Ma Liu Qi

This was my girlfriend and I’s go-to tea for a long time, because of its full-bodied flavour and inviting aroma. I still drink this tea often.

The colour of the brewed liquid is a light jade with a yellow tinge.

The aroma is a very inviting, deeply earthy fragrance. It brings to mind the image of fresh green leaves slowly fermenting in a pile under some shade on a warm spring morning (interestingly enough the way tea is processed isn’t much different). I may go so far as to imagine little monkeys with hand-held fans fanning the fragrance toward you.

The flavour is complimented well by the aroma: it starts off nice and crisp, and then mellows out into a deep, buttery/malty flavour that is circumfixed by a pleasantly fermented-taste. The fermentedly-buttery flavour (for lack of a better descriptor) I find is a distinguishable characteristic of the MaLiuQi that is not present in any other teas I’ve tried. Some may liken it to a dirty taste, or perhaps to leaves that have been sweating, but if you can somehow imagine this to be a good thing, you will come near the correct impression of this tea.

Some of my friends have tried it and said they didn’t enjoy it – I think it is the kind of flavour that you work your way up to enjoying, as you would with wine or coffee.

In conclusion, I enjoy this tea quite a lot. It takes you on a pleasantly short ride through a few different flavours that I find juxtapose well and are balanced nicely with the aromatics. One of my preferred teas over the NZD$45 mark.

PS: I recommend drinking it out of a Gaiwan, as it’s easier to appreciated the aroma this way, and the flavour is a lot easier to experience.