Fine leaves flutter in a place of delight

A skilled server pouring tea for customers. [Photo by Dong Fangyu/China Daily]

When you taste tea in China, the best brews really need to be served from a zisha teapot. This little fellow is made from a special clay found in Yixing, Jiangsu province, whose porous nature is said to allow the teapot to absorb the subtle nuances of the flavors that emanate from each tea leaf.

Yuan's bespoke teas demand the best teapots, and we were told that the zisha ones there were designed by the Chinese master potter Gao Zhenyu using special clay from Yixing.

"If you know how to taste wines, you know how to appreciate teas," Dai says. "I am no fan of the intricate tea ceremony. The main thing is tasting good teas, rather than to approach it as though you are doing an experiment in a laboratory." As he jokingly delivered this line the skilled pourer at the teahouse served us.

As with wines, where differences can come down to grape varieties and wine-growing regions, some of the best teas in China are geographically exclusive.

A variety of premium teas is sourced directly from tea plantations in Yuan, which includes green tea from Hangzhou and Suzhou, Pu'er tea from Yunnan province and oolong tea from the Wuyi and Anxi mountain regions in Fujian province.

We tasted three different types of tea: Fenghuang dancong (120 yuan per person, $18.76), Lapsang souchong (100 yuan), and Wuyi cinnamon (160 yuan).

Fenghuang dancong, alias Phoenix dancong - in Chinese, fenghuang means phoenix - is a special type of oolong tea produced from Phoenix Mountain in Chaozhou, Guangdong province. As for dancong, that refers to a single-bush tea tree that grows independently, like a wild plant, apart from tea gardens. So genuine dancong teas, all picked from one tree, are of great quality and hard to find.

The one we had was obviously true fenghuang dancong, because once I drank it I knew I would never forget it. It has a very exquisite, long-lasting natural fragrance. A profound aroma of honey can be found at the bottom of the cup.