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Now that I have gotten reviews of two of the remaining teas from September out of the way, allow me to move on to something I consumed much more recently. I finished what I had of this tea earlier in the week. At one point in fairly recent history, I was a huge fan of Huangshan Maofeng, but nowadays I find myself preferring Chinese green teas that display more powerful aromas and flavors. Still, I cannot penalize a tea for being exactly what it is supposed to be and doing exactly what it is supposed to do, so I will go ahead and offer the opinion that this was an excellent Huangshan Maofeng.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of tea buds and leaves in 4 ounces of 176 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry bud and leaf mix emitted strong mineral, hay, and straw aromas that were accented by hints of sugarcane and honey. After the rinse, I noted new scents of cream, chestnut, and malt. The first infusion then introduced some subtle scents of pine and lettuce. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented delicate notes of grass, chestnut, malt, straw, cream, and pine that were backed by impressions of seaweed, butter, and spinach before a spicy mineral presence dominated the mouth. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of butter, cream, grass, hazelnut, and fennel. Stronger and more prominent butter and cream notes emerged in the mouth alongside a stronger and spicier mineral presence and belatedly emerging impressions of lettuce, hay, honey, and sugarcane. New notes of umami, fennel, hazelnut, grass, bamboo, and peas appeared as well. The last couple of infusions offered lingering mineral, cream, butter, lettuce, grass, seaweed, and chestnut notes that were backed by fleeting umami, sugarcane, pea, and hay hints.

In my experience, Huangshan Maofeng is normally a subtler, more textured, and more challenging green tea. This one was certainly no exception. There was a lot going on with it, however, and it produced a sterling example of the sort of wonderfully textured tea liquor for which Huangshan Maofeng seems to be so renowned. Again, this may not be the sort of Chinese green tea I often crave these days, but I am not going to slight a tea that does everything one should expect of it really, really well. Overall, this was an excellent Huangshan Maofeng from a reliable vendor. Fans of this type of tea should give it a shot.