Anxi Monkey King (Ma Liu Mie) Tie Guan Yin Oolong Tea

I want to tell you upfront that this is a truly special tea. Every once in a blue moon I feel the need to talk about the texture of a tea because it really stands out. This is one of those teas that I feel the need to hold on my tongue every time I take a sip. It has a wonderful silky mouthfeel that I don’t often encounter. I had to be really careful to remember to take notes on each steep, because last time I came across a tea like this I was distracted by the texture and managed to drink 4 complete steeps without taking a single note. Thankfully Angel at TeaVivre provided me with three samples, one I can write about and two I can get lost in.

The first steep of this tea immediately showed me how special it was. As I mentioned above it had a nice silky mouthfeel to it that just begs to be savored, although the flavor is slightly drying. I did notice that this particular Tie Guan Yin is not as floral as many others that I have had.

Make sure to check out the rest of my review on my blog:
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2013/10/29/tuesday-tea-anxi-monkey-king-ma-liu-mie-tie-guan-yin-oolong.html

This is a very grassy and floral Tie Guan Yin. There isn’t much of buttery and cooked green leafy vegetable notes, but plenty of lilac and violets.: very clean and refreshing. It has a strong lilac and white lily aroma, re-steeps well (that is when SOME buttery notes do creep in) and has a nice lasting aftertaste.

All in all, it is a very good representative of the grassy TGYs. Bonus points for being quite affordable. The only thing that keeps it from being amazing is that it does not have that vast, never-ending complexity of the very top teas.

Nice and delicate orchid aroma

rinse, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s, 100s

Really good TGY.

Little greenish balls with a nice floral aroma. Smells vegetal, orchid. The liquor is a yellow color with greenish hues. Although it has the classic TGY notes, it is a nice “sour”, and thankfully not sour as some. It’s just right, in my opinion, as far as TGYs. There is still mouth action in the back but some are over the top, this one is not. It has a smooth and soft mouth and throat feel. It’s brisk and has clear notes. The finish is naturally sweet, vegetal, floral, orchid but not perfumey. It handled boiling water with no problem, no bitterness present throughout all steeps. If you like TGY, this is a great daily drinker.

Porcelain gaiwan, 7 g, 7 steeps: rinse, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s, 100s, 120s.

This is the second of the three teas in my Tie Guan Yin showdown. (Thanks to TeaVivre for the samples.) The leaf is more broken up than the Zheng Wei TGY, although the orchid/vegetal aroma is very similar. I steeped 7 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 120, and 240 seconds.

The first couple steeps feature orchids and other florals, citrus, herbs, stonefruit, and a vegetal backbone. Its heavy and slightly soapy body reminds me of Chou Shi Dan Cong from Yunnan Sourcing, which is a tea I really like. The citrus, florals, and herbs intensify over the next few steeps, and the stonefruit resolves into peach or maybe nectarine. By steep four, minerals, spinach, and possibly jasmine emerge. Can you tell I’m enjoying this tea? The flavour stays consistent for around eight steeps before experiencing the typical vegetal fade-out.

This was a very enjoyable Tie Guan Yin and a strong contender among the samples. It has the fruity tang I want in a TGY, while still possessing lots of florals.

ETA: For me, this one was the winner.

Well, these last couple days have sucked. The neck injury is finally starting to heal, but I have been dealing with the return of spring sinus problems and a work schedule that has become totally insane. I have been running on only 8 1/2 hours of sleep for the last 48 hours, and to be honest, this feels like the only time I have had to sit down and do something for myself in like the last three days. I haven’t been drinking much tea lately due to the lack of time and sinus issues, so I figured I may as well get another of my backlogged reviews posted. I do not remember precisely when I finished what I had of this tea. I want to say it was somewhere around the third week of April, but I cannot be sure at this point. I know I liked this one a lot more than expected. Jade Tieguanyin does not exactly thrill me all that much these days, but this one was highly enjoyable.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in a 4 ounce gaiwan filled with 208 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was followed by 13 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

The dry tea leaves produced pleasant aromas of lilac, honeysuckle, cream, sweetgrass, and watercress prior to the rinse. After the rinse, I found new aromas of vanilla, violet, and saffron. The first infusion brought out a touch of custard on the nose. The tea liquor offered notes of sweetgrass and watercress on the entry before revealing notes of cream, vanilla, lilac, and saffron. A hint of violet then showed up on the swallow. Subsequent infusions saw the nose turn more savory and vegetal. Custard and honeysuckle belatedly came out in the mouth, while stronger violet notes emerged alongside mineral, orange zest, coriander, butter, pea, pear, and parsley impressions. The final infusions offered lingering mineral, cream, butter, sweetgrass, and pear notes backed by vague, ghostly traces of lilac and violet.

This was not the most complex jade Tieguanyin I have ever tried, but it was one of the most drinkable and pleasant. Teavivre normally does a good job sourcing teas of this type, but this was most certainly a step up from several of their other Tieguanyins in terms of quality. A very good tea for beginners and experienced drinkers alike, I would recommend that any fan of jade Tieguanyin give this one a shot.

This is simply a bouquet of buttery lilacs. It feels like such a luxury to have rich flowers like this on the verge of winter. I particularly enjoy the sweet, rich scent that the leaves and broth give off.

It’s too bad I put off drinking this one for so long. For whatever reason, I thought it was roasted. Good job for reading comprehension, Crowkettle!

I’ll add more insight to this note if anything interesting pops up in later steeps.

Steep Count: 2

First up today is monkey king Tie Guan Yin Oolong tea from teavivre, I started by brewing about 5 grams of this in a 90 ml yixing pot. I washed the leaves first and the aroma was intense to say the least.

I got floral, fruity notes, a bit of vegetal aromas from it. Brewing the first real steep at just under 200 , the aroma again just utterly popped out of the pots and I got a very clear light yellow liquor. The flavor mostly matched the aroma with just a hint of spiceyness as well. There was also a bit of lingering on the tongue. Which is normal for high quality Tie Guan Yin.

Second and third brewings were very similiar, though a tiny bit stronger as the leaves fully opened up and the pot forces the water to flow all around them. This is what makes the yixing so good with Tie Guan Yin.. you get that beautiful interaction. Im really a little surprised at how intense the feeling of spice on the tongue is with this.

This is a very good tie guan yin and is one of my favorites so far.

I highly recomend this for fans of light green oolongs.

I suppose I can’t really rate this tea impartially because I didn’t heat the gaiwan and I used tap water for the first 2 infusions (apparently that works better for my partner when he brews tea) but the hard minerality of the water just ruined the tea for me.

Still, I could tell that it was a very buttery, divine-smelling oolong. The leaves were large and high-quality. It wasn’t quite as buttery as Teavivre’s 2015 regular Tie Guan Yin, but had more interesting complex notes besides the butter, and it was not bitter at all.

Will rate when I brew the second sachet properly (with filtered water).

Smell is very “green” and floral, taste is pretty floral with some hints of nuttiness. After drinking it for awhile some very faint mineral notes come through. I’d consider getting this again during one of their sales.