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 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.

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 !!!!!

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.

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.

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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Lewis Perin wrote:
> 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

I'd take monkey-picked tea over civet cat pooped coffee any day, though.

--
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So, what are the defining characteristics of "monkey-picked" tea?
Cultivar and/or locale?

Alan

On 2008-01-22, Alan > wrote:

> So, what are the defining characteristics of "monkey-picked" tea?
> Cultivar and/or locale?

I've mostly heard it used in conjunction with Anxi Tieguanyin (or other
tightly balled oolongs), but the term itself (as used today) just refers
either to a vendor's best / signature tea, or to the difficulty of
picking the leaves of the bushes the tea comes from. Ultimately, the
term can basically be used by anyone for any purpose.

As to whether monkeys were ever actually employed to pick tea leaves, I
don't think anyone can say for sure (see a recent RFDT thread on this
very topic).

w

On Jan 22, 10:51*pm, Will Yardley >
wrote:
> As to whether monkeys were ever actually employed to pick tea leaves, I
> don't think anyone can say for sure (see a recent RFDT thread on this
> very topic).

Other than this one? I searched (on google groups) and didn't see
anything.

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

> 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?

>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."

On Jan 11, 2:48*am, Nigel > wrote:
> 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

Ok, but is it at all possible that the tea currently sold as Monkey
Picked is in fact Monkey Picked? I've seen monkeys trained to do even
more improbable things, so is it at all likely that hearing the myth
some village in china got curious and gave it a shot? One would assume
that if it wasn't actually monkey picked they would put that somewhere
on the label to protect themselves from false advertising suits.
Although I suppose they could just as easily word their claim so that
it actually doesn't guarantee its Monkey Picked but rather that they
were told it was Monkey Picked.

-Troy

If Monkey Picked tea were true the PC brigade would have it banned
tomorrow.

I'm just back from a week in Malawi commissioning one of our Teacraft
ECM Systems miniature manufacture lines - the "tea factory in a box".
While there I saw the latest in political correctness - a new sign
outside a tea estate stating that they do not employ anyone under the
age of 18. In a country where parents and kids mostly cannot afford
education past 14 the tea estates used to be a good place to ensure at
least a moderate income and some job security for school leavers. Now
Fair Trading rules forbids the use of child labor (i.e. below the age
of 18), by which age the youngsters have long migrated to dubious
employment in the cities. The tea estate managers know it makes no
sense - but customers clamor for teas with Fair Trade acreditation -
so what can they do?

Nigel at Teacraft

On Jan 27, 6:52*pm, Capheind > wrote:
> Ok, but is it at all possible that the tea currently sold as Monkey
> Picked is in fact Monkey Picked? I've seen monkeys trained to do even
> more improbable things, so is it at all likely that hearing the myth
> some village in china got curious and gave it a shot?

Unilever Birds Eye won a UK court case brought against them for
fraudulently selling a frozen meat product named 'Dinosaur Steaks' on
the grounds that no reasonable person could believe that they were in
fact made from dinosaur meat. If, even in less rational times, John
Fortune could dismiss monkey picking as mythology, how gullible would
you need to be now to believe it?

Nigel at Teacraft

On Jan 27, 6:52*pm, Capheind > wrote:
> One would assume
> that if it wasn't actually monkey picked they would put that somewhere
> on the label to protect themselves from false advertising suits.
> Although I suppose they could just as easily word their claim so that
> it actually doesn't guarantee its Monkey Picked but rather that they
> were told it was Monkey Picked.