Green tea · Anhui
Taiping Houkui
tàipíng hóukuí · 太平猴魁
“Monkey chief of Taiping” — the most striking green to look at, with long flat orchid-green leaves pressed with a faint net pattern. Grown near Huangshan, it brews delicate, sweet and floral despite its size.
- Region
- Houkeng, Taiping, Huangshan, Anhui — 350–750 m
- Harvest
- Early spring — large two-leaf-and-bud sets
- Oxidation
- Unoxidised
- Cultivar
- Shidacha — a large-leaf local bush
In the cup
Fresh orchid and snow pea over a clean, mellow body — delicate and floral, with a long sweet finish and almost no bitterness.
What it gives
A smooth, gentle green — large tender leaves and careful firing keep it low in astringency, a clean and clear-headed lift.
Taiping Houkui — the monkey chief of Taiping — is the green tea that stops a table. Its leaves are extraordinary: long flat blades, two leaves and a bud kept whole, pressed in cloth and gently fired so they come out straight, orchid-green and patterned with the faint imprint of the mesh. Few teas look so unlike the cup they make.
It grows around Houkeng in the old Taiping district near Huangshan in Anhui, from a large-leaf local bush. For all the size of the leaf the cup is delicate — the careful firing and the high, misty terroir keep it sweet and floral rather than bold. The best is an early-spring pluck, when the leaf is tenderest.
In the cup
Brew it around 85 °C in a tall glass — the leaves are too long for most pots — and give them a couple of minutes to release. The liquor is pale jade-green, the aroma fresh orchid, the body clean and mellow with a snow-pea sweetness and a long, soft finish. Watch the great blades stand and drift; half the pleasure is in the looking.
How to brew
Taiping Houkui
Water
85 °C
Leaf
5 g per 100 ml
Steep
2–3 min in a tall glass
Vessel
Tall glass — the leaves are long
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