Furry Peony ("Sau Mei" King or "longlive eyebrow" king)

Sau Mei is a family of tea that is very popular in HK to go with morning timsum sessions. It is not really a connoisseur's stuff.

Apparently Furry Peony's Chinese name is Sau Mei King. This must mean it is the best among the relatively average stuff.

From the appearance, the tea leaves contain lots of dried stems mixed among dark and green leaves. This suggests the tea are picked in rather unrefined manner (vs picking gently only the young shoots). The tea are semi-fermented and not steamed and dried (thus leaves are not curled up as most high end tikuanying are).

I measured about 8gm of tea leaves for my tasting. With 98C water, and brewed for 2 min in the first instance, the resultant tea color is very pleasingly golden. The taste is also rather pleasant, albeit with a distinct "green" or "raw" tinge as an after-taste, as to be expected with high content of green leaves. By and large, it is a big departure from our usual oolong (tikuanying) or the dark "pu erh".

I am sure the HGGers will appreciate its thirst-quenching property, especially after a exhausting round of golf pulling one's own trolly.

On my rating scale , i will accord Furry Peony a 6

George Orwell called it a mainstay of civilization; William Gladstone praised its revitalizing powers. But to Henrietta Lovell, founder of London's Rare Tea Company, the traditional British cuppa is overrated. "People in the U.K. are used to drinking really cheap, industrially produced tea," she says.

Determined to get Brits to try new brews, Lovell's Rare Tea Company (www.rareteacompany.com) sources and sells exclusive, uncommonly tasty teas from Asia and Africa. It was on a business trip to Asia in 2000 that Lovell, a former project manager, discovered her passion for a superior sip. "In China, businesspeople would show off by buying a $120 pot of tea at lunch," she says. "I'd never tasted anything like it." Made from leaves grown and processed on small mountain gardens, those exquisite infusions were far removed from the bland British teabag — which can contain leaves from up to 60 factory farms. "I realized that Britain was drinking the equivalent of blended whiskey," recalls Lovell. "We'd never tried the single malt of the tea world."

Lovell now imports 14 hand-harvested whole-leaf teas, ranging from a delicate, grassy white silver-tip tea ($10 for 25 g) made from spring buds grown in China's Fujian mountains, to the robust, olive tones of the Satemwa Estate black tea ($15 for 50 g), cultivated on the slopes of Malawi's Mount Thyolo. Although Lovell's leaves can be found in the mugs of Hollywood royalty (Anjelica Huston's a fan), they have also captivated regular tea lovers. "I got the builders who worked on my flat addicted to jasmine and white silver tip," she laughs. "And I've even persuaded London taxi drivers to take tea instead of money."

A Brewer's Art
Making the perfect tea requires good leaves and a light touch

1 Place a pinch of leaves in your teapot and boil some freshly filtered water. If you're making white, green or black tea, stop the kettle just before it boils. Otherwise, the tea will taste more tannic and less sweet.

2 High-quality whole leaves can be re-infused numerous times, but lose their flavor if left soaking in hot water — so measure out the water in the required number of cups before pouring it into the teapot.

3 White silver-tip tea should be left to brew for 4-6 minutes. Green, black and oolong only need 3 minutes.

4 When serving, pour out all of the tea. The remaining leaves will be relatively dry and ready to use again. The water penetrates deeper into the leaves with each infusion, revealing new flavors.

5 Drink your cuppa neat. Don't spoil it with milk or sugar.

Silver Peony tea tasting

Today i am privileged to have a chance to taste a rather unusal tea, brought to Penang from HK by Khoo EL. It appears to be a private blend from a "Ying Kee Tea House". With very scanty description of the ingredients.

From the English and chinese instructions, there appear to have Pu Erh and green tea as the components of the blend. Silver Peony (a Chinese flower) is added as a favor.

I had 5gm (out of bag of 75gm) made into tea with 98 Dec C water (my Panasonic thermo's setting) . I tried some after 2min of brewing and following by additional 10min of soaking.

The 2min brew is very light golden in color. Very refreshing. With light fragrance of some sort not commonly found among teas (like Jasmin or Rose). There is lacking the typical Oolong (TikKuanYin) tea favor.

The 10min brew is much darker in appearance. The tea favor is also becoming apparent. Nevertheless, it is not the "kam" at the tongue-tip type characteristic of Oolong.

This tea is an excellent diversion for us who are normally able only to taste the common Pu Erh or Tikkuanyin. I am sure our HGG group will enjoy it.

If i were to rate the Tea King "Tik Kuan Yin" once brought by SH Leang as a 7* (scale 1* to 10*, 10* being the best), this Silver Peong should be a 5*.