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“I tried this tea for the first time today. As soon as I cut open the bag, the smokiness exploded out — this smells just like a Lapsang Souchong. The dry leaves are small, thin, wiry, and black; I...” Read full tasting note
http://www.teaspring.com/Wei-Shan-Mao-Jian.asp
For those expecting the light, delicate and elusive nature that is commonly associated with white and yellow teas will be in for a big surprise with Wei Shan Mao Jian. For this tea is remarkably smoky in both taste and fragrance. However, this is not to say that it is a bad tea in any way. On the contrary, people who appreciate its unique characteristic raved highly about this tea. Among those who are known to adore this tea were Chairman Mao and Chairman Liu (Shaoqi), the latter of which was known to serve this tea to all his guests from all over the world. Hua Guo Feng (a famous Chinese poet) once stated that “Wei Shan Mao Feng has a very special style and is truly unique from all other teas”. We couldn’t agree more. The tea leaves are picked from very limited wild grown tea trees, making this a very rare and unique yellow tea.
Other names:
Mount Wei Fur Tip
Taste:
A unique and strong smoky aroma and taste that will last through many infusions, promising a very special tea tasting experience.
Appearance:
One-bud-one-leaf and one-bud-two-leaves varieties. The leaves are blackish yellow in color as a result of the smoking process in making the tea.
Origin:
Wei Shan, Hunan Province
Harvest Period:
Spring ’08 (Ming Qian Cha)
Company description not available.
I tried this tea for the first time today. As soon as I cut open the bag, the smokiness exploded out — this smells just like a Lapsang Souchong. The dry leaves are small, thin, wiry, and black; I had to check the producer’s website just to make sure this wasn’t actually a black tea. I gave the leaves a very quick rinse, and the smoky smell subsided, replaced by an almost malt-like scent.
I’ve never brewed this tea before, so I made three infusions with different brew times: 1, 1.5, and 2 minutes. The leaves were still going after the 3rd, so I imagine they could go longer. The liquid is a dark yellow color with lots of tiny leaf-hairs in it, and a relatively mild smoky scent.
Edit, after actually drinking the tea:
I like it: the taste is definitely smoky, but it’s mild — not overpowering. All three infusions were roughly the same flavor-wise, although the first seemed weaker than the others. It does have some characteristics of a light black tea, but it also has an oolong-ness to it. There’s almost a foresty/earthy taste hidden behind the smokiness, and a tiny hint of astringency.
Medium-bodied and smoky. While this didn’t blow me away, it was quite good and I’m looking forward to trying it again.
I’ve had that one. Sorta ruined a tiny yixing teapot with it. A tiny little one containing only half a cup. But it looks nice as decoration on my tv, so it’s okay. :) I remember liking it, although it definitely took some getting used to. I’m not sure what really goes into the production of a yellow tea, but I agree it seemed very black. Sometimes I think it’s a shame that I don’t have any left of it because it’s so special, but on the other hand I’ve never really felt any sort of desire to repurchase.
I’ll keep an eye on what you decide on thinking about it. :)
Oh no! Yixing pots can be ruined with one bad brew of a tea?
No, it wasn’t ruined like that. But this is a very special tasting tea, and I had only used the pot for this tea ever. Since it’s unglazed clay, it picks up aroma and flavour from what you put in it, so since this is so strong in flavour, if I brewed something else in that little pot now, it would inevitably taste at least a little bit of Wei Shan Mao Jian. A well seasoned pot that has been used for the same tea for a very long time is said to be able to give off so much flavour that you can have a (probably somewhat weak) cup of tea without adding any leaves at all to the pot.
Note though, that it wasn’t one brew, I went through 50g of the stuff in a pot so tiny it only contains half of an average sized mug. So it turned pretty seasoned towards Wei Shan Mao Jian towards the end of the bag.