Tea Education

Bi Luo Chun and Mao Feng are pretty opposite each other in terms of flavor. Mao Feng is smooth, rich, and bright. Bi Luo Chun is subtle but with tang and a bit of bite. I spent five years in Huang Shan and became pretty familiar with sourcing it and, such as when I moved to Fujian, the sourcing of Bi Luo Chun was also quite different from the sourcing of Mao Feng. Bi Luo Chun's region is much smaller. Huang Shan has the core region but then many outer regions spanning miles. Standing on the top of a particular...

In this episode of Mao Feng Mondays I look a little deeper in a topic that has been bothering me recently, teas on the market too early. Mao Feng is picked in late March at the earliest, with the best teas being picked early April. That being said, I am already seeing teas on the market in China and in America, so I went to see what was up. It turns out they are from special cultivars that are designed to pick early. The pick early and look very pretty and therefore make very good tea gifts, that being said...

With the Bi Luo Chun Season fast approaching it’s time to start putting in leg work. This week's trip to Dong Shan was meant to start getting myself more familiar with the region. On my last trip, I stayed in the city center, on this trip I wanted to find more of the mountain villages. This would be much easier because, for the first time, I had my means of transportation, a scooter. I set out for Dong Shan around noon, after taking care of the dogs. It was a two-hour drive on my scooter, but luckily the day was...

The change from the Mao Feng market to Yan Cha has been a bit of a tea culture shock. Looking for tea in huangshan was in a way so much simpler because the goal was clearer, find a good Mao Feng. There was only one tea I was searching for and it was more about separating the good from the bad. Then I moved to the Wuyi area and that all changed. In Wuyi Shan, each maker crafts his Yan Cha to be different from the next. The teas are a form of expression. Makers can decide what kind of...