First of the batch of new harvest teas I got from Yunnan Sourcing. The dry leaves look good as they should for Golden Monkey: long twisted leafs with at least a third of golden tips. The smell is not that good though: I expected it to be very sweet and intoxicating but it instead got a smell of old dry leaves, spices and some sourness.
I brewed it western style and got rather mixed results. I put about three grams per a large coffee mug (drinking at work) and first let it sit for 50 seconds. It turned out to be pleasantly malty and sweet but it felt that the taste was a bit lacking and not intense enough. So I brought the infuser back in the mug for another 20-25 seconds and it was too much: the sweetness turned into slight sourness.
All in all, it is a pleasant tea but not very intense and captivating. and finicky about the steeping times. I will try it gong fu but I am not holding my breath. It is not a bad tea but there are certainly better Golden Monkeys on the market: the one from Teavivre, for example.
This, unfortunately, became my all-too-common experience with Yunnan Sourcing: their standard and, often, premium teas are all solid and pleasant but rarely wow you. To get to really impressive teas one needs to move up all the way to the Imperial grade and it will cost you. Don’t get me wrong, the selection of teas at Yunnan Sourcing is almost overwhelming but I was able to find outstanding teas in the non-premium category of other online Chinese tea vendors way more more frequently.
Flavors: Baked Bread, Malt, Maple, Spices, Sweet Potatoes
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I find that with YS, i often prefer the regular grade vs the imperial grade, so that’s a win for me haha
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve been ordering the standard grade of Golden Monkey and last year’s harvest wasn’t as good as I’ve had in the past. Think I’ll upgrade to Imperial grade when I reorder this year.
For black and darker oolong teas, I would highly recommend waiting a year or two after harvest to drink them. The 2015 Bai Lin Gong Fu from YS is one of my favourite black teas ever! (It could just be that the 2018 harvest is objectively worse, but please don’t throw the tea away! Try it in a couple years’ time.) I wasn’t wowed by the 2017 Imperial Bailin but I’m going to wait and drink it next year. I’ve had the same experience with my Wuyi oolongs and Dancong oolongs from YS where they tasted really meh when I first bought them and then developed much richer sweetness and complexity after setting aside. Nowadays if I want to drink a black/oolong tea immediately then I buy an older vintage (if it’s not sold out!)
I find that with YS, i often prefer the regular grade vs the imperial grade, so that’s a win for me haha
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve been ordering the standard grade of Golden Monkey and last year’s harvest wasn’t as good as I’ve had in the past. Think I’ll upgrade to Imperial grade when I reorder this year.
For black and darker oolong teas, I would highly recommend waiting a year or two after harvest to drink them. The 2015 Bai Lin Gong Fu from YS is one of my favourite black teas ever! (It could just be that the 2018 harvest is objectively worse, but please don’t throw the tea away! Try it in a couple years’ time.) I wasn’t wowed by the 2017 Imperial Bailin but I’m going to wait and drink it next year. I’ve had the same experience with my Wuyi oolongs and Dancong oolongs from YS where they tasted really meh when I first bought them and then developed much richer sweetness and complexity after setting aside. Nowadays if I want to drink a black/oolong tea immediately then I buy an older vintage (if it’s not sold out!)