Tiger Monk

Thank you Liquid Proust for this sample!

Tasting #1 – Steep Time 2 Minutes
A pleasant aroma of of a crackling fireplace. Mild flavor with great mouth feel.

Tasting #2 – Steep Time 4 Minutes
Delicious! I wish I knew the distinctive smells of trees, because this goes beyond the smell of wood but a particular type of wood. I know I’ve smelled this before, but I don’t know what it is. But I love it.

Tasting #3 – Steep Time 6 Minutes
What is this sweetness? There is a distinct aroma left in my cup after its been emptied. Like burnt caramel and white chocolate. But I don’t taste the sweetness, only the cackling fireplace.

This is one of those teas that I feel a little odd reviewing because my evaluation differs from others… but, we all have different tastebuds and I have no regrets because I’m as honest as I can be to myself.
This tea just has a funk taste to it. The leaf is quite dark and looks wonderful, but something about the smell and taste has something unappealing to it.
I used 5g and did a 30s steep and a 2 minute steep… both times was like bad techno is my mouth, it works as background noise/taste but I could easily switch to something better.

I have to admit that I have difficulty western brewing Oolong’s ( I only have one that I brew that way on any regular basis). There is something about the complexity of tastes, the spice and the warmth it produces in my body that compels me to play with the tea and deconstruct its flavours. I’ve had this sample for a while but have only recently had the time and the health to fully appreciate it.

This is a lovely tea it has a wonderful mix of dark honey, fruit, a variety of floral tones, cured pine, roasted charcoal note, corn, and a variety of savoury vegetable notes. I absolutely enjoyed it and could easily see myself purchasing some in the future. Thank you very much to Temple Road for sharing this tea with me.

I must be impressed with the quality of the packaging of temple road tea as even this sample was packed with a dessication packet to control the moisture levels of the tea.

The dry tea is composed of tightly wound nuggets that are dark spruce and olive green heading towards a dark charcoal colour. The leaves smell of a mix of sweet fruit, charcoal roasted notes and a faint woodiness but are overall very fruity.

I steeped the tea 11 times after a rinse (45,30,35, 40,50,55,60,70,80,90, and 120s)

45s. Liquor pretty buttercup gold colour
Scent complex fruit smell, papaya,melon,warm peach, honey, carnation like spice tones, hint of roast and woodiness, cream.
Taste. Delicious, warm papaya and peaches, honey, vanilla orchid with carnation, cream. Spicy,warm fruit with a slight spicy floral tone.

30s stronger honey tones,fruit still get aparrent, sweet spicy floral, roster woody tone.
Taste spicy floral, fruity tones at the for front as well as something more deeper, tart and berry like, strong honey tones, hint of roasted, charred,bitter greens. Creamy buttery, mouth feel,a bit of woodiness.

35s. Brew is a deeper saffron like colour. Scent buttery, spicy soft floral, with fruit not as intense as before, honey, hint of sweet buttery lettuce like greens.
Taste hint of spinach,spice a faint echo of cloves on top of floral spice vanilla cream, touch of honey, sweet cooked greens, aftertaste of warm peaches. A balance between, savoury, sweet, and spicy, a little perfumy.

40s. cream over stewed peaches and papaya, vanilla, and floral spice.
Floral spice better balanced with other flavours so it is nit so perfumy, sweet buttery green tones slightly more apparent, a touch of spinach. Spicy feel at the front of the mouth.

50s. Scent corn, fruit, vanilla, butter, fainter spice,tones, dried , cured,pine.
Taste savoury vegetable cooked with cloves van butter cooked peaches in vanilla cream, hint of corn. spice in the aftertaste.

55s .scent Orchid and lily, buttetred creams, vanilla sugar, cooked peaches, a touch of citrus, spice.
Taste cooked peaches, vanilla sugar, spicy floral mixed with 5 spice powder, cream, savoury spinach and sweet greens.

60s. Citrus and peaches, vanilla, cream, faint vegetal note.

Corn,warm peaches and cream, vanilla orchid and nutmeg, faint cured pine note.

70s citrus, cream warm peach, sweet cooked greens

80s. Sweet tone with hint of dark honey, cream,peach, corn.
Hint of woody tone and echo of spice.

90s corn, cooked greens, cream,hint of fruit.
Same as above

120s dark honey and spice with a hint of greens

I admit, I did not steep this according to the directions. Once I saw that the flavor was supposed to be smokey, I knew 6 minutes would be too much for me. Instead I have done several infusions. First for one minute, second for two, and will be attempting a third and fourth. The first cup was delightful. It was smokey but not overwhelming at all like I find strong smokey black teas to be. There is even more smoke in the second steep, but it still isn’t too much for me. I am very interested to see how far this unique oolong can go.

Backlog:

Toast! I love the sweet, nutty, roasty-toasty flavor of this tea. It also has a nice creamy note to it. Later infusions, I began to discover some peach-like notes, notes of charcoal, mineral-y notes. I noticed more of a rustic flavor as I continued to steep these leaves.

A really fine Oolong! I highly recommend it.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/03/16/tiger-monk-roasted-oolong-tea-from-temple-road/

I received this as a sample – a very delicious tea. The dry tea reminds me of Milk Oolong — tight little buds. The taste and smell of the tea is reminiscent of a roasty big red robe only more complex – some definite floral notes. Very satisfying.

Seems like forever since I have been on Steepster. So today I have Temple Road’s Tiger Monk. I was contacted through my blog and offered the opportunity to review it. Of course I did not turn it down. The 10g sample was vacuum packed with a packet to either absorb moisture or absorb oxygen. I can’t read the writing so I am guessing. The instructions said to use 3 g and 95 C water and a 6 minute steep – so that is what I did. The dry leaf aroma reminds me of the puffed wheat cereal I ate as a kid. The brew though is smoked and roasted. The first sensation when sipping was the roasting. It seemed quite strong, but suddenly melted away with a prickly sensation and became a much greener tasting oolong than I expected. Maybe in part due to the earlier prickly sensation, the aftertaste reminded me of mango.

Strong but no bitterness. Nicely complex.

Backlog from last night.

It’s been a year since I’ve have this and I think that in the intervening period my palate has really developed. I notice a lot more about this tea than I did before. There’s a lot going on here!

There are the roasty topnotes that I remember from before, but the aftertaste is more noticeable and lingering – it reminds me of barley, corn, grass. Very green, in fact.
There’s a richness and sharpness that reminds me of something fresh and wet, like a humid forest – it makes me think of the Phoenix Dancong I had from the GCTTB a few weeks ago.

Lovely orange liquor, huge unfurled leaves. I really think I’ll enjoy the remainder of the leaf from this. I may even buy a box from Temple Road (but I have way too much tea already :-0 )

I like this oolong :) it’s got a nice taste, not really strong even though it steeped for 6 minutes like the package said to so I was a little surprised at that. I like that it’s not like some other oolongs in that it has that strong flowery taste. This is more that warm, toasty…is it nutty? Type of taste. It’s not too sweet so it went well with my chosen breakfast of cinnamon roll loaf with frosting all over it… So good and yummy. And now to clean out my tea stuff. I would drink a lot more tea if someone would just make it for me on demand :D. Thank you for the sample, Temple Road!

Temple Road Tea’s from Taiwan send me this 10gram Roasted Oolong as a sample in order to make a review here on steepster. I would like to thank them to give me the opportunity to try this tea.

Oolongs are a type off tea that is usually a hit or mis with me, i usually drink light greener oolongs tough tis should be a darker one. The instructions that came with the sample are clear, divide the sample into 3 equal parts and make a 6min infusion. 6min is a long time in my opinion but i followed the instructions.

The dry leafs where dark green rolled in tiny balls. Upon infusion they unfurl to rather large leafs. The downside is that i’m not really getting all the aroma’s from te steeping in my nose because i got a bit of a cold… But as far that i can tell the smell reminds me of Big Red robe, and the color of the steep is somewhat familiar to it.

Taste wise i’m getting the roasted notes in my mouth with the first few sips, perhaps a bit smoked like in the description.Its strong but not overwhelming, i was expecting a bitter brew because there was such a long steep time involved. Its surprisingly fresh and delicious.

Gonna try to get 3 steeps out of this tea, will make a new note later today with the evolution in taste over the different steeps.

Have to say i’m looking forward to receive more samples from tis company.