Johann likes to watch PBS’s Sagwa—created by Amy Tan—a story of siamese cats in the palace of a Royal Magistrate of 17th century China. Today’s show featured a visit by a troop of tea monkeys (and their human handler). We all found the episode very enjoyable!
From a variety of sources we have known that monkeys are used to pick tea in some areas of China. According to one of Tammy’s tea books, the trained monkeys are set loose in the wild mountains where tea grows. Able to reach tea that is hard or impossible for humans to reach, they pick the best leaves and return to their handlers.
The tea is supposed to be superb. Tammy and I have never seen it available in any of the tea stores we have visited, but I did find a source for it online — Firebox.com. Unfortunately they are in England, and they cannot ship the tea outside the U.K.
Right now, Johann—prompted by the show—is going through the various primate’s and how they “work” with humans like the tea monkeys, or Capuchin monkeys that are used to help disabled individuals.