Tai Ping Hou Kui Green Tea from Anhui - Spring 2019

Tea type
Green Tea
Ingredients
Green Tea Leaves
Flavors
Floral, Freshly Cut Grass, Green Beans, Salty, Seaweed, Broth
Sold in
Loose Leaf
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by huntercainh
Average preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 1 min, 30 sec 2 g 7 oz / 196 ml

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5 Tasting Notes View all

  • “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...” Read full tasting note
    70
  • “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...” Read full tasting note
  • “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...” Read full tasting note
    86
  • “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...” Read full tasting note
    74

From Yunnan Sourcing

Our Tai Ping Hou Kui is grown in Hou Gang village near Huangshan Mountain in Anhui. It was harvested in mid-April (first flush) from a decades-old tea garden at about 300 meters. The tea is hand-fried in a wok for several minutes (kill-green) and then roasted in a four drawer system at progressively lower temperatures. Roasting is achieved in about an hour, after which the tea leaves are laid out by hand on a smooth piece of paper or fabric. Next, the leaves are pressed between the paper using wooden blocks. Finally, the tea is low-temperature roasted to further reduce moisture content so that it can be stored sealed, thereby maintaining freshness and extending the shelf life of this beautifully unique tea.

Our Tai Ping Hou Kui is a medium-high grade that delivers an incredible price to value ratio and is sure not to disappoint even seasoned drinkers of Tai Ping Hou Kui. The taste is fresh and sweet and delivers 3 to 5 infusions.

Harvested in mid-April

About Yunnan Sourcing View company

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5 Tasting Notes

70
3 tasting notes

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.

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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94 tasting notes

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.

derk

Orchids don’t really have a smell. (I kill all mine, too!) I think it’s more an idea of a smell and I often affix it to a distinctive floral scent I pick up on in many Chinese teas that can’t be described by anything else I’m familiar with, such as various wildflowers and clover, violet, lavender, lilac, bulb flowers like narcissus, hyacinth, lily etc, I’m probably missing some.

It’s okay to be lazy with tea prep. Look at you eyeballing your leaf like a master brewer :)

DrowningMySorrows

Glad I’m not the only orchid murderer, Derk :)
I thought maybe there was some specific type of orchid that “orchid aroma” was supposed to smell like that I’ve never had a chance to sniff. I had a cattelya once that had some scent but I haven’t smelled anything like it in my tea. Mostly it’s just phalaenposis that are available here and they just smell like “plant” and dirt to me.

I’m far from a master brewer but I can pretend (I award myself Brewer of the Year for my household!). I suppose I’ve seen worse things done to tea than having a little too much leaf or steeping a few seconds too long.

derk

Phalaen whatever is the only one I see here outside of Japanese florists/nurseries.

A benefit of being lazy is finding the both the limits of what you think is tolerable and the limits of the tea.

I’ve only had one Tai Ping Hou Kui. It had some awesome tropical fruit flavors but also a sulfurous smell which might indicate poor quality? Your note makes me want to pick some up this spring.

Brewer of the Year in this house is me since I’m the only one making tea ;)

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86
661 tasting notes

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.

Flavors: Floral, Freshly Cut Grass, Green Beans

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 1 min, 0 sec 3 g 5 OZ / 160 ML
LuckyMe

I agree, there probably isn’t much difference between vendors if they all get their tea from the same region. I liked last year’s crop too, but that’s why every harvest is a crapshoot. Tea changes so much from one harvest to another.

Ubacat

That’s so true. I am so nervous to try a new harvest when I loved it last year. So far I haven’t had that many greens that fall into the amazing category this year.

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74
676 tasting notes

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.

Flavors: Green Beans, Salty, Seaweed

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 1 g 8 OZ / 236 ML
tea-sipper

That leaf is gorgeous though!

LuckyMe

No doubt about that. This one easily wins the green tea beauty contest.

Kittenna

Sometimes I like those ultra-lightly-flavoured teas. But astringency coming before there’s really even any flavour? Not appealing.

Ubacat

Maybe it’s just the 2019 cultivar. I really liked the 2018 one and found it was pretty similar to Teavivre’s Tai Ping Hou Kui. I brew mine in a glass flute brewer and use about 15 leaves/ brew 1 min first infusion. Can’t remember other infusions but it was always fruity & sweet.

tanluwils

It kinda looks like kelp too. I feel ya on being annoyed at dainty greens. I will say that I’ve had some excellent huangshan maofeng while living in China—it was super fresh and textured, but the stuff that makes it out of the country is a bit meh.

LuckyMe

@Ubacat, whoa 15 leaves sounds hardcore…those leaves can fairly large. I will gradually increase my leaf quantity and see what happens…sometimes you need more leaf with these delicate teas.

@tanluwils I’m pretty sure the Chinese are drinking higher quality tea overall than we are. I’ve heard the better teas get snapped up in China before they can leave the country.

Ubacat

The leaves look large but they are very light in weight and light in taste. I need that many leaves to get a full fruity taste. I like my teas light too , so trust me, It won’t be too strong. Actually, I think my first brew was somewhere between 30 sec and 1 min. Can’t remember now. I ran out of it a few months ago…..

LuckyMe

Thanks for the tips, I’ll give that a try.

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