Was looking at greens on Adagio and had a craving for something smokey, I thought of pulling out the Yunnan Emerald Buds but remembered the last time I burnt it and grabbed my tin of this instead. This was one of the last teas I picked up from the Heavenly Tea sale, we had bags of it arrive midway through the sale once most of the retired teas were sold. The large bags were labeled Huang Shan Mao Feng but we weighed it out and printed labels with Emerald. The supposed reason behind this is that one of the “gardens” we work with had an excess of this tea and asked if we wanted to include it in our sale.
So yes I would say its a lower quality version of HSMF though the leaves are whole they are smaller (usually a good thing) and greener, they are also less twisted and golden hued and taste less creamy and nutty. I don’t think they can hold up to being brewed 5-7 times like the Huang Shan (I’m only on three). However I do think this is sweeter and when I tried it in the store it seemed like a sweet smoke, but I don’t get than at home. What I do get is sweetened roasted nuts like they sell at fairs. There’s really no salinity and I can’t pin point a particular nut. There’s also some veg but its light, maybe sugar snap peas. Don’t feel like assigning it a number right now, its very drinkable (which is good as I probably have 6 oz to go through) but its nothing spectacular.
