While not strictly a scented tea, this variety produces an apricot
colored beverage with the fragrance of magnolias, even though none
grow nearby. Perhaps the wild peach trees blossoming all over the
hills surrounding huangshan in Anhui province make some
contribution. And perhaps that is why one authority lists it among
the five best known teas in China. Huangshan tea drinkers have a
saying: the first cup is most fragrant, the second sweetest, the
third, strongest.
Plucked very young at the stage of only a bud and a single
unfolding leaf, the leaves when processed are yellowish green, flat
with a very slight upturn, and covered with silvery hair. The
Qingming (early April) picking is sold as a special choice grade.
Every part of the Chinese countryside has its legends which reflect
the tragedy of life of old China, and there is one linked with
Huangshan Mao Feng. A young man and a beautiful young woman from a
tea plantation were in love, but the local tyrant seized her for his
concubine. She escaped, only to learn that the landlord had killed
her lover. When she found the lover's body deep in the mountains,
she wept and wept, until she became the rain, while her lover's body
turned into a tea bush. That is why, says the legend, the area where
this tea grows is cloudy and humid the year round.
