I have been really busy over the last couple of days and I wanted to sit down and fully focus on a Ming Qian Huangshan Maofeng without thinking about anything else. Summer is almost over but the weather is quite nice here in Belgium. I still had some samples Teasenz sent me back in April so I picked one of their green teas from 2021: the Ming Qian Huangshan Maofeng.
Ming Qian Huangshan Maofeng
The Ming Qian Huangshan Maofeng is a popular Chinese green tea from Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) in China’s Anhui Province. This is a Ming Qian tea, which means that it was picked before the Qing Ming festival. This festival takes place at the beginning of April and if it’s picked before, it usually means that it’s a first flush tea.
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The fact that it’s a first flush tea is usually an indication that it’s high quality because the first harvest after winter is full of nutrients that accumulated during the winter. This Ming Qian Huangshan Maofeng is from the 2021 harvest so it’s quite fresh.
Tea Tasting
- 4.9g for a 130ml porcelain gaiwan
- Water 80°C
The aroma is really good! It’s refreshing with a hint of spices and flowers. Citrus is the most noticeable element and it has a sweet edge. The leaves are rather big and are really long, almost like swords.
Infusion 1 (15 sec): very light colour but the flavours are already coming through. Some citrus is noticeable in combination with some floral notes. The finish and aftertaste have a strong sweetness to them. It gets your attention because you want to know what is coming next.
Infusion 2 (20 sec): the colour hasn’t changed much but the flavours are more intense. At the start, some of the flowery citrus is coming through and I get the feeling it carries on into the finish and aftertaste. Towards the end, some of the sweetness is still there as well. The texture feels silky and delicate.
Infusion 3 (25 sec): the liquor is more yellow now. It has lost a bit of its sweetness but citrus is still going strong and it’s really refreshing. The aftertaste has a deeper and warmer sweetness to it; almost like dark sugar. This combination works really well!
Infusion 4 (30 sec): similar to infusion 3. It’s a really pleasant and refreshing tea without it being too fresh or intense. The aftertaste is sweet and full of citrus. It reminds me of drinking homemade lemonade on a hot day in summer.
Infusion 5 (35 sec): the sweetness has almost disappeared and it’s more about refreshing citrus.
Infusion 6 (40 sec): still enjoyable. I’m getting citrus with a sweetness in the aftertaste.
Conclusion
This Ming Qian Huangshan Maofeng was a great tea and it reminds me of several really nice green teas I drank last year. I mainly experienced a combination of citrus and a warming sweetness.
The citrus was refreshing and the sweetness was deeper and warmer. The sweetness popped up towards the finish, while the citrus was more noticeable at the start of the infusion. Definitely amongst the best green teas of 2021!
If you want to try this tea, click here.
