom and causes the rice to be unevenly cooked. Oh well, it’s ok but not quite what I was hoping for.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BdB0tj9BYAj/?taken-by=dex3657

So while dinner was taking twice as long as it should have to cook… I drank several cups of this tea. I was a little disappointed that the leaf wasn’t more golden. There are some golden tips but I was expecting lots of gold. Doesn’t matter – this is a great tea. Lots of chocolate notes, some starch, some malt, a little fruit. It’s deep, dark, and awesome. I really like this one.

I don’t think I mention, or post many photos of my test tube steeper. I really like it and use it often. It’s great for doing a bunch of quick steeps. I normally do a bit of a modified gongfu. Steeps of 20 – 40 – 1 min – 1.5 min – something like that. I normally just watch the color and stop when it looks right. This being clear glass is awesome for that. It doesn’t burn your fingers and you don’t need a pitcher or strainer, so less cleanup.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BdBrgqIBTII/?taken-by=dex3657

Oh boy, another sample thanks to Teabento. Opening the packet, I was instantly reminded of Dutch processed cocoa powder.

In terms of flavour and texture, it is on the thinner side (seems like all of my samples have been so far), with faint cocoa notes, dried fruit, and honey. Slight astringency but nothing crazy. The new voila, I detect a smoky note? Only on the scale of 2/10 but a surprise, nonetheless.