Once upon a time in a magical land wrapped in a sea of cloud, a beautiful maiden fell deeply in love with a young man. But a cruel fate awaited them. The local lord kidnapped the girl to have her for himself and when she escaped and returned to her village, she discovered her lover had died. She wept inconsolably over his body, and her love-infused tears turned him into a tea bush. The mountain was Huangshan, in Anhui, southeastern China. And the leaves from the magical bush produced one of the most sumptuous green teas the world was ever to taste�??Huang Shan Mao Feng.

This lovely legend alone made me want to try this tea. Its bushes�??whether magical or of a more prosaic origin�??grow amid pine trees, cypresses and clear water springs on the misty foothills of the spectacular Huang Shan, the Yellow mountain. Leaves are plucked very young�??just one leaf and a bud covered in silvery fuzz. Add to this that Huang Shan Mao Feng is considered one of the ten best China teas and I couldn�??t wait to brew it.

Today was the day. I steeped three teaspoons of Special Teas�?? Huang Shan Mao Feng in six oz. steaming water for two minutes. The cup was a pale golden color with a very delicate, slightly vegetaley aroma with some fleeting flowers. I tried hard to find the peaches that should have supposedly been there�??the tea bushes grow next to wild peach trees, according to the vendor�??and failed miserably. That didn�??t detract from the cup, though. In the mouth is was very light with a pronounced nutty vegetaley end that reminded me of cashews. The second infusion�??three minutes�??was even more delicate and ever so slightly sweeter, although this is by no means a very sweet tea.

It brought to mind those beautifully poetic landscapes by Hiroshige. Who, of course was Japanese. I am sure there must be a Chinese painter who fits this tea even better but I am woefully ignorant when it comes to Chinese art. But you get the gist: Huang Shan Mao Feng is a tea of elegant, intimate scrolls, of birds and blossoms. Perhaps this is the peach that was promised?

What I love about China is its use of evocative names. How can you fail to fall for a tea called Precious Eyebrows? Indeed those perfectly green, perfectly arched leaves�??each and every one of them painstakingly hand rolled�??are a thing of beauty. They look like tiny, exquisitely shaped eyebrows that would make any self-respecting Hollywood diva green with envy.

It often amazes me how intricately complex manufacturing processes can produce something as beautifully simple as this tea. It only takes a wrong twist of the hand, or a slightly off temperature to scupper the curve and waste the leaf. And yet Chun Mee, or Zhen Mei, as Precious Eyebrows is called in Chinese, is so easily approachable that it makes an excellent introduction to green teas.

The one I tasted today came from Special Teas and was certified organic. Steeping a teaspoon in steaming water at 180F for two minutes yielded a lovely golden cup. The wet leaves had a sweet herbal scent, which came across a lot more subtly in the brew.

My cup had an ephemeral, sweetish, vegetaley note wafting up, which I thought of as caramelised herbs. In the mouth, it was very smooth and sweet with a decisive finish that I couldn�??t pin down. I�??d like to say it was plummy because that�??s what Chun Mee is supposed to taste like and that�??s what the vendor promised. But I can�??t entirely agree on the plumminess. It was sweetish and vaguely fruity but also, in some way, mineraley. As mysterious and indefinable as a Magritte painting. And yes, I am fully aware that I am not making any sense.

Beautiful clouds in the South. Not south of my window, where the sky is uniformly, hopelessly gray, but south of Sichuan on the border with Laos, Burma and Vietnam. That�??s Yunnan, land of rainforests, misty mountains and golden monkeys, the mythical Shangri-La.

It reminds me of a line in a song by Italian songwriter Francesco Guccini, aptly titled Asia and vaguely inspired by Marco Polo�??s journey to Cathai.

Among tropical flowers, among screams of sweetness, a slow, gentle breeze slid/
Whistling through the net, it brought the scent of silk and spices

Except in Yunnan, it would bring the scent of tea. The province is the cradle of tea. The Camellia Sinensis plant probably originated from here and it certainly grew in the wild. Yunnan teas are heady with altitude. They are mostly produced at 3200 to 8200 ft. What makes them unique is the tea bush variety that is grown in this area, with its large, Assam-like leaves. Yi, Jumeau-Lafond and Welsh call black Yunnan tea �??le grand seigneur de Chine, ou même, peut-être, le grand seigneur du thé.�?�

But Yunnan greens are a good match for its black. This is the birthplace of Chun Mee and it also makes an excellent plain Yunnan green, as I discovered today. In my slow move towards uncharted Chinese territory, I tried Special Teas�?? Yunnan Green Imperial.

As I opened the package, an intensely sweet scent assaulted my nostrils. Vanilla sprang to mind. Used to the earthy scent of black Yunnan, I was rather taken aback. But the incongruous vanilla vanished from the brew, which I got by steeping two heaped teaspoons in 6 oz water for two minutes. Instead, the golden green cup had a vegetaley scent with a fleeting earthy notes.

OK, I confess. My first description of that note was�??not unlike cat pee. But it sounds disgusting, whereas the scent of this Yunnan was everything but. It was satisfyingly robust in the mouth, and slightly unctuous, with a vegetaley flavor enriched by grassy field notes. The vanilla-like accents of the dried leaves came surprisingly out in the finish. A lovely tea of many layers, not unlike a Titian.