Imperial Golden Monkey

Somewhat earthy with smoke and a bit of mineral. There are also red wine and hints of very dark chocolate notes that linger. Needs ample leaf which makes a tasty, enjoyable cup. Re-steeps weak.

This is my morning pot. It is delicious as always. Breakfast is chocolate chip cookies (hey, I’m an adult. I can decide what I want for breakfast.) and this tea is marvelous with cookies!

This seems like pretty quintessential Golden Monkey. It’s got the dry scent of clean forest floor with malt overtones. The wet leaves are even maltier, but the steep is more sweet than malt. Go figure. The monkey has always been a house fave and this one fits right in. Yum.

Interesting. This has more butter notes initially than other GMs I’ve tried. They add a nice rich smoothness. It smells moderately of smoke but that flavor doesn’t show up until about 6 minutes of steep. The longer the steep, the more minerally it gets and the more the smoke comes to the fore. Sweet spot for this one with me is about 1.5-2 minutes. Before the butter gets overwhelmed by minerals. The buttery notes make this one stand out. Take those away and it’s a good GM but not distinguishable from others.

I got a sample of this with my last order – since I’ve enjoyed all their teas that use this as a base, I was curious to see what it would be like on its own. The smell of the dry tea is very chocolatey! As it steeps, it remains pretty chocolatey with some maltiness. Surprisingly, the flavour was actually less chocolatey than I expected! Don’t get me wrong, the chocolate notes are still there, and this is a very nice tea overall. It’s quite malty and there is just a hint of bitterness/astringency, as well as a lingering sweetness in the aftertaste that I’m coming to associate with some Chinese black teas. Second steeping wasn’t quite as delicious as the first, but I still finished off the cup pretty quickly.

I had a tea loving friend over today for hanging out and catching up, and made a pot of this for us to share.

It was excellent, lots of cocoa and malt this time around, and she really enjoyed it. I sent her home with samples of the blends that use this as a base, as well as some others, because I am a terrible enabler :)

My hand is sore. Last night I bet I chopped more vanilla beans than you have chopped in your entire life, in 40 minutes. Mad knife skills, but a sore right hand. This morning I decided to have some golden monkey. I have not drunk this tea. in a while as I’ve been drinking a lot of Taiwanese black teas and pu’erhs. This is still as good as I remembered. Chocolatey, malty and smooth. Really tasty tea and my favourite golden monkey thus far. It’s made me peckish for more Chinese blacks. Now it is time to gorge on chocolate for the next several days and then not eat chocolate for a month. Happy spring fertility festival!