Lists of the “ten great teas of China” vary according to period and author, but Mariage Frères unhesitatingly places Gozhang Maojian among them. It is a plain green tea from Hunan, grown in high-mountain areas of this province in south-central China, and the house’s file classifies it among its Jardins Premiers.

Maojian means, in Chinese, a “downy point”: the leaf is picked young, bud and first leaf, then processed so as to keep its long, fine shape. This one is tender, covered with a light down, and has an aroma the house describes as pure. An unflavoured tea, Gozhang Maojian contains no additions.

The liquor is clear, with a vegetal sweetness free of astringency. The taste is delicate, carried by a fresh note, and leaves what the house calls a pleasant aftertaste, that is a gentle, lightly sweet length that lingers without bitterness. A subtle tea for the day, the house says again: it seeks not power but clarity.

It is drunk plain, during the day, away from meals or with light fare: steamed fish, vegetables, rice. The leaves stand several successive infusions, Chinese-style, and it is worth watching them unfurl in a glass teapot. It has no place with milk or sugar.

Allow 5 g for 200 ml of water at 95 °C and three minutes of infusion, according to the house’s guidance; the measure is generous because the leaf is light. Gozhang Maojian is weighed and packed to order in our shops in Bordeaux and Nice, from the 5 g sample up to one kilo, and keeps best cool, in an airtight container, away from light.