I’m back with another tea from our tea haul! I’ve finished both dancongs, so the remaining teas would be this green tea, a yellow tea, and a black tea (all Chinese teas – something I’m not too familiar with). I first tried Liu An Gua Pian (六安瓜片) at Parchmen Academy’s Chocolate and Cheese Pairing with Tea Workshop. I remember liking it quite a bit, so when Cher mentioned that her supplier had Liu An Gua Pian, I thought it would be nice to mention it.

What are the Top Ten Chinese Teas (中国十大名茶)?

I’ve heard it been repeatedly said that Liu An Gua Pian is one of the top ten teas of China. Since I’m writing down my impressions of the tea here, I thought it was a good chance to find out what the top ten teas were. According to the Baidu Baike article [1], which I’ll be drawing on for this section, a tea must be have some sort of unique characteristic based on its colour, fragrance, taste, and shape. The teas don’t have to have unique characteristics for all four of these points – some teas may only be very unique for one or two.

The interesting thing is that there are several lists of the top ten teas. The Baidu entry has five lists and they are:

Panama–Pacific International Exposition (1915)

1. Bi Luo Chun
2. Xinyang Maojian
3. Xihu Longjing
4. Junshan Silver Needle
5. Huangshan Maofeng
6. Wuyi Yancha
7. Keemun Black Tea
8. Duyun Maojian
9. Tie Guanyin
10. Liu An Gua Pian

China Top Ten Tea Committee/中国“十大名茶”评比会 (1959)

1. Xihu Longjing
2. Dongting Biluochun
3. Huangshan Maofeng
4. Lushan Yunwu Tea (new)
5. Liu An Gua Pian
6. Junshan Silver Needle
7. Xingyan Maojian
8. Wuyi Yancha
9. Anxi Tie Guanyin
10. Keemun Black Tea

Duyun Maojian was replaced with Lushuan Yunwu tea in this list. I wonder about the reasons why they got a lot more specific as to where the Tie Guanyin and Biluochun came from. I’m not familiar with Biluochun, but I wonder if Muzha Tieguanyin has to do with them specifying Anxi for the Tie Guanyin – then again, Taiwan has had Tie Guanyin cultivar tea trees as far back as 1895 [2]

Kai Fang Ri Bao/《解放日报》(1999)

1. Jiangsu Biluochun
2. Xihu Longjing
3. Anxi Maofeng
4. Anhui Guapian (new)
5. Enshi Yulu (new)
6. Fujian Tie Guanyin
7. Fujian Yinzhen (new)
8. Yunnan Puer (new)
9. Fujian Yuncha (new)
10. Lushan Yunwu Tea

While I know that all these lists are decided by different people, I thought there might be more similarities between the lists; this one is pretty different from the rest. For one, Jiangsu and Biluochun are pretty far apart so it’s interesting that they specified Jiangsu. And while Anxi is part of Fujian, it’s interesting that they expanded the geographical origin for Tie Guanyin.

Associated Press 《New York Daily》 (2001)

1. Huangshan Maofeng
2. Dongting Biluochun
3. Mengding Ganlu (new)
4. Xingyang Maojian
5. Xihu Longjing
6. Duyun Maojian
7. Lushan Yunwu
8. Anhui Guapian
9. Anxi Tie Guanyin
10. Suzhou Jasmine – I assume Suzhou Jasmine Tea (new)

Hong Kong Wen Wei Po (2002)

1. Xihu Longjing
2. Jiangsu Biluochun
3. Anhui Maofeng (new)
4. Fujian Silver Needles
5. Xingyang Maojian
6. Anhui Keemun Tea
7. Anhui Gua Pian
8. Duyun Maojian
9. Wuyi Yancha
10. Fujian Tie Guanyin

These are the five lists that I found in the Baidu entry, but you can find many more just by searching 中国十大名茶; I’ve seen one by Puercn [3] that has Puer and Liu An Gua Pian in the list (something that’s not found here). While some of the teas show up on other lists, others don’t. The geographical indicators seem to change as well, and I think it would be fun to go into the history of how these lists were made – a topic for another day, if I feel that my Chinese is up to it!

The Difference between Liu An Gua Pian and Anhui Gua Pian (A Theory)

Despite the fact that Liu An Gua Pian doesn’t show up on all the lists, you almost always see it described as one of the top ten teas of China. Well, one thing that caught my eye was the Anhui Gua Pian. I have not managed to confirm this, but my theory is that Anhui Gua Pian and Liu An Gua Pian are essentially the same thing, with Anhui Guapian referring to any Gua Pian tea within Anhui – similar to Fujian Tie Guanyin vs Anxi Tie Guanyin. It’s the same cultivar and same processing method, it’s just that one can come from a slightly bigger geographical range than the other.

The reason I think this way is that when I looked for more information on Anhui Gua Pian, all my results were for Liu An Gua Pian. It’s not a big surprise, given that Liu An is part of Anhui, but the lack of information on Anhui Guapian as a separate tea (something I would expect given that the Chinese internet is normally very good at giving you lots of information about each specific tea) makes me think that Anhui Guapian is, essentially, Liu An Gua Pian.

Not to mention that Liu An Gua Pian can be shorted to just Gua Pian, so to call it Anhui Gua Pian to indicate the general region isn’t something that’s out of the question. And while I’m talking about the name of the tea, it’s also called 庐州六安茶 (Zhangzhou Liu An Tea) back in the days of the Tang Dynasty.

First Taste

The dried leaves a rolled – a change from the twisted leaves of the two dancongs. Colour-wise, the leaves are a dark green. I’m not sure why, but the smell of the dry leaves remind me of Japanese green teas. The Liu An Gua Pian gets its name from the fact that the leaves look like melon seeds, although it’s not something that comes to mind when you look at the dry leaves.

The tea liquor is a pale green with a surprisingly strong umami smell. Taste-wise, it’s sweet, grassy, and a little umami. The umami isn’t as strong as what I would expect from the fragrance, though. I also got a few floral notes, which I thought was pretty interesting. The tea lingers mostly at the back of the mouth and overall, I find it really smooth. The second and third steeps produced pretty much the same taste, so if you’re looking for consistency in a tea (if, for example, you want to drink this with your friends without everyone getting a different cup), this is something that you may want.

Of course, I also offered some of this to my family. My mom and I are pretty much the same – we think it’s really smooth but we prefer Japanese teas. It’s probably because we’ve both drunk more Japanese than Chinese green teas, so our tastebuds are biased in that aspect. To me, I’d want something a bit stronger and with slightly stronger umami and vegetal (perhaps also marine) notes. But, another member of our tea haul texted me to tell me that she loves this Liu An Gua Pian because it’s smooth and easy to drink.

The leaves of the Liu An Gua Pian are large and smooth. Since this is one of the few (if not the only) tribute tea that is made using not the bud but the second leaf, the size of the wet leaves are naturally bigger than most other tribute teas. I’m still not getting the image of a melon seed, but perhaps I just lack the imaginative powers of the first drinkers of this tea.

Next up: the yellow tea!

Notes

[1] Baidu Baike: 中国十大名茶

[2] According to the Chinese Wikipedia entry on Tie Guanyin.

[3] 中国十大名茶排名，中国十大名茶产地！