2) Huangshan Maofeng (Yellow Mountain) Flavor: 3 Strength: 4 Appearance: 1 Nostalgia: 4 Value: 4 Total score: 16

Huangshan Maofeng is one of my favorite teas to buy because you can get a giant tub of it for the same price as a small box of Longjing. This is partly because it’s cheaper than Longjing, and partly because its twisted webbed leaves weigh less and take up a lot more space in the bag.

Huangshan Maofeng is ugly and sometimes a bit dirty in the tea glass, but tastes all right and is one of my favorite morning teas for the quick boost it can give me in the morning— almost like coffee. Plus, like Hangzhou, Huangshan is bound to be a memorable part of a trip to China, and it is nice to have some to bring home with you and drink while remembering that Huangshan sunrise. If you can, try to get some before you get to the top of the mountain and then bring some out with you in a thermos to watch the sunrise for a real Huangshan moment. The best place to buy any Huangshan tea, especially in terms of value, is at the Tea Market in Huangshan City.

3) Huangshan Houkui (Yellow Mountain) Flavor: 4 Strength: 4 Appearance: 4 Nostalgia: 3 Value: 3 Total score: 18 If you want to spend a little bit more money on tea in Huangshan, seek the Huangshan Houkui, grown on the back side of Huangshan in the Taiping area. This tea fascinated me from the moment I saw its huge leaves and I asked to see pictures of them gathering it in the fields.

I consider Houkui, aka Monkey Head tea to be one of the best undiscovered teas in China. It’s not really “undiscovered”, as I see it in teahouses all the time, but it is still underrated. This is my favorite of the Huangshan teas.

4) Huangshan Red Tea (Yellow Mountain) Flavor: 4 Strength: 4 Appearance: 2 Nostalgia: 3 Value: 3 Total score: 16 I recently learned that red tea (called black tea in English) is really just green tea that has been fermented. For those who can’t get into the green tea but enjoy standard English breakfast tea, this is worth trying. It is very similar in flavor to English tea, but has a certain freshness to it that you can’t get from tea in a bag. In fact, I am surprised this tea is not more popular in the West.

5) Wulong (Oolong) Tea (Fujian & Taiwan) Flavor: 3 Strength: 4 Appearance: 3 Nostalgia: 3 Value: 4 Total score: 17 There are all types of Wulong, and Wulong is often mixed with other tea too— my favorite Wulong was a type of Wulong cooked together with Ginseng that I bought in Xiamen a few years ago. I’m just going to group them all together here though. Wulong is probably the easiest type of Chinese tea to find in the West, logically because of Fujian and Taiwan’s history of immigration.

Wulong tea is great to order when you are at a teahouse because of the complex preparation involved — the server should be splashing tea and hot water all over the place instead of just handing you a glass of tea. One of Wulong’s positives is that the flavor is not too strong, but you can usually steep several cups of tea before it starts to lose its flavor. This is partly because it requires several doses of hot water to fully expand from its original ball shape. Watching Wulong expand is fascinating, like one of those growing sponge toys that you put in water. Still, if you put too much Wulong in at once, you end up getting too strong of a taste that I can only describe as soapy.

6) Anji White Tea (Anji County, Zhejiang) Flavor: 4 Strength: 4 Appearance: 5 Nostalgia: 1 Value: 4 Total score: 18 Anji White Tea is not always easy to find outside of Anji, and especially hard to find outside of Zhejiang Province. It reminds me a lot of Longjing Tea but with a greener (whiter?) and finer appearance. In my observation, this type of tea is becoming more and more popular nationwide, but maybe I just notice it more because I am a fan. The best Anji White Tea harvest comes a few months later than the Longjing harvest, so if you can get both, you can have a summer full of the best teas in China.

7) Final Rankings: 1) Longjing: 19 2) Anji White: 18 3) Houkui: 18 4) Wulong: 17 5) Huangshan Red: 16 6) Huangshan Maofeng: 16

By Arthur J from England

Editor: Feng Hui