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

This very lightly roasted Oolong , I love it. It is exquisite.

Dark green oolong with rolled leaves go for 5 minutes into aboiling water.
The wet leaves look terribly like spinach branchs.

With the taste everything changes. Here is a festival of flavours . Peach succeeds honey, puffed rice to nuts and warm bread… It has also floral notes , characteristic of Tieguanyin but I prefer them in this tea vs the high mountain Oolong tea because these notes are not isolated here.

The texture is also interesting : fluid, light yet creamy , mellow . I really really love this tea.

I cannot resist to reproduce here what Teavivre explains about the name of this tea :
" Legend has it that the cliff is too abrupt for people to pick the Oolong tea leaves. Therefore, monkey is trained to climb the cliff and help tea farmers pick the Oolong tea leaves. Another saying goes that tea farmers need to tie a rope around the waist during the process of picking, just like a monkey. Hence obtains its name"

Lovely tea that offers a very pale yellow liquid.

You can see pics of my session here :http://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2014/11/29/taiwan-monkey-picked-ma-liu-mie-tie-guan-yin-oolong-tea-teavivre/

I last drank this last mid-November of 2014. This note is for educational purposes. Ratings won’t be deleted to keep the integrity of my first tasting note.

Method: gongfu session with a ceramic gaiwan. 5 second rinse. Steeping times: 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, 100, 120.

The dry leaf and wet leaf aromas smell roasted and bitter, of sauteed dark greens. In contrast, the liquor aroma gives off strawberries.

The liquor has a golden yellow. Full-bodied. The effect feels heavy (as opposed to, say, Teavivre’s Da Yu Ling, which makes me feel energized). The first infusion has a silky and thick texture. The flavor notes are sweet like strawberries first first, then, later, like hard candy, which then becomes flower-like. There is a milk candy aftertaste that is persistent throughout the entire session.

The second infusion is similar overall but tastes more roasted and has notes of tart berries. Three and four: a floral sweetness, also just as tart, though. Five, six, and seven are even sweeter, a little less tart and more flower. Drying mouth. Finally, eight tastes mostly like the milk candy.

How this differs from last time: I stored this poorly. Oh heck, I really didn’t even “store” it. That accounts for the stronger tartness. Can’t really review the quality because of this.

This is the second of my free oolong samples from TeaVivre. I must say, I am somewhat perplexed by the naming of tie guan yin teas. I find it hard to know which ones are roasted and which aren’t, as well as the level of oxidation. Oh well! I can tell this one is roasted by the color and scent of the dry leaves. The pellets are very irregular and seem loosely rolled, and the color is a medium green/brown. Dry scent reminds me of roasted grains and has a touch of sweetness and grassiness.

Once steeped, this tea’s aroma is heavenly. I am definitely reminded of Gui Fei. There’s a rich roasty aroma along with sweet apple notes. Mm, this tea is so comforting. The main event is the soft, but rich flavor of roasted grain or leaves. Then there’s a lovely sweet element that vaguely reminds me of golden delicious apples combined with wildflower honey. The sweetness lingers into the aftertaste where it’s joined by the lightest, most refreshing floral element and a hint of roasty flavor. Yum, I’m in love!

Very nice tea from TeaVivre. My first Oolong tasting, it is my after lunch tea today. I brew the Gaiwan style, it is my fav way to brew tea now. Love the brightness of the open leaves and it has a grassy smell. I am at my 4th steep now and can still taste the peach. The color is yellow-orange. My son had a cup and said that it was a fancy tea. I want to educate him about tea. We read where it was from. We will learn together. Now I have to buy my first Gaiwan pot. It will be easier to brew in it than using a cup and a mesh strainer. Thanks TeaVivre again for an amazing tea experience on a cool august day here in Ontario!

Another fortuitous Teavivre sample from Virginia! The leaves are green, brown and rolled. I like oolongs better when they’re rolled. Idk why. It’s completely superficial, but that’s the way it is with me lol.

In my notes (this is still part of my backlog), I have “leaves smell good!” Thanks past MJ, that’s soooo helpful :-/. From what I remember, I was impressed with how fresh this tea smelled. It’s a very subtle light yellow-green and has a great mouthfeel. I steeped it 15/15/30/40 sec.

1st steep: very creamy with a honey sweet finish and a hint of mineral

2nd steep: slightly less creamy with a more floral character. A slight astringency emerges

3rd steep: Total flip-flop from the last steep! The mineral taste has fled and the creaminess is back.

4th steep: repeat of the 3rd. Yum :)

An Ode to Tea challenge #2– T

Time for this last lingering teaspoon to go!   I really enjoyed this one fresh.   I’m sad that oolongs lose their distinctness so quickly when they get this old.  But this IS old.  Not much to say as a unique oolong profile becomes Generic Oolong Flavored as it gets older.  It tastes like oolong!  But not how it once tasted. A tough lesson to learn, but I won’t be amassing a ton of tea like this anymore. But also, I only used one teaspoon this time and the past note says 2 1/2 teaspoons did NOT seem overleafed, so that could be the problem too. It’s hard to tell which of the oolongs are my favorite from Teavivre.  They were all so good back when I was trying most of them around the same time.
2021 sipdowns: 103

Happy Birthday to me …..Happy Birthday to me….well it was yesterday, but when you work 6 day work weeks celebration has to wait. I’m finally getting to relax and Veggietales with the kids. Just a great quality Oolong. As we’re watching my seven year old asks if she can have a hippopotamus for Christmas.

Man did these tea leaves dance… and boy it was beautiful! They unwhirled and uncurled so beautifully as if dancing to an elegant ballet. The steep liquor smelled super roasted and a bit vegetal and buttery. Sip after sip, the butteriness, nuttiness, and creaminess tantalized my taste buds even more. Much to my delight, the roasted flavor did not take over the whole cup and merely complimented all the other flavors. What a lovely tea.
I’m not always in the mood for an oolong, but this one is definitely a comforting one. Delicious!

Thank you, again, Teavivre for this sample. Mmmm.

I have long been on a quest to find a Monkey Picked oolong as good as the one at Teavana that I am in love with. This one is definitely the closest I’ve found so far. Anddd it’s cheaper than Teavana too-which is always a plus :P I like enough teas from Teavana already, I don’t need to waste all my money there XD
But yeah, definitely a good tea! :D

After reading a post by Sherapop challenging herself to review all her existing teas, I updated my cupboard and discovered that I’ve been very lax in posting reviews on Steepster. Instead, I’ve been posting cryptic notes in a spreadsheet.

So, here is a review of a tea I’ve been enjoying for more than a year, finally posted.

1st (1.5 min): Rich aroma of fruit, with hints of spice and veggie. The taste is mostly spice, but with hints of fruit and flower. The finish starts out fruity, but then seems to move back and forth between fruit and spice, ending up tannic. As I sip, the various flavors interact, coming to the fore one at a time. A very interesting cup.

2nd steep (1 min): Nose has the same flavors as before, but is better integrated. Taste is dominated by wood (cedar I think) and opens up into a really big finish. There is some fruit behind the wood.

Today I would rate this tea a 92, but on prior occasions I’ve had a hard time finding the fruit, so I’m going to post my average rating, weighted toward more recent tastings, which is an 89.