Numi Teas Monkey King Green Tea Review
Numi Teas Monkey King Jasmine Organic Tea blends a good quality Hou Kui (monkey king) tea with delicate jasmine blossoms to produce a delightfully light jasmine tea that is smooth and subtly fragrant.
Monkey King Tea, or “Hou Kui”, is a specialist gourmet tea that is grown in China's Huangshan mountain range, where mists and humidity caused by the large nearby lake create excellent growing conditions for the tea plants. It is very popular in China for its rare flavor and generally good quality, and is harvested only once a year. Because the tea is shade-grown and therefore not exposed to direct sunlight, it takes on a unique sweetness not generally found in green teas, which tend to be known more for their astringency and potentially bitter taste if brewed wrongly. Monkey King tea leaves are hand picked and hand processed to help ensure high quality, which is what makes it a superior variety of tea, often thought of as a gourmet tea.
Jasmine tea, then, can be produced from just about any variety of tea – in the case of this Numi Teas version, it happens to be Hou Kui. Jasmine tea is an aromatic tea that originates from China, and is made by mixing freshly picked tea leaves with jasmine flowers, so that the scent of the blossoms is imparted on to the tea leaves and the flavors fuse together to create a floral, highly scented tea. Some tea makers leave the flowers in the end tea mixture for ornamental effect – it doesn't really alter the quality or flavor of the tea, since by that stage the flowers have lost all their moisture and scent, and are completely dry. Other companies prefer to remove the blossoms before the tea is packaged.
The Numi Teas Monkey King Jasmine Organic Tea sounds almost romantic in Numi's own description of it: "Jasmine tea is the oldest known scented tea, and ours begins its life in the gardens of Hunan Province. The rich soil and fluctuations in daily temperature yield a fragrant leaf which is further scented with delicate white Jasmine blossoms. During summer, these are gathered daily by the banks of the Min River and repeatedly mated each night with the prepared tea, naturally embracing all of the flowers' scent. When brewed, this smooth, organic green tea has layers of subtle fragrance and hints of moonlight. It is a most romantic tea, and, like a bowl of fresh picked flowers, will bring the joy of summer to your every sip."
As jasmine teas go, it's not the most flavorful or even the most highly aromatic – the scent is actually quite weak, so disappointing for fans of highly scented jasmine teas, but good if you don't like the flowery aroma to be too overpowering. The flavor, too, is not overly strong, but it's really good. The floral notes are all there, but it's just a lot more subtle and subdued than you might be accustomed to if you're a regular jasmine tea drinker. Plus, it's a green tea – so as well as a hint of jasmine, you get all the antioxidant benefits of green tea consumption with this one, too! You can buy it online here.
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