Mengding Maofeng (Feather Peak)

Green Tea 2024

Mengding Maofeng’s fried chestnut and wildflower aroma makes it one of our favorite everyday green teas. Handpicked with one bud and two leaves for fullness and complexity, expect pure and crisp early-spring flavors without the high price tag.

2024’s Mengding Maofeng brews up with a stronger umami presence than years past. It’s full-flavored green tea, possessing all the richness you’d expect from the heart of the spring season.

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Tea Origin
Mengding Mountain, Ya'an City, Sichuan Province, China

Tea Bush
Chuan Xiaozhong (Sichuan Small Leaf Heirloom Tea Bush)

Tea Maker
Luo Ping

Harvest Time
Late March

Plucking Standard
One bud, two leaves

Meng Ding Tea Garden
Mengding Tea Garden

Mengding Mountain’s tea is harvested earlier than other places due to Ya’an City’s unique climate. Plucking of Mengding Ganlu (Sweet Dew) begins as early as late February, while Mengding Maofeng is picked in March.

The plucking is done entirely by hand, while the leaf is gently rolled into shape and dried by a state of the art oven. The result is an economical early spring green tea that is popular among frequent tea drinkers as a good quality “everyday” tea. It possesses the classic characteristics of teas grown in Sichuan Province — persistent aroma, rich mouthfeel without bitterness, and strength across many infusions.

History of Mengding Maofeng

Meng Ding moutain
Mengding Mountain tea gardens

Over three thousand  years ago, the tea from the Mengding Mountains in Sichuan became the earliest tea designated as tribute to the imperial palace, along with Guzhu Zisun (Purple Bamboo Shoot) of Zhejiang. Due to difficulties in transportation at the time, Mengding’s tea was especially hard to come by in the common market. The literati of the time all went to great lengths to obtain it and composed numerous poems to sing the praises of Mengding tea.

Among the most famous of them are these lines:

蒙顶山上茶

扬子江中水

Tea of the Mengding Mountain’s top

Water of the Yangzi River’s center.

These lines of poetry suggest that in their time, tea was picked on top of Mt. Mengding was considered to be the best, and the best water was that which came from the Yangzi (Yangtze in the Wade-Giles Romanization) River. It’s evident in this passage that the tea connoisseurs of antiquity were already insisting that good tea should also be paired with good water.

No chemical fertilizer, pesticide, or herbicide was used in the production of this tea. Click here to read more about our promise to fair trade and the environment.

Mengding Maofeng (Feather Peak) brewing guidelines

5 grams (1 Tb) tea

12 oz 85°C (185ºF) water

3 min. first infusion

At least 4 infusions: 3, 3, 5, 8 minutes