Name: Taiping Houkui
Origin: Houkeng, Anhui, China
Season: April, 2023
Cultivar: Shi da ye zhong (the original local cultivar)

This tea is from a pure organic tea garden, no chemical fertilizers or pesticides used all year round.

Ye Liangjin was born in the late sixties, and his family have been living in Houkeng (the main region for Taiping houkui) for centuries. The local government assigned the tea garden to him in the 1980s, in an overgrown and wild state. Despite over a century having passed uncared for, Master Ye took to the task of carefully tending the abandoned tea trees, recognising the excellent location and environment for tea growing. After years of blood, sweat and tears, he brought the tea garden back into commission as it once would have been in its heyday in the Qing dynasty.

The tea is smooth on the palate, sweet and umami, with a slightly bitter flavour perfectly balanced. As Mr Ye might say, this Taiping Houkui really is ‘handcrafted by nature’.

You don’t need to worry about waiting for the water to cool before steeping the leaves, nor what teaware you should be using. In fact, the more you experiment with different steeping methods and different teaware, the more ways you can find to bring out the complex flavour profile of these leaves!

Mr Ye’s daughter tells me that they only make around 20kg of this tea each year, and are always sold out through preorder before the end of May. I laughed at my luck – it turns out I had got my hands on the last 1kg, had I got my order in only days later and I would have had to wait another whole year until I might have the opportunity to drink Mr Ye’s Taiping Houkui.

I might not be the best at doing business, or advertising, calculating costs and profits, in fact that’s never been my strong point. But I know and love tea. I see how market demand has driven changes in the tea industry in recent years, and leaves me wondering whether I like it or not. Great tea doesn’t have to come at eye-watering prices. We should strive for reasonable pricing, where tea growers are fairly compensated for their time and effort, and avoid inflating prices simply for profits sake.

From the tea garden to tea table, when tea is grown, bought, sold and drunk simply for tea’s sake and nothing more. In that time, I am at my happiest.