Tai Ping Hou Kui Green Tea from Anhui - Spring 2019

This is a good tea for brewing grandpa style! Honestly there isn’t a whole lot special going on here, but it’s a solid tea. I wouldn’t spend a lot of time or effort to gong fu it, but its an amazing one to throw in a mug and brew over and over. Beautiful to look at as well.

This is one of my favorite greens right now. If I’m honest, I only bought it because it looked pretty in the pictures. I don’t think it smells great dry. But it’s light and floral and delicious when you use the right water temperature and amount. It smells like clover flowers to me. I think I’ve seen “orchid aroma” mentioned in various descriptions of this tea…I never really knew what was meant by “orchid aroma” because most of the orchids I’ve had (and killed :( it’s too dry here) haven’t had a whole lot of scent…but maybe it’s this clovery smell? This tea reminds me of running through fields during late spring or early summer, when the clover is blooming and before the grass gets all dry and pokey. It just smells fresh and springy. I like to drink it Grandpa style in a glass mug so I can watch the leaves float around. The clover type smell and taste are there for the first fill or two and then it starts tasting a little more beany to me. Someday I’ll figure out exactly how much leaf to use and a precise water temperature. I’ve been pretty lazy with my tea preparation lately. Most of the year, really. I’ve been just eyeballing the amount of leaf for nearly everything that isn’t a pre-measured single-serving ball/cake and filling a thermos with boiling water (the giant Stanley one holds heat the best!), then I dive back into my blanket nest with some Netflix or Audible. I’ve had some not great steeps caused by this level of laziness but for the most part it works for me. If I’m worried about the water being too hot, I just fill my mug or tea bottle before adding the leaves and wait until it seems cool enough. I feel like I should be more precise and keep track of times and temperatures and amounts but I haven’t had the energy for all that.

Brewed this up today in my glass flute brewer. 3 g, 80c. Dry leaf had a bit of a spinach smell but I seem to remember last year’s being a bit fruity. I could be wrong on that because I didn’t write a review last year but I know something was a bit different.

First infusion – 1 min – Fresh cut grass , green beans & fleeting floral notes
Second & third were brewed for same amount of time and both were a little bit stronger than the first infusion. No bitterness in any of the infusions but a bit astringent with a hint of sweetness. It was good but it seemed it was missing something that was in last year’s. I am almost sure last year was a bit fruity.

Last year I bought this tea from both YS and Teavivre and found them pretty similar. I did not buy this tea from Teavivre this year but the price comparision is pretty much the same and it appears they both come from the same place near Huangshan, Anhui.

Overall, I still enjoyed this tea but feel it is just a bit different from last year’s harvest.

Man, if only this tea tasted as good as it looks. The beautiful long green blades of this Tai Ping Hou Kui are quite a sight to see but the flavor is just sorta meh.

I grandpa steeped about 3 or 4 leaves which is 1.5g in an 8oz glass using 180 F water. The smell of the leaves is briny like kelp and seaweed salad, and slightly marine. I won’t lie it’s a litte off-putting. Thankfully, the smell doesn’t make it into the taste. The liquor is almost colorless and has a very subtle, barely there flavor. There are some vegetal and light grass notes that appear after it steeps for a while but the taste isn’t really distinctive and almost feels like you’re drinking hot water. When it does finally develop some flavor, astringency appears shortly thereafter.

Honestly, I’m kind of annoyed by super delicate green teas such as this one. Huang Shan Mao Feng is another famous tea with a similar flavor. They might be better suited for occasional green tea drinkers who don’t like grassiness but I find them really bland.

I did have a Tai Ping Hou Kui from Teavivre last year that was decent so I’m sure there are better versions of this tea. This is my first time trying it from Yunnan Sourcing and unfortunately this one just doesn’t do it for me.