Do monkeys actually pick tea?

[chrl42]

monkey-picked tea is known as Hou Cha (猴茶), it's Zhejiang An Tan mountain's tea, whether monkey did pick or not for me is still a mystery (can't connect to Tim's links from China), monkey would pick tea leaves grown on such huge tree or cliffs. But Hou Cha was mentioned in some old Chinese scripts and did say the monkeys picked, but so far sounds like more legendary claims.

In Oolong regions, I believe it could be Wuyi mountain. There are many monkeys living there and cliffs..

One of claim is Oolong the term is derived from Wuyi Yancha, its high-fired rubbed tea leaf resembles dark dragon..but TGY at first was imitation of Wuyi Yancha as well, when westerners came to Fujian for tea some hundreds years ago, some dishonest sellers would give TGY, saying it is Yancha..and over-charged it. But today I believe it it refers to the procedure of making than mere shape of leaf, that TGY has no problem to be Oolong (technically it is Qing Cha)

[gingkoseto]

The monkey picked tea in Fujian and Hong Kong mostly refer to Fujian Tie Guan Yin (which I guess is what Tim's picture is about) It seems Cantonese people like it very much. Monkey picked is often called 馬騮搣 in Cantonese, and the name of monkey is different from that in Mandarin.

In old days, monkey picked tea (usually high end traditional Tie Guan Yin with peachy fruity aroma) was so common in tea stores of Guangdong and Hong Kong that makes me think it was just a descriptive name indicating peachy aroma, and none of them was picked by monkeys.

The next question is, do virgins actually pick tea and keep leaves inside their clothes?

[Oni]

According to sevencups owner and teamaster, if I recall correctly, monkey picked means that tea tea is composed from diffrent sized tea leaves, buds and larger leaves too, they call it monkey picked because a monkey would not know the diffrence between the leaves, but it is not picked by monkeys, it is harvested by a diffrent species closely related to the monkeys, nowdays they call themselves Homo Sapiens - Sapiens, not very diffent from the other mokey type species, only more wide spread on planet earth, they sometimes think themselves smarter that other monkeys, and find themselves offended and discriminated if asociated with their more distant cousins (who aren`t tea drinkers of course).

[msmeghann82]

Would they be trained not to scratch there buts before picking tea leaves or is that part of the "special" flavor?

Maybe they pick pu-erh then...

[teaisme]

Tim those pics are great I want the last 2 on my wall.

"Would you call your own mother a monkey?"

HAHAHAHA, she looks kinda pissed off too

[skilfautdire]

For what it's worth, last week on TV this Belgian guy 'Le bourlingueur' had a monkey that picked coconuts for him, since these nuts are fairly perched high. Here's the first part where the training begins by getting to know the monkey (in French). The actual picking of the coconuts is not in that video excerpt,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKs873vtk4w