Tieguanyin Anxi Monkey-Picked Tea

Tieguanyin Anxi Monkey-Picked Oolong Tea

We get a lot of questions about the name of this exquisite tea. And, there seems to be a lot of mis-representation of this tea on the Internet. So, let me explain and try to untangle the confusion. Because, everyone who loves tea, especially those of you who are oolong tea fanciers, must experience the intense floral bouquet and lavish flavor of this highly revered tea.  Click here to buy

First, let me say that this tea is not plucked by monkeys. What is there about the beguiling nature of monkeys that allows otherwise sane and often skeptical human beings into believing that trained monkeys actually pick some types of Chinese tea ?

Now make no mistake, I enjoy a colorful yarn as much as anyone, and Chinese folk legends are especially fanciful, emblematic and richly-embellished by those who add news twists and turns to the story with each retelling.

But it it time to declare the enchanting tea legend of Money-Picked tea as just that – a legend. Unfortunately, there are several tea websites today that claim that their Monkey Picked tea is…..plucked carefully by hand by trained monkeys. Second and third generation trained monkeys at that. Pleeeeeese…..if I hear this nonsense one more time, I will scream.

Where did this notion come from ? Perhaps it stems from the Chinese legend of the Monkey King, the main character in the book Journey to the West  written by Wu Ch’eng-en, a scholar official in the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368). This book is a renowned classical Chinese story about an allegorical journey, that is complete with Chinese tales, legends, superstititions, popular beliefs, and Buddhist and Daoist ideals.

Monkey King is a bit of a scamp, and his adventures are a thinly veiled political/social satire layered with meaning and innuendo. He is a simple creature who gained powers far greater than those of Superman – he attained the level of a Chinese Immortal – and he gets himself in and out of a peck of trouble.

Or perhaps these ideas harken back to the late 1700’s during the early days of the China Tea Trade with England. Spice and tea traders, explorers and visiting dignitaries underscored everything about this far away place as exotic, colorful and fantastic. The notion of ’fantastic’ is certainly true in early illustrations, prints and watercolors that present delightful images of small monkeys scampering up and down tea trees in idyllic locales, nimbly tossing fistsfull of tea leaves to humans standing below among tea baskets lined up waiting to be filled.

As engaging as these images are, anyone who has encountered monkeys in the wild know that it is far more likely that these mischevious animals will lob fruit at your head, and that bands of audacious, barking resident monkeys frequently harrass visitors in forested wildlife areas, demanding food for passage. Such experiences debunk any notion that co-operative tea plucking ever occurred between monkeys and humans. It is an outlandish notion, even in a ’fantastic’ time.

Or perhaps the term just meant something different to the Chinese than to Westerners. The first teas exported to the West came from the Wuyi Mts. in northern Fujian Province, and were most likely early versions of what we know today as oolong and black teas. Later, a differennt style of oolong tea was developed in the south of Fujian – Tieguanyin tea – so named for GuanYin, the Chinese goddess of Mercy. Tieguanyin teas have always been highy prized, and as with all Chinese tea, many grades of quality of this tea exist.  When tea producers bestow the term ’Monkey Picked’ to his tea, it is a designation that means unrivaled quality because one of two reasons:

1. that this particular batch of tea came from a tea garden located at a very high elevation ( the higher the elevation, the finer the leaf and the finer the tea )

2. that the tea was plucked from tea bushes growing in difficult to reach places; ie. nearly inaccessible places that require the tea pluckers be ’as agile as a monkey.’

I also think that there is a third, veiled meaning to the term ( don’t all Chinese legends have a veiled meaning? )  During the Song, Ming and Ching dynasties, tribute gifts ( offerings to the emperor ) included rare and costly teas that were cultivated, plucked and prepared exclusively for the enjoyment of the emperor. Perhaps the term began to be used to signify tea that was ‘out of reach’ of the average person. Tea for the emperor and his court would never be available to the average citizen – hence, out of reach in cost and out of reach in availability.

Or perhaps the story was ( and I like this idea as well ) quite simply an easy joke played on the naive European traders by the worldly, tea-savvy Chinese back in the 18th century ! Could they ever have imagined that 300 years later, there would still be those amongst us who ……still believe this story to be true ?

Chrysanthemum Tea

We recently presented a talk about the history and use of Chrysanthemum tea in China on the opening evening of the annual Chrysanthemum Show at the Botanic Garden at Smith College. We also made a special herbal tisane for them to serve that evening in the conservatory to guests visiting the show. The tea was delicious and very well received – we blended white chrysanthemum blossoms, whole Tibetan baby rosebuds and warming, invigorating spices such as ginger, coriander seed, and green cardamom. Everyone was happy to have a warm beverage on a chilly, late October evening and the fact that we crafted it without caffeine for that event thrilled most in attendance

Chrysanthemum blossoms add a wonderful warm, buttery and rich flavor to herbal tisanes. The taste of the flowers is sweet but not cloying.  Please experiment with adding these lovely flowers to your own blends – they are inexpensive and a few go a long way. At one time adding flower blossoms to tea was all the rage in China – read below.

The following is a version of my part of the talk that we presented at Smith College.

Ju Hua – Chrysanthemum Tea

At one time, China was the only country in the world that possessed the secrets of tea cultivation and manufacture. China is credited with singularly discovering, refining and perfecting all of the classes of tea that we enjoy today. For centuries, these techniques and processes were held secret from the rest of the world, but eventually these secrets were exposed and today over 50 countries in the world produce tea.

But, it took approximately 3,000 years for tea to reach the pinnacle of its place in Chinese society that it enjoys today. The earliest use of tea in China was most likely as a food source, and one of the many substances, along with other forest delectables such as roots, barks, leafs, seeds, berries, etc that early man foraged for in the forests to eat. For people living in the primordial forests of southwest China, Assam India, and along the borders of Myanmar and Laos, tea leaves gathered from indigenous tea trees most likely served to augment a simple hunter/ gatherer diet.

Over time, tea was used in China in different ways before becoming the beverage we know today. Tea evolved from being:

• a medical concoction/ herbal remedy
• a bitter, stimulating brew
• a healthful tonic
• a pleasure beverage
• the essential beverage the entire Western world became familiar with in the 18th century and that we know today

During the reign of the sophisticated and cultured Tang dynasty – late 6th to early 10th century - tea was drunk as a Healthful tonic among intellectuals and artists. Tea of varying degrees of quality was available to most classes of citizens, but it was the Tang court and literati artists that elevated tea drinking into the realm of a luxury beverage to be enjoyed during indulgent and pleasurable moments of relaxation in social settings.

In Tang-era China, it was the fashion to drink tea that had been scraped from a small tea cake made of compressed, coarse leaf that had been steamed, dried, then crushed and bound with a small amount of plum juice ( to add sweetness ) and dried again. The scraped tea would have been boiled in a pot, and additional sweetness and aroma would have been introduced to the tea by the addition of other flavors, such as onions, ginger, orange peel, cloves, peppermint and salt.

Towards the end of the dynasty, the flavor of fruit extracts became popular. For the Emperor and the wealthy class, sweet flower oils – rose, jasmine, chrysanthemum – begin to be added to the tea.

During the Ming Dynasty -mid 14th to mid 17th century – tea drinking became a pleasure beverage. The first Ming emperor, Emperor Chu-Yuan-chang ( r. 1368-1399 ) decreed tea cakes to be wasteful and that production of imperial tea cakes should cease. He advocated that all tea drinkers also turn to the more natural method of infusing whole leaf tea.

As whole leaf tea did not produce the bitter brew that pervious centuries of Chinese tea drinkers had become accustomed to, Ming tea drinkers began to experiment with adding more sweetness to their cup. They disgarded the old ways ways of tea brewing of the Tang, and began to experiment by adding flowers and flower petals to the tea in their teapot.

Instead of using expensive flower oil as had been used in the past for tea for the Emperor and the wealthy, flower scented teas were now made with abundant, inexpensive flowers and flower petals, and at a price that was affordable to the middle class. Initially green tea was the choice for flower scenting, but later, when Ming tea men developed oolong and black tea, these were used to make flower scented tea as well.

Flower scented teas, such as chrysanthemum, rose, jasmine, orchid, gardenia and orange blossom, changed the nature of Chinese tea and tea drinking. From then on, the earlier styles of bitter tea were left behind, as brewing loose leaf in newly invented, small teapots gave Ming tea drinkers greater control over using the right water temperature and steeping time for each type of tea. Gone were the old boiled chunks of tea and the powdered tea of the past, and the era of thoughtful and careful tea brewing was ushered in.

China’s mythical emperor and celestial god, Sheng Nong, is attributed with being the father of Chinese Agriculture and Medicine. His widom regarding the medicinal value of plants and herbals is recorded in the Compendium of Materia Medica , and it is here that the attributes of chrysanthemum were first noted.

In Chinese medicine, chrysanthemum is used to maintain healthy cholesterol levels, normalize blood pressure and improve blood flow. It is also used to sharpen hearing and vision, to calm the nerves and clear the brain. It has been proven to be of value in preventing sore throat and reducing fever. For all of its attributes, the Chinese consider chrysanthemum to be a longevity elixir, and a perfect companion and flavor-compliment to the delicious flavor of tea.

Chrysanthemums were cultivated in China 2,500 years ago. In the Song dynasty, a book written by Liu Meng and titled “A Manual of Chrysanthemum” recorded thirty-five varieties of chrysanthemum. Later, in the Ming dynasty, author Li Shizhen wrote of over 900 varieties of chrysanthemum.

Just as knowledge and a taste for tea traveled from China to Japan and Korea, chrysanthemums found their way to Japan and Korea as well. In fact, chrysanthemums became so popular in Japan that the Imperial Family chose the emblem of a chrysanthemum blossom for their royal crest.

Some flowers scented teas, such as jasmine, gardenia and rose congou, are made by introducing fresh flower blossoms to Camellia sinensis ( tea ) leaf during the manufacturing process in the tea factory, whereby the tea absorbs the aroma from the blossoms and becomes imbued with the aroma.

In the case of chrysanthemum tea, it is made by adding a small quantity whole dried chrysanthemum blossoms to green or to black tea, or to herbal mixtures such as Ba Bao Cha ( the Eight Babes ) which consists of dried fruits, dried citrus peels, dried berries, dried flower petals, rock sugar and dried chrysanthemum flowers. Plain chrysanthemum flowers can also be brewed as an herbal tea by those looking for a delicate, light-flavored, caffeine-free beverage.

Vibrant yellow or snow white dried whole chrysanthemum flowers are used for adding to tea or for enhancing cooked dishes. Unlike some flowers that become unsightly when dried, chrysanthemum blossoms maintain a lovely dried appearance – they retain a full, frilly texture and a nice, green backside.

Most Chinese dried chrysanthemum is approximately the size of a nickel or smaller. The most popular varieties in China for tea usage are Hangzhou White Chrysanthemum and HuangShan Tribute Chrysanthemum, alleged to be a favorite of many Chinese emperors. Also highly praised is Ye Juhua, a wild growing, tiny yellow chrysanthemum that grows abundantly on hillsides. On occasion, larger yellow chrysanthemum is also used.

Besides adding lovely colors and visual interest, the flavor of chrysanthemum is sweet and light, and the aroma is enticing, and reminiscent of sweet honey. Chrysanthemum is not overly floral like jasmine or rose, and it can never be cloying. Tea and chrysanthemum are a perfect combination – they are both praised for their ability to revitalize energy and refresh the mind.

The chrysanthemum in the Chinese culture represents integrity as well as noble and tenacious personality characteristics. It blooms when other flowers have already withered, so ancient scholars likened it to people who keep their own beliefs and never fear difficulties. It is one of the four ‘honorable plants’ along with plum, orchid, and bamboo.

Today, flower scented teas are still popular in China, but they have also found a new audience here in the West.