Teas Etc

I’ve tried this hot and I’ve tried it as a hot-brewed iced tea. I am now drinking it as a refrigerator cold-brewed iced tea. I think that the cold-brew method works best for this tea, as an iced tea. The lavender doesn’t dominate so much.

Oh man! This is good! But only if you like lavender. Sweet and refreshing.

Spent the entire day drinking steep after steep of my last! teaspoon! of! Golden! Monkey! Leaves!!!!!! Stellar, as usual. I think I would have been a major grump today if I didn’t have the monkey by my side.

I’m STILL on lockdown, but this tea is on my list of favorites. I would buy it again in a heartbeat.

My tea word of the week must be penultimate – now I am drinking the next to the last serving of this (very, very beloved!) tea. I am going to miss this milky, chewy, gentle but flavorful, always right no matter what kind of mood you are in tea. I was kind of silly and soaked the leaves for 10 minutes for a 5th steep, I love it so much :) It was weak, but I still enjoyed its essence.

It’s 3:15pm and I’m just finishing up my “morning tea” – yes, it’s been one of those days! I picked a good one to have for a crazy day full of unreliable steeping times, and tea left to get lukewarm to cold. I’m drinking my third now ice cold steep right now and it’s still milky and tasty. Thank you monkey!!! I know I can turn to you once the semester really comes in full force and things are even crazier!

Quite the enjoyable morning with my Monkey! Oh, those second and third steeps! Milky Heaven! I’m going to have to start rationing this bebe because I have very little left, and am nowhere near my “No Internet Ordering Until You Are Down to 40 Teas in Your Cupboard” lockdown decree. Eee Eee EEEEEEE! (that is the Monkey SCREAMING! He does not want to be rationed!)

Just finished 3 amazing steeps of this one. Today was a particularly caramel-ish day, much to my delight! If I use just a leeeetle extra leaf, I get that caramely goodness. Much love to the Monkey!!

Today I decided to enjoy my Golden Monkey that Tastes like a Golden Monkey :) I am on the second steep, and I love that creamy mouthfeel that becomes evident on steeps two and three. Such an enjoyable tea to sip and sip throughout the day. Mellow and, yes, golden. If a color has a flavor, this is it.

Trying to ease into a post-sick and post-vacation work week. Oh, it’s hard. The Golden Monkey is helping. I was so busy earlier that I oversteeped my first steep by three minutes, and I still had a good cup – the subtleties were lost, but it was still a nice cup to drink. My second steep was milky golden heaven. I am hoping for a third steep this afternoon. Can this tea do any wrong? Sheesh!

Oooooh don’t mind me. I’m just sitting here drinking my Golden Monkey. Again!

Guys, I have a monkey on my back! A GOLDEN monkey!!

I can’t go for more than a few days without having some of this tea! There are teas that I like more, but they are not the kind of teas that inspire frequent drinking, if you know what I mean?! This one is just plain GOOD. You don’t have to be in any sort of mood, the stars don’t have to be aligned a certain way, the weather doesn’t have to be just so…you don’t have to have milk, and you don’t have to have a certain sweetener. You just add under boiling water and it’s good…and I crave it! Sweet, caramel-tinged, raisin-edged good.

Three delicious steeps :) I used a little extra leaf today! The extra leaf + a temp of 200 made for a very satisfying monkey. Now it’s perfect.

This whole round of fussing speaks volumes to me about how a small sample will let you know if you basically like a tea or not, but to refine things, you really need an ounce or so for playing. I started my tea journey thinking in black and white (black tea! one teaspoon leaves! boiling water! Thee End!), and now i am starting to see all the shades of gray :)

I am drinking my good friend the Golden Monkey once again this morning! Smooth and invigorating. Milky and delicious, especially on steeps 2 and 3. So easy to sip. Much love to the monkey!!!

For a person who says that this tea is good but not wonderment and cartwheels – I sure have been drinking it often enough!!! It’s so perfect for mornings at work. It’s gentle with me, but gives me that extra little nudge to get going, and it tastes great (at 200 – I’m getting more caramel and chewy. Then milky. Mmmmm).

LauraR helped me realize that Golden Monkey is from the Yunnan region, but is not a Yunnan tea per se. It is a smooth light(er) tea, whereas a classic Yunnan is the one with the pepper and more assertive character. I was expecting the Monkey to be a Horse!!

Now that I am enjoying the monkey as the Golden Monkey that he is, I am very satisfied. The monkey is getting a little nudge upwards in rating :)

I tried this at boiling today, and I think it was chewier at 200. Oh well. It is still very enjoyable. Last time, at 200, I got milky on the second steep, but this time I got it on the third steep (my water had cooled in my kettle slightly). So, in a nutshell, I enjoy it in every way better at 200.

I think this is a great tea, but I am only in like and not in love. I will be searching for a chewier, less delicate Yunnan when I’m done this tin.

So naturally sweet and caramelicious! The first steep was a darker, chewy caramel, and this second one is sweeter and yes, milky – in that coating in your mouth sort of way. I used 200 degree water and a 4 minute first steep time – thinking about maybe trying boiling and 5 minutes next time to see if I get more or less caramel. I didn’t get any pepper and am wondering if it’s my slightly cooler than boiling temp and shortish steep time, too. I think I was a little too conservative!! My third steep is a little weak, but still enjoyable.

I’m glad to add another amazing-with-nary-an-additive black tea to my at-work arsenal, and look forward to playing with the steep time and water temp a bit!

Gosh, I really liked this as an iced tea. Then again, I really like lemongrass.

Good depth of flavor, very complex taste, smooth end, sweet, stout and can stand on its own (doesn’t need sugar and cream). It’s still a new type of flavor to me so it’s hard for me to rate this compared to others.

It is good, very coffee like. It is weird, I get different tastes each time I sip. It’s like smooth black coffee…but lighter. Sometimes sharp on the end.

This came as a free sample with my Teas Etc order (an aside: I love when a company lets you choose a sample, or chooses a sample for you based on your tastes as revealed by what you ordered :) Teas Etc. lets you choose).

Sweet lemon candy. The honeybush is really nice in this – adds depth and sweetness. I kept on wanting more SOMETHING though – more lemon? maybe some ginger? My husband loved it – I would pop it into a future order simply because he liked it so much – but this is not one that drives me wild.

I think this tea has helped me realize that I’m not the biggest fan of hot white teas. They’re fine, but not my favorites. I really like some of them iced, but I don’t think that I’ll be going out of my way to sample more (or if I do, then it will be as an iced tea).

I’ve also realized that I’m not a big fan of melon flavor in teas. They just seem extra “musky” to me and I only enjoy melons when they’re sweet. I might have a different feeling about melon tea if I added sweetner, but I’d rather do tea straight up.

Overall it’s probably a decent melon white tea, but it’s not for me. M

In all of my time of drinking rooibos, I have never tried it with any kind of milk…until last night! I put a squeeze of agave nectar and a splash of half and half into this tisane, and wow! It was much more tea-like and enjoyable. The dairy really brought out the custard aspects of this blend. My husband said,“This is the best rooibos yet!”

Thanks to SoccerMom for this sample!

Absolutely delicious (you would hardly know you were drinking rooibos!) but I still love the toasty meaty coconut of my Organic Black with Coconut better, and kept on thinking about that tea the whole time I was sipping this one. I must be a one coconut kinda woman ;)

I am drinking this as a cold-brewed iced tea. Much better method of preparing this tea. I strongly advise it.