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Cameron B. drank Golden Monkey by Harney & Sons

1578 tasting notes

Good morning Steepster! Okay, so it’s almost noon, but this is my first cup of tea so too bad! :D This is out of the pile of Harney samples that I realized I still haven’t tried. I can be such a slacker… I wanted a straight black and this was the first one I saw, so voila! I think the name describes this tea very well, the leaves are small and curly, half golden and half dark brown. I can totally imagine these being the coat of some adorable curly-haired monkey. Okay, that doesn’t make much sense but too bad! The smell is unlike any other tea I’ve had so far. It’s extremely strong malt and almost savory, but there’s definitely a hint of honey in there too. It definitely piqued my interest. Kind of followed the average parameters on here and steeped for 4 minutes at about 200 degrees.

It’s interesting, as soon as I took the lid off of my brewing basket, I definitely smelled a strong fruit note. However, when I took the basket out and sniffed the tea, it wasn’t there. I discovered that it was coming from the leaves, which I thought was interesting. The brew itself smells strongly of crusty bread with a small bit of cocoa and maybe some honey. Oh my goodness! This tea is just like eating that dark wheat bread that steakhouses serve you with honey butter! I was floored by how spot-on it is. Needless to say, it has a very strong bready flavor, specifically dark wheat bread. There’s also a strong malt taste, which makes perfect sense as the yeast in the bread! And then a touch of cocoa just to make it a tad rich. I got a sesame seed note at one point, but it wasn’t something I picked up on during every sip. The aftertaste is all malt. I know honey is a very common descriptor for this one, but I didn’t really get that. There was definitely some sweetness but I guess I associated that either with the dark bread or cocoa notes. Sweetener might have brought that out more but I wouldn’t dare with this tea!

I think Golden Monkey may have been one of the five free TeaVivre samples I chose, and now I really hope it was because I would love to try another version of this tea! So yummy and satisfying.

Flavors: Baked Bread, Cocoa, Malt