Another delightful, fascinating, and unusual tea from Imperial Tea Garden. The dry leaf is exclusively tips, slightly twisted, and shows white downy hairs. Its aroma is airy and light, but it smells a bit like tobacco, and has toasty, grassy tones too, with a hint of camphor.

The description of this tea confused me, it claims it is a mao feng green tea but it neither looks nor smells remotely like any other mao feng I've tried.

This tea was more similar to Moon Swirl White Tip from the same company, another tippy green tea from Hunan province, than to any other tea I've tried. I found this tea to more easily acquire both an unpleasant astringency, as well as an unpleasant cooked vegetable aroma, so I lowered the brewing temperature. At about 170 it comes out to my liking. This is one of those highly delicate teas that I would be gentle with brewing.

Brewed this way, the cup is clear and clean tasting, but with a pleasing astringent quality. Aroma is highly vegetal, but flavor is very sweet, and like the description claims, I notice both of honey and orchid in the aroma. The honey-like qualities are actually very strong, dominating the tea. However, the finish is very complex, with the grassy and toasty qualities lingering.

This tea is good for multiple infusions and the infusions change surprisingly in character. I've found that the second infusion brings out some pungent herbaceous qualities completely absent in the first.

Overall, I thought this was not only a top-quality tea, but also a very interesting and novel one. It is similar to the Moon Swirl White Tip, but I prefer this one. It is, however, pricier. As with most of the offerings from Imperial Tea Company, I think this tea is a bit expensive in the smaller sample sizes but offers outstanding value when buying in bulk.

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