golden monkey black tea

type: black

origin: china

region: yunnan

variety: yunnan

caffeine: strong

price level: $$$$

Grown at a high altitude of 1200 meters at the Chafang Tea Factory, Golden Monkey tea is a high quality black tea with large leaves and an abundance of golden tips. It is golden amber in color with a hint of smoke and honey flavor. This tea is from Yunnan province, an ancient province in southwestern China which borders Vietnam, Laos and Burma. This cloudy, misty, mountainous province has grown tea for 1700 years. The "yun" in Yunnan means "cloud". The tea plant itself is often considered a native of Yunnan, as 260 different varieties, some the size of large trees, can be found here. Yunnan leads all other Chinese provinces in black tea production. Yunnan black teas are produced from a strain of ancient native broad leafed (Dayeh) tea bushes which are also used for the famous medicinal Pu-erh tea. These tea bushes grow along the Lancang River in southern Yunnan province. They have a longer life span, earlier and stronger buds, fat shoots, and thick, soft leaves. As evidence of how important climate and soil conditions are to tea bushes, if this native broad leafed Dayeh strain is transplanted anywhere else in China, it produces the typical "China leaf" which is narrow, thin and dull in comparison. Transplant the same bush to its native environment, and it produces broad, thick, glossy, tippy leaves again. 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, thus the unique name Golden Monkey.