Emei Mountain Mao Jian or Hairy Tips Tea

We went to one of the bigger markets in Emei City today to buy some chocolate for Sunee to take to Thailand. Once again, I was lusting after the selection of cute little Yixing teapots. They have tripled their selection since I was there last. Sunee was not interested so I browsed the tea section. It was then that I discovered the Mao Jian which we eventually bought. Got a 100 gram bag to try. This is what we found:


Emei Mao Jian does not look anything like the Zhuyeqing we have been drinking nor the Xue Ya we just discovered. The leaves are different sizes and have funny bits of hair on them. They are also dried differently. Both the Zuyeqing and the Xueya are uniform in appearance and maintain their tea leaf appearance. As you can see from this, the leaves are distorted, curled with no uniformity in either color or shape.


If you look closely, you can see the hair on the underside of each of the leaves. I guess that is the reason it is called Mao Jian, right?


Beautiful light green and orange color. A beautiful cup of tea. How does it taste? At first, it was totally different than the Zhuyeqing with a different taste and aroma. As I drank it, though, I got the distinct feeling that is did have an up front taste of slight bitterness and the familiar sweetness in the aftertaste. Very similar "feeling" that I had with the Xueya. All three green teas are great teas.

I cannot say enough good things about Emei Shan green teas. They are special. If I had to rank the four green teas we have had thus far, my favorite would have to be the Xueya. Wow, is it magnificent. Of course, the famous Zhuyeqing is close behind followed by the Mao Jian. The Emei Shan Mao Feng would then follow the Mao Jian. The Mao Feng, though, IMHO, does not so neatly fit in with the first three. It is a different taste altogether and if there is such a thing as a "family of teas" based on tastes, Mao Feng would probably be a cousin not a brother or sister.

The main difference in these four Emei green teas would have to be price. Zuyeqing and Xueya are relatively expensive. The least expensive is the Mao Feng. We tend to drink it as our daily tea because of its pricing and value. No doubt that after today, we will be drinking a lot of the newly discovered Mao Jian, which almost matches the pricing of the Mao Feng. Living in the shadow of Emei Shan does have its benefits.

Emei Mountain Xue Ya or Snow Bud Tea

Last night we walked over to the tourist section of Baguan Village to get some Teh Guan Yin for Sunee to take to Thailand for her family. I took some interesting pictures as we went:


The Bronze Pagoda at the base of the tourist area.


This beautiful man-made waterfalls next to the bronze pagoda is very impressive at night.


Another view of the bronze pagoda at night. I fiddled with the huge incense burner to get it to show up

As we walked to the tea seller where we buy our tea, we stopped at a fairly new tea store specializing in Emei Mountain Xue Ya or Snow Buds. We had seen this for sale at Baguan Temple during the holidays and wondered what it was. It looks like it is being marketed as a "precious Emei tea." Maybe we should check this tea out. It is not cheap.

We bought a couple of bags of Teh Guan Yin and asked about the Xue Ya tea. The lady had it so we bought a little to see what it was like. This is what we found:


Xue Ya or Snow Bud tea looks a lot like Zhuyeqing but the leaves look a little smaller and more delicate. The color is almost the same as is the smell.


Fabulous looking tea! It has the familiar greenish color of Zhuyeqing and smells similar. The taste is magnificant. It seems to have all the good qualities of Zhuyeqing but the sensation lasts a bit longer. The familiar sweet aftertaste is present as well.



We tried it also in the traditional way to serve Zhuyeqing. The leaves were much more fun to watch than Zhuyeqing. They were slower but more definitive in their movement to the bottom. We had a great time watching them dance their way to the bottom. The tea is stronger than Zhuyeqing in the same steep time. I think this is because the leaves are lighter and take longer to get to the bottom. This is truly a great green tea.

Sunee plans to return immediately to the tea seller and stock up on this tea for here and for Thailand. Welcome to Emei Mountain and its wonderful teas!

Emei Gao Shan OoLong

We bought this tea a month ago from one of the tea sellers in Baguan Village. We remembered that it was an Oolong and that was all. Last night we walked to buy some more tea for Sunee to take to Thailand and we asked the name of this tea. It is Emei Gao Shan Oolang or "High Mountain Wulong." This morning I thought I would make some and see what we thought.


This tea is dark and tightly curled. It's aroma is not bad but not very impressive. From a distance, the dried leaves look almost black.


A closer look reveals that the tea is a dark green with an occasional lighter leaf. The best way to describe it is to say "tight and compressed individual leaves." Is there a special name for this?



Here is another view of the tea up close.



The tea, after about a minute of steeping, comes out a pretty good dark orange. It looks pretty good, but IMHO, it sucks. It tastes exactly like Lipton tea bags and most of the tea one buys in Thailand at the local grocery store.

The taste is not complex but in your face (or in your mouth). It has no sweet or bitter or any other sensation that we have come to expect from great teas. I cannot imagine ever being satisfied with such a lousy tea. No wonder Emei is not famous for its oolong and this stuff is relative cheap compared to the greens we buy. I bet they use the worst of the leaves, leftovers maybe, to make this stuff. We only bought a little to give it a try and we tried it. Anyone interested in some tea for free? I eventually gave this tea away to my fellow teacher, Tom, who uses it with milk and sugar.

Tea, Emei And Me

Tea Poetry

Hong Xiang Fei Tea

We picked this tea up along with our Emei Mao Feng at one of the small tea shops along the street in Baguan Village. It has the most unusual tea leaves and that, quite frankly, is why we bought it. I can find no reference to this tea anywhere on the internet. The name is in pinyin and means something to the affect of Red Fragrant Concubine. The Xiang Fei part refers to concort or concubine from Kashgar to the Emperor in Beijing. The story goes:

Although accounts vary as to some details, the basic story amongst Han Chinese recounts the discovery by the Qianlong Emperor of an Uyghur girl named Iparhan, granddaughter of Apak Khoja, a local leader in the oasis city of Kashgar. Even more remarkable than her beauty was the scent her body naturally produced; captivated, the Emperor sought her as an Imperial Consort for his harem. She was given as a gift to the Emperor and carefully escorted all the way to Beijing, washing every day along the road in camel's milk to preserve her mysterious fragrance.

Upon her arrival to the imperial palace, the Fragrant Concubine, was gifted with a garden and a luxurious room of her own as a sign of the Emperor's devotion. Homesick and distraught, she remained disconsolate as the Emperor made ever-increasing efforts to recreate her distant village, building her a mosque, miniature oasis, and bazaar outside her windows in an effort to bring her happiness. Finally she relented and came to love him when he sent messengers to Kashgar to return with an jujube tree bearing golden fruit, and the Fragrant Concubine became the emperor's cherished consort until her death. An enduring symbol of national unity and reconciliation, her body was borne back to her home of Kashgar, where she is now entombed, in a procession of 120 bearers in a journey that took over three years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragrant_Concubine)


This is a panorama of the Fragrant Concubine's Tomb in Kashgar. We visited it back in 2005 on our Silk Road Adventure.


The leaves are strange looking and got our attention immediately upon seeing them.


This is definitely scented tea. It tastes strange and is quite strong. Since I, once more, had not eaten breakfast before trying this tea, I had some stomach problems with it. I have to learn not to do this in my excitement in trying new teas.

This tea might be ok later in the day when I can sit back, relax, and savor its taste. Maybe I will do that today.

Meng Ding Gan Lu

Yesterday, two of my students brought this tea in for me. They went to Ya'an for the National Day Holiday and I had asked them to pick up some Mengdingshan Gan Lu for me. I had failed to do enough research into the best tea to buy from that region. Thought it was Mao Feng but it was, instead, Gan Lu or Sweet Dew. In fact, it was supposed to have been this Gan Lu that first became famous from this area. The first trees cultivated in China were on Mengding Mountain and the best tea from these plants was reportedly Gan Lu.

So here is my new addition to our tea cache. It was not cheap but currently is the best tea we now have. Certified to be (by some accounts) in the top ten traditional teas of China.



The sack says where it comes from. The students bought it from a tea store in the ancient town of Shangli



Beautifully boxed as all expensive and famous teas seem to be in China. I guess this is called Presentation Tea or Gift Tea.

On The Way To Buy Tea

It was during the National Holiday that we decided to go to Baguan Village again to pick up some tea and some tea cans for Sunee's return to Thailand. On the way we walked along the edge of Emei Mountain. These are some of the pictures I took.


This guy was crossing the sidewalk in front of us as we walked up toward the back gate to Southwest Jiaotong University. I took several pictures. At first, the praying mantis was a bit skittish but later he looked right at me as I tried to get a close-up.




The two pictures were taken as we made a short deter to see if I could get some pictures of the local tea plantation in back of the 2000 star hotel located near Baguan Temple. I say 2000 stars because one of the hotel's villas cost around 40,000 yuan a night or $6,000 US. The view of the tea in the surround-windows in the bedroom and living room are unbelievable! We did not get to see them this time.

Lao Ying Cha

When Sunee and I started our first tea adventure in Ya'an, we were looking for a place to get some noodles. We walked about two or three blocks from our hotel and found a small place offering noodles. Along with their nice noodles we were served a tea which was new to our tastes. It was a bit spicy but pleasant with a very good and mild aftertaste. When we asked about it, we were told it was Lao Ying Cha or Eagle Tea. Never heard of it.

While visiting Shangli the ancient town in the Mengding mountains, we found some of this Eagle Tea along with the Mengding Mao Feng so we bought some. Here is the pictures of that tea.








From http://www.itmonline.org/arts/laoying.htm:

Laoying Cha (eagle tea) is made from the dried leaves of a type of a Laurel tree, Actinodaphne cupularis. The tree is evergreen
with thick dark green leaves, and it grows abundantly in the mountainous areas of Sichuan province. The family of Laurel trees (Lauraceae) includes the well-known Chinese herb sources for cinnamon and lindera. These herbs, like Laoying Cha, have essential oils that give them their characteristic fragrance and taste (see Appendix 2 for related plants, and Appendix 3 about
use of their oils). In the case of Laoying tea, the main essential oil components that have been identified are sesquiterpenes:
isocaryophyllene and germacrene. These ingredients are found in some of the mint family herbs, including the Chinese herb elscholtzia (xiangru) that is sometimes used as an aromatic beverage tea. Germacrene is also found in the aromatic bark of magnolia; isocaryophyllene is also found in the spicy herb cloves.

Laoying Cha has been consumed for centuries in Sichuan Province, particularly in the city of Chongqing. This tea is made
available in tea houses and restaurants along with ordinary green tea or black tea and is considered a must to consume with the typical oily dishes of Sichuan to balance the taste, promote digestion, and help clear the fats from the system. It has a reputation for lowering blood lipids, including cholesterol.

A variety of Laoying Cha grows in neighboring India: leaves from the tree Actinodaphne hookeri. It is commonly called "pisa" and is reputed to help people with diabetes control their blood sugar (cinnamon bark also has this use). In India, pisa is known for its ability to remove excess heat of the body, thus lowering pitta (fire). In the Chinese system, Laoying tea is said to aid in cooling the body, but it is classified as having a warm nature; it cools by aiding the surface circulation (alleviating heat through the surface). In this, it is like the botanically unrelated herb elsholtzia, mentioned above, which has a pungent and warm nature, but is used to dispel summer heat and reduce feverish feeling. The taste of Laoying Cha is very pleasant, and the spiciness is mild, not like the hot spiciness of some herb teas, such as ginger.

Pu'erh From Yunnan

Before we decided to dedicate our travels in China to tea, we went to Kunming, Yunnan, as a favor to a fellow teacher who had to look for work elsewhere. He had heard of Kunming and wanted to go. Sunee and I decided to head on down to south Yunnan and see Sichuanbanna and the "Dai" culture which was supposed to be cousins to the Thais. We joined a Chinese tour which took us to some commercial pu'erh shops as is normally the case. We bought these pressed pu'erh pieces because they looked neat and Sunee got a good deal on them. We also bought some smaller pieces for hanging and about a half a pound or so of Pu'erh minis.


Pu'erh pressed into the form of Ancient Chinese money, Side A


Pu'erh Chinese Money, Side B


Pu'er pressed into Chinese Zodiac sign, Side A


Chinese Zodiac, Side B


Some pu'erh bricks we bought in Jinghong, Yunnan. They were pretty and that is why we bought them. I doubt if we will ever drink them. Next chance I get, I will buy some real drinking Pu'erh. But much research needs to be done first!


A close-up of one of the bricks.


Sunee liked the idea of these Chinese hanging pu'erh tea pressings. Cute but probably undrinkable.


We also bought a bunch of these pu'erh nuggets that are about the circumference of a quarter. Each is wrapped and looks to be like a Hershey's Chocolate kiss.


Unwrap the "nugget" and it looks like this. Round (sort of) on the top and flat with a hole on the bottom.


Here you can get the idea of the coarseness and color of the pu'erh.


A cup of pu'erh. I decided I wanted to try some so we took one of the pu'erh nuggets to try. It is not like any green tea and that is for sure? I can see why people refer to the taste as "earthy." But, wow, is it smooth. There is virtually no aftertaste in the form of a bite of sweet or bitter. Just smooth from front to back. Now what does that mean? Well, I will have to get some really good pu'erh from the big tea store in Chengdu and find out what it is like. This pu'erh is good but I think it may be a little weak on taste. The is also a lot of "dust-like" particles in the strainer. What can one expect from such a tiny "tea kiss!" Sunee does not like it but I do. I am looking forward to going to Chengdu next month to pick up Sunee from Thailand and spend a couple of days. Tea time!

A Tea Ceremony

Yesterday, September 30, my wife and I visited the local tourist street in Baguan Village at the foot of Mount Emei. Sunee wanted to get some tea cans for the several pounds of Emei Mao Feng we had bought from one of the shops. Along the way we came across the new Zhu Ye Qing Tea House. This building had been under construction for some time and we had no idea what it was going to be. We immediately went in to check out their wares.


The store front is magnificent, tasteful and professionally designed. In the window were the normal accessories one finds in top notch tea houses. We went in and asked for a tasting of several of Emei's finest. Can't resist the tea ceremonies that go along with this tasting. Spent a good hour tasting teas and looking at the tea accessories. We finally decided on four different teas to try at home. We also made a mental note of the beautiful rosewood tea tray we will probably pick up later.


This tea is Su Xiang or Emei Spring Dew.



I tried to buy some of this tea in the local market but Sunee did not think it was a good idea since we would have had to buy a lot of it, unsure if we would like it. Here the packaging was smaller to give us a taste. It is called Emei Bird Beak tea.


We tried this Jasmine tea and found it most pleasing. Normally I do not care for a scented tea but this was nice. It is Emei Hua Mao Feng or Jasmine Mao Feng.


This tea is called Clear Fried Green tea. Not sure what this means as many green teas are fried. Guess we will just have to wait to find out what it is like.

An Unknown Tea

As I sit here writing my poetry
I wonder what tea this could be
I remember where it was bought
The name of which we both forgot


Here is a close up of the leaves. The lady we got it from told us but we forgot. Sunee thinks the name had something to do with clouds or Yun. I do believe this is an Emei Yun Wu Green Tea or Clouds and Mist Green Tea. Let's try it and then when we go back to get some more of the Emei Mao Feng from the sales lady, we will ask.



We steeped this for around two minutes and it was not strong. The color, as you can see, is not very deep. The taste has a slight spice taste but is mild and mellow. This is a very smooth tea but I think it needs to seep a little longer to bring out stronger flavors and sensations. The aftertaste is very pleasant and on the sweet side. The leaves are tiny with a whiteness about them I have not seen in a green tea. I think we will have to put a lot more leaves and let it steep a bit longer to really get the taste.

Guess we will go back and get a bunch of this tea from that lady. She is a ten minute walk from the university and our apartment. We liked it a lot.

Emei Mountain Hua Mao Feng (Jasmine)

After our tea ceremony earlier, we walked to the place we normally buy our tea. Sunee wanted to buy some more tea cans to take some tea back to Thailand with her in three weeks. We could not find the lady so we looked elsewhere. On the way out, a very nice but aggressive sales lady talked us into buying the "unknown" tea I wrote about earlier. She also gave us a sampling of her Hua Mao Feng so we could compare it with the tea we had just purchased.


This Emei Jasmine tea or Hua Mao Feng is not weak. Since I had not eaten breakfast, I made the mistake of trying to drink some. It gave me heart burn almost instantly as the Jasmine easily overpowered the tea. It smelled great but . . . I have always had a hard time with scented tea or flavored coffee. My old bod just does not agree with the scent or the flavoring.

Sunee thinks she may have over done the tea by placing all the leaves into our teapot. This was strong tea for sure! We will go back to the lady for the Yun Wu, if that is what it is, but we will not get her Hua Mao Feng.

Ku Ding Cha

Sunee and I have been drinking Kuding Cha now for about a year. Had no idea what it was until recently. We bought it shortly after moving here last year, tried it and found it bitter but very refreshing. Not long ago we found that it was not actually a tea from the tea plant but from the Kuding bush which grows wild in these mountains. It is supposed to be good for balancing one's yin and yang or some such thing. We were told that we should only drink it once every two or so weeks. We have been doing that for a long time now. The people of Sichuan have been drinking it for over three centuries.

Since we were turned on to tea and tea culture on our trip to Ya'an, I have been doing internet research to find out all I can about all the teas we have come into contact with. Kuding cha is no exception.


This is a close-up of the kuding sticks. "Ku" means bitter and the "ding" refers to the shape of the product and how it resembles the Chinese character "ding" (丁)


As you can see, the kuding cha looks like sticks. One is plenty for around eight to ten steepings (is this what one does to teas?).

Recently we bought some different kuding cha. The first was heavily twisted making them look like curly macaroni. The second was called Qing Shan Lu Sui or Clear Mountain Green Water. The curly kuding tastes exactly like the sticks. The Clear Mountain stuff is nice. It is not as bitter and very light with a beautiful green liquid. The stick kuding might be too bitter for many people but the Clear Mountain kuding is probably ok for most.



Curly kuding cha. This is actually more bitter than the sticks so one takes about a third of one of these curly thing for their tea



This is a close up of the Clear Mountain Green Water kuding cha. It is a very green dried product


Clear Mountain Green Water kuding cha loose leaf


The leaves open up and look exactly as they were picked. These are young leaves whereas the other kuding are mature leaves


And the liquid that results from the first steeping is absolutely beautiful