Tea of the Month(?) - Liu An Gua Pian

So it has certainly been more than a couple of months since I have posted anything new about tea. There is some doubt about whether I should continue to call this the tea of the month post even. While I have been drinking tea still, it has been mostly black tea ( had with milk) in bags filched from various hotels we have been to in the last few months. I have also been going though last year’s Long jin (dragon well) green tea with an eye to replacing it with this year’s crop in the next few weeks. However, I have had a couple of packs of sealed tea sitting in the cupboard waiting to be tasted again. Since it is a rainy day, it seems an appropriate time to sit down with a cup, and write a little about it.

Liu An Gua Pian, means melon pieces. It gets its name from the picking style. The Melon Pieces are the result of a labor intensive process in which the farmers cut the pointy tip end and woody stem of each leaf creating indentically sized "melon pieces" as they pick the leaves. Unlike most green teas which utilize the new buds in making tea, Liu An Gua Pian uses the second leaf on the branch. Each leaf's central vein is removed and the leaves are pan fried and shaped to stop oxidizing enzymes and dry the tea. Carefully groomed leaves are then pan fired at a slow bake over a charcoal fire and frequently turned to impart a delicate hint of smokiness. This tea is one of the ten famous teas** of China and originated in Anhui province in 1776 during the Ching dynasty.

The dry leaves are long and have an extremely wrinkled appearance. The leaves unfurl very nicely, once they have been steeped for a couple of minutes. It is a low caffeine tea which has a very mild, sweet, crisp green tea, and said to have hints of smokiness (could not detect that in the batch that I have). On occasion, the tasters give it a vegetal note- sometimes spinachy- again, not something that I could detect. It is a light colored tea with really subtle aroma and taste.

Tasting notes: I brewed about 7 ounces of the tea leaves in a glass pot with hot, not boiling water and steeped them for about 2 minutes. The result, as mentioned above, was a light green colored tea, with a faint aroma. I think that this tea is much more subtle than the Dragon well green tea, which is the one that I usually drink. It has a slightly higher price tag; so for the uninitiated, or the dull or palate, this might not be as rewarding for you. I have over 50 grams to drink, so I will see if I really develop a taste for it. On another rainy day, I might even do a taste test with the Lon jin and see how they directly compare.

The photo is of my traveling tea set. The cups, the filter, the pitcher, and the gaiwan all fit in this tiny padded carrier. I have yet to take it on a trip, but I think that it will make it to Beijing with me at the end of April.



** Saving a post for the list of the ten famous teas. Coming to you soon...


There was much arm pumping and other celebratory actions when I finally figured out how to get photos on this blog. It takes two computers, two e-mail sites and some clever thinking to get here. I will be stumped by technology  no more!!