http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/drinks/9f1f/

"Nowadays the practice of monkeys picking tea has all but died out,
except in one small remote village where they still continue this
remarkable tradition. No monkeys are harmed or mistreated in order for
us to bring this rare brew to you!"

Okay, is there even a shred of truth to this idea? Have monkeys EVER
been used to "pick" tea? I wouldn't think so, but then I read
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.f...4486ecae73f537
and the explanation of monkeys thrashing around and sending tea leaves
down to the ground is plausible compared to my mental image of monkeys
climbing trees and delicately pinching off tea buds.

Alan

Alan writes:

[...]
the explanation of monkeys thrashing around and sending tea leaves
down to the ground is plausible compared to my mental image of monkeys
climbing trees and delicately pinching off tea buds.

Those would be male monkeys. For proper monkey-picked tea they hire
virgin female monkeys, who have the patience to do the job right.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Alan writes:
[...] the explanation of monkeys thrashing around and sending tea leaves
down to the ground is plausible compared to my mental image of monkeys
climbing trees and delicately pinching off tea buds.

Those would be male monkeys. For proper monkey-picked tea they hire
virgin female monkeys, who have the patience to do the job right.
/Lew

I have checked our records and find that virgin female monkeys are really quite *im*patient. This is apparently especially true in the presence of those rambunctious male monkeys thrashing around. Suspect monkeys would be better employed in Pu'erh tea factories producing tea cakes and suchlike.
Michael

A friend of mine many years ago bought a monkey from a guy who said that it
used to be a tea-picking monkey in China but then hopped a freighter and
came to the US. The friend had a big back yard and every morning the monkey
would go out the back door and delicately prune the budding tips of the
shrubbery and deposit all the buds in a big burlap sack on the guy's back
porch. Pretty strange!

On Jan 10, 7:28 pm, Alan wrote:
"Nowadays the practice of monkeys picking tea has all but died out,
except in one small remote village where they still continue this
remarkable tradition. No monkeys are harmed or mistreated in order for
us to bring this rare brew to you!" Okay, is there even a shred of truth
to this idea? Have monkeys EVER
been used to "pick" tea? I wouldn't think so, but then . . .

Another tea myth to bust - I repeat here an article I wrote for the
Nothing But Tea Newsletter a while ago:

"Did monkeys ever get trained to pluck tea leaves in China? Certainly
the tea bushes were very much taller in the old times in China:
without the constant pruning to maintain an easily accessed plucking
table, as tea bushes are now managed, the bushes grew into small trees
that could easily be 20 feet tall. Most of the tea garden tending in
China was undertaken by Buddhist monks, and in pictures they always
look old and venerable, hardly the types to climb up trees
themselves. Furthermore there are any number of monkeys to be found
in the parts of China where the tea grows. And certainly many China
teas have Monkey in their name. Consequently we fall easily into the
myth that the Chinese monks trained local monkeys to pluck tea leaves
from these tall tea trees. Seeking evidence to the contrary is not
easy - but we find that the story is not a new one. A botanist Robert
Fortune was sent to China by the London Horticultural Society to seek
new plants, and returned there in 1848 on behalf of the British East
India Company to visit tea factories and bring back tea seeds. John
Fortune spent a considerable time in China and recorded his travels in
a book entitled, with a simplicity that disguises the vast depth of
tea knowledge he had acquired, "Visit to the Tea Districts of China
and India" (publ. 1859). John Fortune even then came across the
trained monkey syndrome and commented dryly:

"The tea shrub is cultivated everywhere, and often in the most
inaccessible situations, such as on the summits and ledges of
precipitous rocks. Mr Ball (another contemporary tea author) states
that chains are said to be used in collecting the leaves of shrubs
growing in such places; and I have even heard it asserted that monkeys
are employed for the same purpose, and in the following manner:- These
animals, it seems, do not like work, and would not gather the leaves
willingly; but when they are seen up amongst the rocks where the tea
bushes are growing, the Chinese throw stones at them; the monkeys get
very angry, and commence breaking off the branches of the tea shrubs,
which they throw down at their assailants!
I should not like to assert that no tea is gathered on these hills by
the agency of chains and monkeys but (if it is) I think it may be
safely affirmed that the quantity procured in such ways is exceedingly
small"

As John Fortune notes, monkeys are not so easily trained to undertake
hard work and, with the exception of the long running Brooke Bond
chimps have nothing to do with tea. I think, on balance, that the
case for monkey plucked tea leaves is definitely unproven and will
vote this one as MYTH."

Nigel at Teacraft

On Jan 11, 1:46 am, "Slippy" wrote:
A friend of mine many years ago bought a monkey from a guy who said that it
used to be a tea-picking monkey in China but then hopped a freighter and
came to the US. The friend had a big back yard and every morning the monkey
would go out the back door and delicately prune the budding tips of the
shrubbery and deposit all the buds in a big burlap sack on the guy's back
porch. Pretty strange!

I actually have a small spider monkey who lives in my tea cupboard,
when I open the door he hands me a container of tea that he has
selected and that's what I drink for the day. When I open the door and
he flings poo, I have coffee.

I think, on balance, that the
case for monkey plucked tea leaves is definitely unproven and will
vote this one as MYTH."

aw come on.. monkey-picked tea would be so COOL. Let's all just agree to
believe in it ok?

On Jan 11, 4:09 pm, "Dominic T." wrote:
I actually have a small spider monkey who lives in my tea cupboard,
when I open the door he hands me a container of tea that he has
selected and that's what I drink for the day. When I open the door and
he flings poo, I have coffee.

LOL ROFLFOFLFORLFOMAOI !!!!!

Alan wrote:

[...]
the explanation of monkeys thrashing around and sending tea leaves
down to the ground is plausible compared to my mental image of monkeys
climbing trees and delicately pinching off tea buds.

Lewis Perin replied:

Those would be male monkeys. For proper monkey-picked tea they hire
virgin female monkeys, who have the patience to do the job right.

Come on guys, these are all legends. The only beverage truly produced by
monkeys is capuchino.

Rick.

oh brother! LOL LOL LOL

"Dominic T." wrote in message
...
On Jan 11, 1:46 am, "Slippy" wrote:
A friend of mine many years ago bought a monkey from a guy who said that
it
used to be a tea-picking monkey in China but then hopped a freighter and
came to the US. The friend had a big back yard and every morning the
monkey
would go out the back door and delicately prune the budding tips of the
shrubbery and deposit all the buds in a big burlap sack on the guy's back
porch. Pretty strange!

I actually have a small spider monkey who lives in my tea cupboard,
when I open the door he hands me a container of tea that he has
selected and that's what I drink for the day. When I open the door and
he flings poo, I have coffee.

i have heard this, so it must be true (wink)

"Richard Chappell" wrote in message
...
Alan wrote:

[...]
the explanation of monkeys thrashing around and sending tea leaves
down to the ground is plausible compared to my mental image of monkeys
climbing trees and delicately pinching off tea buds.

Lewis Perin replied:

Those would be male monkeys. For proper monkey-picked tea they hire
virgin female monkeys, who have the patience to do the job right.

Come on guys, these are all legends. The only beverage truly produced by
monkeys is capuchino.

Rick.

darawen littlestich wrote:
i have heard this, so it must be true (wink)

That's right, it's on the interweb, so it must be true.





"Richard Chappell" wrote in message
...
Alan wrote:

[...]
the explanation of monkeys thrashing around and sending tea leaves
down to the ground is plausible compared to my mental image of monkeys
climbing trees and delicately pinching off tea buds.

Lewis Perin replied:

Those would be male monkeys. For proper monkey-picked tea they hire
virgin female monkeys, who have the patience to do the job right.

Come on guys, these are all legends. The only beverage truly produced by
monkeys is capuchino.

Rick.



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aw come on.. monkey-picked tea would be so COOL. Let's all just agree to
believe in it ok?



OK, I'm with you. It's right up there with salvation. Thanks, slippy.
--
Michael

On Jan 12, 3:47 pm, Michael Plant wrote:
aw come on.. monkey-picked tea would be so COOL. Let's all just agree to
believe in it ok?

OK, I'm with you. It's right up there with salvation. Thanks, slippy.
--
Michael

....I keep Him in my other cupboard. He's alway up to hijinks like
parting my red wine though.

Dominic T. wrote:

...I keep Him in my other cupboard. He's alway up to hijinks like
parting my red wine though.

"I went to me bath for a Burma-Shave
This monkey going put me into the grave
The entire cabinet was laid to waste.
I had to shave with some green toothpaste."
-- Harry Belafonte
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."