Xin Yang Mao Jian (discontinued)

Our Xin Yang Mao Jian is now available for pre-order at 10% off! It will be arriving early next week! :)

About the Tea
Xin Yang Mao Jian is a famous green tea produced in the Henan province of China. This tea is harvested in the early spring and is comprised of tiny, hand-twisted leaves. The leaves are so small that each ounce of Mao Jian has nearly 3,000 leaves! Mao Jian is harvested just before the monsoons, after long periods of fog, which leads to a very sweet, fresh flavor with notes of agave, citrus, and a lovely nuttiness. The aroma of Mao Jian is stunning, comparable to a summer morning walk through a deciduous forest! With a history dating back to around 800 BC, the processing of this tea has become absolutely perfected and will please any green tea lover. This is my favorite green tea!

Notes
Herbaceous
Agave
Citrus
Chestnut
Dark, Mossy Forest

How to brew the perfect cup:
Steep 1/2 tablespoon of leaves
in 8 ounces of 180ºF water
for 1 minute and 30 seconds.

2nd infusion: 2 minutes
3rd infusion: 3 minutes

Ingredients
Chinese Green Tea

Caffeine Content
Low

http://whisperingpinestea.com/maojian.html

This is another amazing old tea. From White Antlers.

I am on the same boat as derk, trying this tea fresh would be so awesome. I used two teaspoons in a mug, but I assume gong-fu would be much better.

The dry tea was visually almost perfect, small, like spuce long needles and even it looks pretty much same. Or maybe larch needles? Just they are dark green → black instead of green fresh colour. But if it is 7-8 years old, it’s no surprise.

It was mild, sweet grass. It was even quite thick, mouthcoating and little mineral and citrusy.

There is another Whispering Pines Xin Yang Mao Jian on Steepster, prefaced by ‘High Mountain,’ which is not written on this particular pouch of tea. So despite the leaf looking different than what’s in this photo, I’m going to drop this note here.

Another old’n. The dry leaves are green-grey-blue and fuzzy silver-fawn thin, tight twists. Smells like walking from the edges of a sweetgrass meadow into the depths of a mossy forest. All the leaves sink to the bottom after filling the cup with hot water. Not much of an aroma. The liquor is buoyant, viscous and smooth with with most of the taste happening in the back of the mouth — like steamed broccoli stalks and buttered nuts. Mouth-watering, oily and mineral clean. The wet leaf smells tangy with a citrus-berry tone, sweetgrass and florals, as well as with something fleeting that reminded me of a wet rag. Wet rag isn’t a good way to end this note…

Great body. A green tea I’d love to try fresh.

Tea of the night…

I love my little green teas. Yes, they are my little ones. I don’t drink them as often as my blacks and oolongs but I do appreciate them. Yes, I play on the dark AND the green side!

This is like drinking morning dew. As if I had gone out at the first hour of the day to collect in my glass steeper enough little grassy drops to fill a decent tiny cup. In French, morning dew is called “la rosée”, I love that word, it sounds so soft and fluffy, just like this tea is.

I took a picture…

I know, I know, I often like to show…well see, I don’t have a blog but I take pictures all the time, especially tea pictures, so why not share them? Of course you don’t have to click, I won’t be offended… But for those who love to watch, here it is:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/laafeevertee/14377042107/

Isn’t it pretty and tender looking? Like beautiful seaweeds, moving in slow motion.

It tastes so fresh and vegetal, a bit salty and marine. It’s a pure and clean taste. The type I love to pair with fish.

I threw this one in my cart on last order cause ya know…my plan is to try ALL existing Whispering Pines teas!!!

Another new try this morning. I’m trying to work through my smaller quantities of tea in order to reduce my cupboard — it’s fairly crazily out of control at the moment. It also gives me the chance to try some new teas, which is nice, as I’ve become a little jaded with drinking the same teas over and over again. I’m sure I’ll appreciate them more after a refresher!

Anyway, the tea. I followed the parameters for this one, and gave 1tsp of leaf 1.5 minutes in water cooled to around 180 degrees. The leaves are very fine and string-like, and (at least dry) are fairly curly. Wet, they unfurl and become uniformly straight, with some unfolding into complete leaves with stem! The scent is very vegetal, like freshly cooked green beans with maybe a touch of butter.

Brewed, the liquor is a medium yellow-green shade. The flavour is quite intensely nutty, with an almost mossy edge. Wet leaves is what it really reminds me of, I think! It’s relatively sweet, particularly in the initial sip, and there’s a tiny note of citrus. It’s very lightly astringent. It doesn’t taste nearly as vegetal as it smells, although there is an element of buttery green beans, or maybe asparagus. Mostly, it reminds me of walking through a young forest in spring, after a light rain fall. It’s a very fresh, light flavour. I can see this one holding up well, so I may resteep it later. A delicious green!

Second steep was much, much lighter in flavour. It’s still mildly vegetal, but I’ve lost most of the notes I picked up earlier — there’s not very much nuttiness, no forest…it’s pleasant, but I liked the full strength initial steep more. The second steep could be my friend when I’m looking for a milder green, though, so I’ll bear it in mind for the future.

This is a nice green. Unfortunately, I don’t remember too much about it. It was’t outstanding, but it was nice. Nothing stood out, except that I remember the leaves smelled really good when I pulled them out after steeping.