A gift of Anji Bai Cha....mmmm!

If you've read any of my previous posts you know that my personal mission is FRESH TEA.  Hard to find here in North America, although thankfully not impossible thanks to places such as Tao Tea Leaf (Toronto) and Camellia Sinensis (Montreal). The flavour delivery is just so much richer, especially for green teas which seem to fade in flavour more quickly than black tea.

The tea was bought at source in China last summer by a friend and given to me the other day when we sampled the afternoon tea service at the Shangri-la Hotel on University Avenue, but that's another story.

It came in this rather lovely little box -- like an old cigarette box.  Besides the chinese characters, it says in english "Anji Daguan Tea Industry Dawushan Tea Plant with a website -- www.dawushan.com.

Anji Daguan Tea Industry Dawushan Tea Plantation

TEA TASTING
Water - 82C for 2 minutes
The dry leaves are distinctly shaped -- a bit like pine needles at first glance -- and are a good clue that this is Anji Bai Cha green tea.  Fairly large leaf buds all neatly and similarly straight.  There's no twist to the leaf which suggests they were simply withered and baked -- and very delicately so, with very little handling. Of course I'm guessing here, as I didn't see it being made, and have not had tea like this before.

Anji Bai Cha dry leaves

Babelcarp tells me Anji Bai Cha is made from the "An Ji cultivar, more properly called Bai Ye Yi Hao, used to make lücha and baicha, or an early spring manufactured tea made from the cultivar, literally An Ji White Tea".  "Bai" means white, and "Cha" means tea.

And good old Wikipedia tells me it's "produced in Anji County, Zhejiang Province, China and is a relatively recent tea cultivar, having been discovered in 1982. As a result of this and its short harvesting period, it is a comparatively rare tea.  Despite being called "white", it is in fact a green tea. The long, narrow leaves are yellow in colour and have a recognisable fold along the length of the leaf.”

If you click on the dry leaves photo above, you'll note that some of the leaves still show some of the whiteness that gives the cultivar its name.

Wet leaves - light aroma of the fire from baking, loads of fresh green (sweet, spring,) faint spinach, something else sweet and cooked, like carrots or something.  The liquor is lovely, pale, yellowy green.  There's very little bitterness, almost none and it has an exceptionally smooth mouth feel -- light bodied.

Anji Bai Cha wet leaves

Anji Bai Cha liquor

Edinburgh Breakfast from Majesteas

I had the pleasure of assisting my colleague The Tea Stylist at her Mother's Day presentation at The Bata Shoe Museum the other day.  I volunteered to prepare the tea for the 20+ folk who came to hear her lecture and taste some tea and food pairings.

The three teas were all wonderful -- an exquisite Wei Shan Mao Jian from Camellia Sinensis in Montreal, a beautiful High Mountain (Jade) Oolong Organic from Tao Tea Leaf in Toronto, and a black tea blend from Majesteas, also here in Toronto, called Edinburgh Breakfast .

This latter tea was a delightful discovery.  I don't tend to gravitate to blends but this one seduced me first by the wonderful, rich aroma of the dry leaves and then by its nicely balanced flavour and mouth feel.  I snaffued some of the left-overs and took it home to our Mother's Day lunch to share with family, and have enjoyed it the past couple of mornings as my breakfast tea.


Majesteas is co-owned and operated by Ian Macdonald and Robert Gignac, who are both Certified Tea Sommeliers out of the same George Brown program that I graduated from -- the cohort just after mine I believe. It's a small but well-stocked store with a couple of tables for enjoying a pot of tea and sweet snack.  Very inviting.

Both owners are knowledgeable and curious about tea, tea blending, and, most exciting in my books, sourcing fresh tea. In fact Robert is just back from a 17-day trip to China and Majesteas is having a spring tea tasting of some of his discoveries on May 26 and 27.  Oh la la!

The Tea:  Majesteas Edinburgh Breakfast

Water: just off the boil
Tea: 3.9 grams to 7 oz water (same ratio as the 2.5 grams to 5 oz water I generally use, but adapted for my teamaker)
Steep: 2 minutes

The appeal of this black tea starts with the very aromatic dry leaves -- put your nose in the package and breathe in its seductive malty aroma with spice and fruity (peachy?) notes. The package tells us it's a blend of Indian and Chinese black teas and doesn't suggest there have been any other scent or flavour additives so the beautiful aroma is just the tea.  Mmmmmm.

The liquor is light to medium bodied and nicely brisk. It has a bit of a snap to it and creates that pull at the side back of the tongue that brings water into the mouth. 

The flavour is malty and toasty (buttered brown toast) with a light note of cinammon and a faint sweet floral finish.

This strikes me as a beautifully balanced black tea blend -- one I would highly recomend for breakfast.  Or anytime really.  At any rate, I'll be heading out to Leslieville to get me some more.   Perhaps on the weekend of their new spring 2012 tea tasting.

Fresh 2012 Bi Lo Chun from China

Just before she left for China two weeks ago my sister-in-law asked if there was anything I'd like. "Fresh tea.  Really fresh tea," I said.  And she delivered it yesterday.  What a gal.

Xi Shan Bi Lo Chun - a green tea which, according to its label, was made April 8, 2012.  That's fresh.
Tie Guan Yin - an oolong, undated but packed in individual serving-sized foil wraps
A black tea - lots of gold furry buds, without an english label but dated September 16, 2011.  Fresher than most tea you can buy in Toronto.













Xi Shan Bi Lo Chun or Green Spring Snail 
Okay, first up is the Green Spring Snail which is a baked (rather than steamed) green tea from the Jiangsu province in China.  ( I did a previous posting on another example of this type of tea last year.)

The dried tea has a distinctive gray-green colour. Click the
image to have a close look at these beautiful furred leaf buds.

According to The Tea Drinkers Handbook this tea's original name translated as "astounding fragrance" or "fragrance to cause fear and trembling" and when I snipped open the foil inner packet yesterday the aroma did indeed knock me over.  So big and fresh and sweet and green!  It was made only three weeks ago -- no wonder.

It's current name -- apparently changed by an Emperor during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), is Bi Lo Chun, sometimes translated as Pi Luo Chun, which means Green (bi) Spring (chun) Snail (lo), and is named for its coiled snail-like shape and the fact it's only manufactured in the spring from the year's earliest plucks.

Separating out the bud-sets you can see the
coiled, snail-like shape which gave it its name.

The always informative SevenCups website further explains the "Xi Shan" part of its name: Within and around the Tai Lake in Jiangsu Province is Dong Ting Mountain where Bi Luo Chun originates. Dong Ting actually refers to two mountains known as Dong Shan (East) seated on the eastern edge of the lake and Xi Shan (West) which sits on an island within Tai Hu. The taste and aroma varies between Bi Luo Chun harvested from these two mountains. Dong Shan Bi Luo Chun has darker and bigger leaves with a rich taste. Xi Shan Bi Luo Chun has small, tender leaves with a gentle taste. 

FYI the Bi Lo Chun I posted about last year was from the mountain on the other side of the lake.








The Tea
Water at 80C for 2 minutes.
I wanted to emphasise the flavours a bit so I did a longer steep than needed.  I will try this at 1 1/2 and 1 minute tomorrow for regular drinking.

The dry leaves give off a big, heady perfume which is sweetly floral with a hint of light lemon, along with a sweet vegetal aroma like steamed spinach and a faint marine (fishy) note -- along with so much else that I'm at a loss for words.  Everything about the aroma is amped.

Bright green of the tiny, tiny leaf buds.

The liquor is a pale, golden green, getting more golden as it oxidises in the glass pot next to me, and is slightly cloudy.  This is due to the teeny leaf bud hairs floating about which seem to add a firmness to the tea's mouth-feel as well.  (Cloudiness can also be due to a high L-Theanine content -- the amino acid which is credited with contributing the calming effect of tea despite its caffeine content.)

The tea has fresh light body with good briskness -- snappy I'd say.  There's a toasty nuttiness, followed by a sweet green vegetal (spinach) flavour and a light marine-ness (seaweed) which is then balanced out by a nice tartness.  Its briskness dries the sides at the back of my tongue, watering my mouth and leaving me thirst-quenched.  What a great tea!

Pale golden green liquor of
the 3-week new Bi Lo Chun.

After drinking it all day I can certainly attest to this tea's caffeine content:  I'm buzz buzz buzzing. Nothing like fresh, spring leaf buds for big fresh flavour and big caffeine.

The refreshing briskness of this Bi Lo Chun reminds me of the wonderful Ceylon tea a friend brought back from Sri Lanka for me. It also had a wonderful lemony snap to it, and became my favorite morning tea, until it was gone.  It also was a very fresh tea -- coincidence?

The thing I've found about freshly made tea is, not surprisingly, its flavour has huge breadth.  Beyond the tea type's distinctive flavour characteristics freshness delivers flavour nuances big time.  As a fresh rose blossom's aroma is so much more than just "rose" (think peppery, peach, almond), so fresh tea is more than just toasty, vegetal and/or malty.  In fresh tea those flavour notes sing with so much.  I've been drinking (mostly black) tea for decades and enjoying the way it perks me up and calms me down and has a wonderful bitter-sweet brew.  But in recent years I've had the occasional really freshly made tea and discovered a whole new world of flavour in tea.  Yahoo.  More, I say!

The shop in Shanghai where it came from...

Bi Luo Chun green tea from China

Visited a friend last week who mentioned her current favorite green tea is a Bi Luo Chun (Spring Snail Shell).  Easily influenced, I found my eye landing on some Bi Luo Chun in my tea drawer.

The stuff I have is truly a beautiful looking tea.  From an arm's length it's a sage green-grey but when you look more closely it is a mix of dark grey with dark green small twisted leaves and flecks of brighter green dusted with the pekoe of the many teeny buds.  It's from Tao's wonderful tea shop and the label tells me it from the East Mountain of Dong Ting Lake in the Jiangsu Province of China.  According to the Tea Drinker's Handbook, this tea in Jiangsu is only harvested once a year at the end of March.

Bi Luo Chun is considered one of the Ten Famous Teas of China.  It's also known as Dong Ting or Pi Lo Chun and, in English, Green Snail Spring.  To truly appreciate the work involved in making 500 grams of this tea, have a look at Chinese Tea 101 which has a wonderful series of photos of the process from plucking to baking.

The beautiful, pekoe-covered leaves of the Bi Luo Chun from Tao's.

The Tea
3.8 grams in 7 oz of 80C water for 1 minute.  Second steep 1 minute.

Can you see the little flower bud
in the lower right quadrant?

When I open the jar the first pleasure of this tea is a rush of fresh clean green aroma, abit like a fresh mown lawn.  The tiny, tiny leaves are whole, tightly wound and tend to curl into little "U's" or spirals.  There's also alot of silvery and pale yellow furry pekoe.

The wet leaves area a bright green and the leaves are a uniform size, tiny and narrow, an indication of its high quality.  Some show a slight rusty brown and I don't know if that is from a little oxidising on the bush or during the withering.  The first aroma is of the "fire" from its processing -- so different from all the Japanese steamed green teas I've been enjoying.  This is followed by rich fried greens and/or nuts (chestnut?) along with a slight sweetness and finished off with just the lightest tang which gives it a nice clean profile.

Bi Lo Chun liquor

The liquor is a mid-golden yellow.  It has good astringency which gives me a slight furring on the tongue, and abit of a pucker.

The flavour is beautifully balanced between a light floral sweetness, a clean lemony snap, fresh raw green bean and abit of bitterness on the sides of the tongue.  (To my tongue, one of the integral flavour notes of tea is bitterness, like another popular beverage -- beer.)  I do love that tang -- so charactertistic of baked green teas, perhaps mostly chinese green teas; it's like the raw green leaf.

My first second brew at 2 minutes was quite bitter -- like slightly burnt fried onions or chinese greens, and I realised I should not have increased the brewing time.  Actually, the best subsequent steeps were all at 1-minute, which continued to give me good flavour and pleasure in the cup.  BTW I got quite a caffeine buzz from this tea which makes sense since it's all buds.

I've made this a number of times over the past few days and I keep thinking that if this were a wine it would be one of my favorites, an excellent Chablis -- crisp and bright with a minerally finish. 

Later:  I made a small pot of this tea a couple weeks ago for some friends and we did three very flavourful steeps from the same leaves.  This is a wonderful example of this tea type and one that just keeps on giving.

GOLDEN MONKEY VS. GOLDEN MONKEY

As I have mentioned before, Golden Monkey tea from China is currently one of my very favorite teas.  I first had it, and continue to refresh my cannister, from Tao's tea shop.  But when I was in my neighborhood  Tealish recently I was delighted to find they had brought in a 2010 Golden Monkey.  Fresh tea and Golden Monkey -- two of this girl's current loves!

The two teas look very different and have distinct flavours but are both wonderful, exhibiting the tea type's classic sweet flavour and soft mouthfeel.

Golden Monkey is a black Chinese tea originating in the Fujian province.  On the coast, Fujian is the country's biggest tea-producer as well as the producer of the widest range of teas. From what I read, Golden Monkey is traditionally a Mao Jian pluck meaning it's a bud and one slightly larger leaf (as opposed to a Mao Feng pluck which is two equal-length leaves and a bud). 

I want to take a minute on this tea's name.  There are a number of explanations for it and then my own theory.

1.  From  Chinese Tea Supplier

In earlier times Golden Monkey was the tea of Taipans and local overlords. They claimed that the secret for this tea was that it had to be plucked by the golden monkey which centuries ago inhabited the forests of Fujian Province. This special tea was very rare and the Taipans demanded every ounce of tea because they claimed that it gave them ‘the agility and prowess of the patriarch of a golden monkey troop’. 

2. From many sites (probably quoting each other) including Wikipedia:

According to legend, this particular tea grows in lofty and precipitous peaks making it difficult to pluck the leaves so local people trained monkeys to pluck the tea leaves, hence the name.

3. From the Adagio Tea package:

The name comes from its unique appearance: the leaves resemble monkey claws.

Here's my theory.  Have a look at this Sichuan Golden Monkey's colour and lovely furry golden arms and compare it to the photo below of the tea's lovely furry golden buds -- now tell me, where do you think the name came from?

This image of the endangered Golden Monkey
was captured from the chinaexploration.com site

Please click on this photo to enlarge it to appreciate the
wonderful furry golden leaf bud tips in Tao's Golden Monkey
tea and compare it to the monkey's furry golden arms.  Nuh?

THE BREW-0FF
Just off-the-boil water for 2 minutes.

And while we're waiting for the teas to brew, a look at and deep inhalation of the dry leaves. (A colleague in the biz  passed along that if you exhale onto the dry leaves before smelling them you slightly infuse them with the moisture of your breath and they give off a stronger scent.  Neat huh?)

Two Golden Monkeys: Tao's on the left, Tealish's on the right.

THE DRY LEAVES
These two teas look and feel very different as you can see from the photo above. Tao's Zhenghe Hong Gong Fu (fine Golden Monkey from Zhenghe) is much fluffier, the leaves smaller and more spidery and it's comprised almost entirely of bright furry golden buds.  The aroma of its dry leaves is sweet, already giving off toffee notes.  The Tealish G.M.'s leaves are thicker and larger with fewer furry buds which are a darker, beautiful rich orange.  It is also giving a sweet aroma but less candied and more like lovely sweet buttered spinach.

THE WET LEAVES
Tao's G.M. wet leaves are an even light brown, and are long and even looking kind of like miniature brown pea pods.  This is the still-rolled leaf and leaf bud.  The Tealish G.M. wet leaves are broken, darker, and a more traditional coppery brown with a bit of dark green showing.

Both give off first notes that are sweet and soft.  Tao's G.M then comes through like buttered whole wheat toast, while the Tealish G.M.'s sweetness is more sweet buttered spinach and overall has a sharper, darker aroma --is that a breath of anise or liquorice in there too?

Tealish Golden Monkey wet leaves.  Some broken whole
leaves, some buds on left, and a slight green cast
to some of the leaves.

Golden Monkey from Tao's Tea House wet leaves.  Note
one leaf and a bud and the beautiful evenness of the pluck.

THE LIQUOR
The Tao G.M brewed liquor is distinctly orangey-red and abit cloudy which, on closer examintation, is due to the fine bud hairs floating about.  In contrast, the Tealish G.M. is very clear and bright and a lovely, red-brown.

Two Golden Monkey's -- sourced from Tealish on the left,
and from Tao's Tea House on the right.  They brew to quite
different colours -- much more orangey-red on the right.

Both are light to medium bodied with little or no astringency, and when they've cooled give a hint of smokeyness.  Although they both feature buds, I did not find either of these teas to be high in caffeine.  (In general, China bush teas tend to be lower in caffeine.)

I brewed each of these four times over a couple of days, and I must say it's easy to overbrew, especially the Tao's G.M., to bitterness.  However, when not overbrewed both these Golden Monkeys deliver on the type's renowned sweet cup -- caramel to toffee notes, over a light base of typical black tea tangyness.

IN THE END....
In a way this is a most unfair brew-off.  Tao's G.M. is a higher grade tea -- starting with its gorgeous good looks, but the Tealish G.M. has the advantage of being fresh and therefore offers a wonderful breadth of tasting notes. 


The Tao G.M is pronouncedly sweeter and smoother with more toffee'd notes.  It really is a very fine tea, and a fine example of a Golden Monkey.  (It's price point is almost double, not surprisingly.)  However, the Tealish G.M did not disappoint and, being fresh, offers some sharp, dark notes and a light toastyness which provide a balance to the sweet caramel notes. Because it's fresh it also gives hints of other things, like the possible flash of liquorice I mentioned.  Although I find it hard to believe, I've read that some people find Golden Monkey too sweet -- the Tealish G.M. could be just right for them.  

Personally, I generally keep Tao's G.M to savour as an afternoon tea but have been digging in to the Tealish G.M. for breakfast. 

TAI PING HOU KUI (TAI PING BEST MONKEY)

Tai Ping Hou Kui green tea dry leaves.

This is an extraordinary looking green tea from China -- big, long leaves pressed flat and having the imprint of either paper or cotton on its leaves.  The dried leaves are whole and 2" and 3" in length -- unusally large for tea.  Another unusual aspect of this tea is that it's both pan fired and basket-fired.  Besides its toasty flavour, the leaves' crispy flatness hints that it's pan-fired -- pressed into a wok-like hot pan. But The Story of Tea explains further that after the pan-firing, the leaves are scattered on a sheet of rice paper, then another sheet is laid on top and the leaves are blotted to remove moisture without removing their aromatics.  This is what's responsible for the distinctive cross-hatched pattern on the dried leaves and, of course, ultimately why the tea is flat.  After this the tea is finished by basket firing.

Tai Ping Hou Kui.  You can still see the distinctive rice-
paper  imprint on the wet leaves.  (Click to enlarge.)

This tea is from Tao's tea house, and the package says its origin is Hou Keng Village in AnHui province (China).  It's considered by some to be one of the "Ten Famous Teas" -- although there is no definitive list of which ten they are*.

"Tai Ping" is a region in the south of the Huang Shan mountains in Anhui province, and "hou kui", according to Babelcarp, means "monkey king."  Some legends say that, due to the area's steep slopes, the locals trained monkeys to pick the tea, but I find that abit of stretch.  According to other googled sites the word "Hou refers to Hou Keng Village where the highest grade of this tea is made and the word Kui refers to a tea-grower Wang Kui-cheng who made this tea by improving the processing of a local green tea Jian Cha around 1900."   The Tea Drinker's Handbook notes that "according to another legend, it is the Taiping Rebellion of the 1850s, a tragic epidsode in Chinese history that ends in a bloody repression, which is linked with its name," and further notes that a "special feature of Tai Ping Hou Kui is revealed during the infusion when the veins of the leaves turn bright red -- some claim in tribute to the blood spilled by the rebels during the revolt."

I like to imagine that both might be true.  For usually there are many 'true' histories of a thing.  We come to blend and bend certain stories and events to reflect various people's emotional memory of the time as much as the 'facts' of a time.

I did two steepings.  Both in about 5 ozs of 75C to 80C water for two minutes but the first one had 6 or 7 leaves, which is what I thought I remembered Tao suggesting, and the second had the standard 2.5 grams of leaves.

Tai Ping Hou Kui wet leaves from the 2nd steep  -- large,
 mid-green leaves, showing, particularly on the left sample,
a pluck of a tiny bud, a new young  leaf and two other leaves.

The dry leaves have a surprisingly strong sweet and fresh aroma.  Almost floral.

On the first brew the wet leaves give light aroma of beans and a sweet vegetal scent, along with a light toasty scent of buttery popcorn.  The latter is the smell of the firing and identifies it as a fired not steamed green tea.  I don't see a red leaf vein though.

The liquor is a very pale, elegant blue-green with a light round buttery mouth feel. 

Overall I find this too watery and delicate for my taste-buds -- basically under-brewed, so decide to do a second one with the standard 2.5 grams of tea leaves to 5 oz of water.

This brings forward the toasty buttery aromas of the leaves and flavour to the tongue, along with the usual green-tea vegetal notes and a rich hint of toasted pecans.  This heavier, standard brew also brings a nice light briskness and a bit of sharp bitterness which is actually a nice balance to the quite full round, satiny (oily) mouth feel.  I could perhaps do with one notch lower on the bitterness but it brings a refreshing quality too, and the rest of the cup goes down with no problem.

This tea is so nice I'm trying it again the next morning -- 2.5 grams in 5 oz water at 80C.  This time I don't let it slip over the two-minute steep at all, which takes the slight bitterness down a note.  (It's amazing how little it takes to tip a tea over to bitterness.) The cup is wonderfully round and buttery with light toasty notes followed by the vegetal and the nutty pecan.  A second brew (at two minutes) is less round on the mouth, with abit less of the pecan and almost a mint-tea feel on the tongue as the last sip goes down.  A third brew (in cooler water since the water in my thermos has cooled to 65C) done at 3 minutes gives me another lovely cup of tea -- it doesn't seem to have diminished on the mouth feel by much, a little lighter on the flavour profiles and, surprisingly, the sweet floral note is more dominant. 

As I sit here sewing cosies this afternoon this tea just keeps on giving.  It deserves its moniker as one of the Ten Famous Teas -- rich-tasting and distinctive.

* Before the fall of the Imperial Court in China the Famous Teas were called Imperial Tribute Teas and were apparently for the exclusive pleasure of the emperor.

ORGANIC GOLDEN YUNNAN VS GOLDEN MONKEY

Golden Monkey on left, Organic Golden Yunnan on right
with fewer golden leaf buds and a chunkier leaf -- click for a
closer look at the lovely furry golden peko on the buds.



















I'm taking another run at the organic Golden Yunnan from Tao's Tea House, and comparing/contrasting to the Golden Monkey, also from Tao's.  I should admit off the top that Tao's Golden Monkey is currently my favourite tea ever.  Has been for the past 4 or 5 months.  Mmmm-mmmm good.  Yes, it's on the pricey side.  And, um, yes, I don't tend to offer it to visitors unless I think they'll appreciate its richness.

Both have lovely golden tips in them.  Both are from China albeit different provinces.  I got the Golden Yunnan thinking it might be in the same taste corner and seduce me as well.  It didn't, although it's not a bad tea.

TEA NAME: Organic Golden Yunnan
The Yunnan province is down in the south-west of China, and is considered one of the birthplaces of tea.   Its cultivation there started some 2000 years ago, but apparently it was only in the 1940s that black tea production began.   Yunnan black tea is generally called Dian Hong in China, which translates literally as 'Yunnan Red.'  Dian being another name for Yunnan Province, named after the Bronze Age Dian Kingdom, and red referring to the colour of the tea liquor.  We remember, bien sur, that in China what we call black tea is called red tea.  According to the Heiss's comprehensive book, The Story of Tea, historically Yunnan black tea has been grown from an indigenous variety of large, broad-leaf tea bush known locally as dayeh and classified by botanists as a subvariety of Camellia sinensis var. assamica.  I've no idea if that is the case with this tea but I did wonder, given its taste profile.  The Heiss's also note that Yunnan Buds of Gold and Yunnan Golden Needles are both among the highest grades of Yunnan black tea and "yield an exquisite creamy and malty, sweet-liquoring tea with almost no bite."  That certainly wasn't my experience with this Golden Yunnan and sounds much more like the Golden Monkey.  Hmmmm.

WATER TEMPERATURE:  Just off the boil
STEEPING TIME:  2 minutes, 10 seconds

DRY LEAF:
Per the photo above, the Golden Yunnan on the right is chunkier-looking, and is a dark charcoal grey with bright silvery-gold threads and small broken bits mixed in.  Under the magnifying loup, the threads are revealed as gorgeous furry pekoe on unopened leaf buds with the darker (though still showing pekoe) slightly twisted young leaves.

Organic Golden Yunnan wet leaves.

WET LEAF:

Small broken leaves of a very deep, coppery-brown (dark penny colour) with occasional dark green evident.

Organic Golden Yunnan brewed tea.

LIQUOR:
Very deep red-brown with a green ring around the rim.
 
Hmmm.  Bit of a bitter after taste -- I think this is a tad overbrewed.  But still a sweet, caramel flavour coming through, and behind that the slightly steely bitterness.  Nice round mouth feel -- bit of fur on the tongue.  Medium to soft briskness -- ie: refreshing in the mouth, and can feel water being formed in the lower jaw bone area indicating lack of astringency.  When I add a bit of milk the bitterness is mostly overwhelmed -- and it is now a nice balance to the sweeter front notes.
 
Curious about the bitterness I did a second brew with 2 grams of leaves instead of 2.5 grams.  It's still got a bite and the big mouth feel.  Could this be due to it being c.s. v. assamica...?

TEA NAME: Golden Monkey (Zheng He (or Zhenghe) Hong Gong Fu) from Fujian Province
In trying to track down what the heck the tea's Chinese name means I stumbled on the Babelcarp site which is fab.  All I previously knew was that "hong" means red.  But Babelcarp tells me that zheng he is the name of the place that is the centre of bai cha (literally white tea) production in Fujian province, or the variety of red tea produced from a cultivar usually made into white tea.  It also tells me that Gong fu literally means work or effort, and can signify either the gong fu tea service or red tea --  I find this confusing.  Does this mean there are other Fujian red teas with this descriptive or what?  From this translation device it appears that zhenghe hong gong fu literally translates as "the variety of red tea produced from a cultivar usually made into white tea + red + well made red tea"....?  Elsewhere on a tea purveyor's site it was explained that the english name, Golden Monkey, comes from its unique appearance: the leaves resemble monkey claws.  Not sure I see that but then I've not come across many monkeys.

WATER TEMPERATURE: Just off the boil
STEEPING TIME:  2 minutes 10 seconds

DRY LEAF:
Per the photo above, I identify this tea by its long (3/4"), slightly grey-black long wiry pieces with loads of golden threads and light crinkly-ness -- it looks and feels very airy.  Under the magnifying loup this is revealed to be all furry pekoed long thin leaf buds.  It's such a special, funny sight you must try it some time.  Or click on the photo above.

Golden Monkey wet leaves.

WET LEAF: 
Beautiful long buds and bud + leaf in a slightly grayed coppery brown.  (This photo is under halogen light and is redder and yellower than to my eye.) They kind of look like slippery little eels, don't they? Or little wet seals. (Okay, the latter might be stretching it.)

Toffee. Peppery.  Faint sweet apricot note. Lower down there's a light musky-musty note.

Golden Monkey brewed liquor --  much more orangey
than the Golden Yunnan.

LIQUOR:
The colour is a medium, bright orangey-brown.  I've noticed the brew also tends to have a bubbly, slight scum which on closer examination seems to be a result of the leaf bud's hairy pekoe.

Mmmmm. Sweet toffee, with some apricot, light soft bitterness to balance out the flavour.  Nice lush medium body in the mouth -- a light velvety furring, and not at all brisk.  When I add milk -- which is the way I tend to drink black tea -- it smoothes out the furring abit, and is still a wonderful, addictive brew.

KEEMUN from Tealish

This is from my local tea store, Tealish, and therefore may be from the ubiquitous Canadian tea distributor, Metropolitan.

TEA NAME:  Keemun (aka Qimen, etc)
Keemun is a well kown Chinese black tea made in the small town of Qimen in the Anhui province.  It's often cited as the original basis for English Breakfast tea.  Its taste is big and faintly smokey (as most Chinese teas are) with a medium briskness and full body -- considered perfect for a get-you-going-in-the-morning tea for westerners.  Which it is.

WATER TEMPERATURE: Just off the boil
STEEPING TIME:  2 minutes

Keemun dry leaves.

DRY LEAF:

Dark charcoal grey colour, whole and broken small leaves (along with a few leaf twigs) which, in close-up, have an oily sheen and are lightly twisted.  Under the film loup all is slightly dusted with light grey.  Age?  Process?

Keemun wet leaves.

WET LEAF:

Warm, classic "black tea" aroma with hints of dark chocolate, and sweet apricot.

The wet leaves are coppery with some dark green, almost exclusively small broken leaves and you can still see a few little leaf twigs.

Keemun liquor.

LIQUOR:

I overbrewed this slightly as it has a slight bitterness in the fore, and aibt strong on the metallic.  Lost any subtlety.  However, I'm still drinking it up.

The colour is a lovely rich, amber-red and is fairly bright and clear here on first pouring.

GOLDEN YUNNAN (ORGANIC) From Tao's Tea

This is my first entry -- and just a trial run -- and only the 3rd day after a massive evening of smoking which pretty much completely deadened my taste buds. I'm also starting here with the second infusion on these leaves and I overbrewed the damn things! I was up on the ladder taking down the curtain panel I'm working on when the timer went off so instead of 3 minutes it brewed about 3 mins 30 to 3 mins 45.

TEA NAME: ORGANIC GOLDEN YUNNAN 
Remember: you can click on any of the photos to have a closer look.
WATER TEMPERATURE:  Just off the boil
STEEPING TIME:  2 minutes

Organic Golden Yunnan dry leaves.

DRY LEAF: A beautiful dark shiny slightly twisted leaf sprinkled with gorgeous golden, fuzzy leaf buds.  I love to look at the leaves under a magnifying glass and the surprise of the 'cat-tail' fuzziness always makes me smile.

Organic Golden Yunnan wet leaves.

WET LEAF:  The brewed wet leaves, typical of a fully oxidised tea, are a lovely coppery red with an undertone of green.  The leaves have been broken in their processing (likely during the rolling to break open the leaf's juices for oxidising) but you still see some whole, unopened buds about 1/2" (1 cm) long -- which were the golden fuzzies when dry. 

The wet leaves emit a crisp, sharp "black tea" aroma, with also a distinct and surprising note of honey dew melon (not the orange cataloup melon, but a ripe green honeydew).

Organic Golden Yunnan brewed liquor after 2 minutes.

LIQUOR: Aroma, appearance and flavour*.

And the liquor is definitely bitter -- slightly metallic taste of overbrewed black tea.

Soft to Medium brisk

Bright, on pouring and a beautiful rich orangey-red.