Top-drawer indigenous Sichuan Green from the Ba Shan mountains. Warm and brothy, leading to lemon blossom, orchid and green melon with a stoney minerality.
Ba Shan Maofeng from Sichuan is a relatively unknown tea compared with the more famed Huangshan Maofeng (Fur Peak) from Anhui. But you need to know about this tea because it is just as glorious when you get the right batch.
There are, of course, plenty of Sichuan Maofeng Greens out there and most Maofeng are considered decent quality but more everyday tea - a perfectly nice sipper but nothing special.
But then you have batches like this Te Ji (Special grade) coming from heirloom bushes growing in the selenium-rich soils of Wanyuan.
Let's start with the tea bushes.
Orchid Mist is made from 50-year-old Lao Chuan Qun Ti Zhong cultivar. This means that the cultivar is the old, traditional variety, which usually has a richer palette of taste and texture compared with the higher-yielding, modern cultivars. The age of the bushes gives the plant decades of experience dealing with stressors, which add more nuance, sweetness and flavour to the tea.
The terroir of Wanyuan in Ba Shan is prime for this tea type. The plant absorbs selenium from the soil and changes how it grows. It boosts the brothy, savoury to sweet amino acids in the plant, reduces the catechin bitterness and changes the structure of the sugars in the leaves for a more persistent sweetness and hui gan (returning sweetness).
Finally, Te Ji mainly relates the to the picking. Orchid Mist is made from the delicate early March pluck incorporating one bud and one leaf - just take a look at the glory of this unfurled tea!
The experience of sipping such a special batch of Ba Shan Maofeng is rich, full and diverse while being elegant, restrained, pure dew.
The aroma starts warm and comforting with hints of chocolate mousse, creme fraiche, malty hay and chestnuts. Sniff further and you will find lively high-notes hiding in the tea - cucumber, melon and elderflower.
The texture of the tea is rounded and vaporous with a stoney minerality reminiscent of a fine Chablis wine.
The tase in the first infusions starts warm and brothy with the L-theanine umami of this batch seasoning the liiquor from savoury to syrupy.
There are notes of toasted cereal, nettle soup and chestnut that evaporate to a floral nectar sweetness and cannabis spice.
The name Orchid Mist is then showcased in further infusions with an incredible mineral freshness of high mountain clouds and a sweet Orchid florality which lingers for hours.
One session of Orchid Mist will last you for many hours. Infuse many times or brew Grandpa style and then just leave them in cold water for sipping the whole day. The taste just becomes sweeter and more floral with orchid, lemon blossoms and green melon.
This is a perky tea too! It leaves your mouth with a zesty nectar sweetness, your mind with a bright clarity and your body with pep and vitality.
Orchid Mist is the zenith of Ba Shan Maofeng (at a lower cost than the pinnacle grades of Huangshan Maofeng) - it will probably become your new favourite Green.
