Maoxie's name describes the fine hairs on its leaf, not a flavor — and like Benshan, it has no national grading standard of its own.
Maoxie (毛蟹, “hairy crab”) is a Southern Fujian oolong from Anxi County, and one of Anxi’s Four House Varieties (四大当家品种), alongside Tieguanyin, Huangjingui and Benshan. It also has the best name of the four — a description of the plant, not a flavor note: the fine downy hairs on the leaf gave the cultivar its name.
Source material describes tight, granular, dark green dry leaf, a light floral aroma, and a clean, mellow taste in a yellow-green liquor. Nothing in the source frames Maoxie as a big or dramatic tea — floral and light on the nose, clean and mellow in the cup, is the honest shape of it. The one origin detail the material gives is that Anxi’s Daping area produces the best quality; it doesn’t explain why, so this page doesn’t speculate on soil, elevation or any other factor behind that reputation.
Like Benshan, Maoxie has no dedicated national product standard — our reference sources’ standards research states this explicitly. It isn’t covered by the Tieguanyin standard (GB/T 30357.2) or the Huangjingui standard (GB/T 30357.3), and no separate standard exists for it either. If a listing claims Maoxie is graded to a national standard, that claim needs a specific citation this research didn’t find.
Maoxie and Benshan are easy to confuse on paper — both recorded as tight, granular, dark green leaf, both clean and mellow, both yellow-green liquor. The clearest documented difference is aroma: floral and light for Maoxie, versus clean and relatively light for Benshan. If you’re working through the Four House Varieties, taste Maoxie after Tieguanyin and Benshan — the method stays the same across all three; the leaf changes.
See the Oolong Tea guide for where Maoxie sits among the Anxi oolongs, and Huangjingui and Benshan for the other two House Varieties.
Look · Dry leaf
Source material describes tight, granular, dark green dry leaf, with the cultivar's name itself referring to the fine downy hairs visible on the leaf.
Smell & taste
Typical aroma: floral, light. Flavor tendencies: clean, mellow. Body: light-medium. These vary by batch, storage and brewing.
Brew · A starting point
Try 5 g in 150 ml water at 90–100°C for 15–30 seconds. Fully decant before tasting.
Read the wet leaves
Not documented specifically for Maoxie in the source material reviewed.
Sources & review
Compiled by ChinaTea101's editors from Chinese national and industry tea standards and reference material, then fact-checked. Last reviewed 2026-09-25. How we check claims