Huang Shan Mao Feng

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Huang Shan Mao Feng
Green tea from Jing Tea Shop,
May 2011

I was very curious about this tea in particular because I've very much enjoyed Norbu's large-leaf green tea from Yunnan also called "Mao Feng", but I suspected it was quite different from the 'real thing', and wanted to see what the original was like.

Medium green, thin twisty leaves

5 grams in a 200mL pot with about 150mL of water, 150 degrees

First infusion 30 seconds, warm, sweet, a certain smoky/toasted/grilled vegetable background…..

2nd infusion 20 seconds, pale green liquor, the sweet warm flavor is still there, but the toasted vegetable flavor--not a bitterness, perhaps a touch of astringency in it--is dominant now.

Ran out of time, so I added cold water and set the leaves to the refrigerator to try to get one more steeping out of them. But the resulting infusion, a day later, has a strong bitterness underlying a delicious fresh sweet vegetal flavor; I did not finish it. I also forgot to shoot the leaves after infusion, but they were pale minty green, long, thin, rolled almost into little cylinders.

I used a quite moderate tea-to-water ratio, and very cool water with short brewing times, all designed to moderate and minimize any bitterness. This is a tea that sat, sealed from the shop, for some months before I opened it, so it might have lost something re: freshness. Before assuming this just isn't my cup of green tea, I'll try it again--it took me nearly a year to 'get' Dragon Well, after all.

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