Green tea Tai Ping Hou Kui

The Hou Kui is a singular Chinese green tea because of its place of origin and its processing. It is harvest on impervious mountain terrains near the Tai Ping village in the Anhui region and only the tea from these places could call Hou Kui also because here there is the specific cultivar of camelia to obtain this tea. The plants on these mountains, because of its variety, have larger leaves that contain more polyphenols and natural oils. In order to exalt better the beauty and the flavors of this green tea the farmers make only one harvest per year at the beginning of May so they can also avoid to stress to much the tea plants and preserve the richness of the product. After the picking of the leaves, the processing of the tea allows us to appreciate the esthetic of the leaf and to get the maximum of flavors in our cup. About that we could start tasting some vegetal notes with a toasted fragrance, which remind us seeds of sesame and pumpkins. Besides these flavors we can also find a more fibrous vegetal note like asparagus and a rich tea texture which lubricate our mouth.

Place of origin

Tai Ping village in Anhui, China

Production

This green tea has a kind of classic processing at the beginning so, after a brief withering phase outdoor, the leaves are backed in big woks which were heated up at about 180°C in order to stop the enzymes activity and so prevent the oxidation. After these processes the leaves are placed between two sheets of silk with tight meshes and then flattened with metallic roll, which give their characteristic long elongated shape. In the end the leaves, after a brief period of rest, are dried with hot air to extract the remaining humidity.

Preparation

We invite you to brew this tea in the traditional Chinese style (gong fu cha) in order to extract more from your leaves. Following this preparation you could use 4 grams of leaves (about 2 teaspoons) in a gaiwan of 100 ml so you can obtains more infusions with different flavors. After a brief rinse of the leaves in a 80°C water you can go with a first infusion of 10 seconds and, after that, at the same water temperature, you can do multiple infusion adding 5 seconds every steeping time (10 – 15 – 20…)

These leaves could be steep about 5 times.

To prepare the tea in the western style we suggest 2 grams of leaves (about 1 teaspoons) in a 150 ml cup with 80°C water for a steeping time of one minute and an half. If the tea its prepared in that way its also possible to keep the leaves in the cup while we are drinking the liquor and then refill the cup with hot water as soon as the level of liquid is near to the bottom. With this preparation we could enjoy better the density of flavors in the leaves. 

The tea could be filtered if you want to avoid some little piece of the leaves during the tasting time and also the steeping time we recommend here could be modify on your personal preferences.

We recommend you to store this tea in a dry and cool place avoiding the direct sunlight on the leaves.