Golden Monkey is a Fujian black tea pretending to be a dark chocolate mousse. Beautiful hand-picked leaves and even better scent, from the home of Chinese white teas.
I feel extremely lucky last few months for having a change to try and write about some of the best teas in the world. I feel I start every review with „this is the best tea I have ever tried“, but I really do feel like being in tea heaven each and every day.
Name: Golden Monkey Black Tea (金猴红茶)
Tea Vendor: Teabento (Germany)
Type: Chinese black tea
Getting to Know the Monkey
Golden Monky black tea is a very beautiful black tea from Fujian, home of white teas, made from Fuding Da Bai cultivar, used for white teas. Leaves are a pure joy for the eyes, long, with beautiful golden tips, sophisticated and thin, and completely unbroken. Scent is delightful, deep, unobtrusive sweet and fresh, with amazing chocolate note. Actually, it’s more like a chocolate biscuits with raisins, and placed in a hot teapot they get a warm bread note as well. 50 grams of Golden Monkey black tea costs 9.90 EUR or around 11.75 USD.
Golden Monkey Black Tea in a Cup
Brewing: 4 grams, 150ml, 90 degrees Celsius, 60, 30, 90, 180, 300 seconds
How does the Monkey react to water? Golden Monkey black tea is amazingly easy to brew. Leaves smell so nice after each and every steeping that I really didn’t want to throw them away. First, there is this deep, but very fresh chocolate note. It feels like a dark chocolate malty mousse filled with raisins and placed on a freshly baked light bread. Color is dark yellow-brown to dark red. It’s well-rounded and rich, but light at the same time. A bit sweet, with no astringency at all. Wet leaves are very pretty as well. Milk chocolate brown, thin and very very fresh.
Golden Monkey is perfect for any time of the day or year, it’s not heavy, it’s very light and refreshing and extremely easy to brew. I feel like it’s impossible to ruin it even if you are a beginner.
If you wish to try Teabento teas, you can use the special discount code for Tea Chronicles’ readers. Type in „cajne“ during your tea check-out for a 10% off. Don’t know which one to choose? Take a look at sample teabento box – it includes eight TEAriffic teas. Discount is valid until the end of October. Teabento’s tea animals can offer a lot of love.
