Oolong speculations

A very disturbing article about speculation with prices of Taiwan oolong teas can be found at TC Formosa Tea. I hope this will not become a regular activity next years and we will be able to acquire a good quality lishan tea in next years.

2009 Wen Shan Fo Shou

I had the Fo Shou (Buddha hand) oolong harvested in summer 2009 in Wen Shan area of Taiwan. I got this tea from a local vendor, Longfeng, who delivered me lots of great teas before. This particular oolong is hand harvested and home roasted.



The leaves are small and even with light fruity smell. I prepared this tea “Czech tea-house style” – it is actually a gong-fu preparation in a yixing teapot, though gaiwan is more often used - mostly because good gaiwan is cheaper than a good yixing teapot. There is one specific though - the water used during preparation is kept hot in a glass pitcher with a tea candle lit under it. Because of this, the water isn’t boiling, so you have to use longer steeping times and more leaves.

This style of tea making has two major benefits – one do not have to care reheating the water and also there is no danger of burning the tea leaves.



This is a quite good oolong – lasted for 8 good infusions, with clear soup and very fresh and fruity aroma. The roasted taste was nearly undetectable. I liked this one a lot.

2008 Spring Pin-Lin Bao Zhong

As far as I can remember, I never drank Bao Zhong oolong before. But I found a really inviting quote on Another Tea Blog about how Bao zhong tea tastes.

I took a whiff and said, "Fuck me." It smelled good.

That made me curious. So, when I made my last order from Guang, I also order 2oz of his Bao Zhong. Because of the small price difference between the Premium and Grade A batches, I have chosen the better one.



Bao Zhong teas, also misspelled as Pouchong teas on European markets are slightly oxidized high mountain oolongs with leaves in stripe forms. My Bao Zhong was slightly crushed, but fortunately most of the leaves survived the journey.

The leaves are very dark green, really very dark green. When I opened the bag, the smell made me to tell Oooh. It’s quite hard to describe, it is very floral and very alive. Exotic flowers in their top form.

I’m still testing the 80cc teapot – I have to find the correct amount of leaves used in teapot of this size. Today I decided to use 4.5 grams of leaves. I may use less, but I wanted this tea to be powerful today.

Some oolongs smell better than they taste, but again this one is not that case. The smell of liquor is very similar to the smell of leaves, alive, floral, young with touch of exotic flowers. The color of liquor is greenish-yellow, very clean. The body of the tea is floral with a touch of citrus, it’s more complex than an average oolong is.



The tea lasted about ten infusions. It could stay a bit longer, but not much and I do not wanted to spoil today’s wonderful experience with some off-taste late brews. I can still feel the aftertaste – this was my first Bao Zhong experience, but I hope it isn’t the last. I do have some 70’s and 80’s aged Bao Zhong I was keeping for the right moment – I think I will give them a chance.

2007 Winter Li-Shan "Da Yu Ling" Oolong

I got a sample of this winter oolong from Guang. Although this batch is already sold out, on HouDeAsianArt spring 2007 and spring 2008 batches are still available. On the other hands, the spring batches could brew different tea than the winter batch. And how does the winter batch taste?



I prepared this oolong in my new über-small teapot, so I used only 4 grams of leaves on 80cc teapot. Still I was able to produce about 10 good infusions, starting with 15 sec and continually prolonging the time. The new teapot produces nice tea, yet I still need a lot of time to use it up to it’s full potential.

Back to the tea. Some oolongs smell much better than taste; fortunately, this one belongs to the category “awesome smell, very good taste”. The very light yellow liquor smells like orchids with touch of citrus fruits. Some might find the oolong tea a bit simple, but it provides long lasting pleasure over complexity. The stronger winter leaves lasts for many infusions. I made ten of them and each one was good.



I liked this oolong. It’s expensive, but it’s worth the money for a real connoisseur.

GABA

GABA. I like how it sounds. GABA. It could be an alien race from Star Wars. Or a 50’s Japanese monster, younger brother to Godzilla. But no, this GABA is drinkable and sold by Hou De. It’s a Taiwanese chin-shin cultivar oolong, one of the cheaper ones.



According to Guang, the history of GABA oolongs is quite special. In 80’s Japanese scientist discovered, that GABA oolongs can help alleviate hypertension by relaxing blood pressure. While in early 90’s the oolong wasn’t very tasty, in later years the producing skills improved a lot and now the GABA oolongs have very special taste and feel. Please, read more at Guang's page.

Also, this one wasn’t too expensive, so I purchased 100 grams. I switched to high mountain oolongs at my work, so getting good and inexpensive tea is crucial for me. And this one was a great choice!

This double-fermented oolong has unique aroma. It’s excessively sweet, with a touch of ripe fruits but without any flowery smell or taste. The liquor is clear, creamy and buttery with a touch of caramel. Certainly this isn’t a good choice for those who like strong tea. Yesterday I forgot about my third infusion and it steeped for 15, maybe 20 minutes. The tea was still drinkable and I was able to squeeze other 4 good infusions from those leaves. I should note there, that I prepared it in yixing teapot with leaves anough to fully fill the teapot.



This is my favorite amongst 2008 oolongs I drunk yet, I can only reccomend it.

By the way, GABA means Gamma-aminobutyric acid, it's the "healthy element" of this tea and you can read more about it in Wikipedia.

2008 HouDe Dong Ding

I got this oolong from Hou De few weeks ago. I drunk Dong Ding oolong from Hou De last year and I liked it really much. It was very pleasant, very sweet, nearly candy like tea.

The Dong Ding (literally Frozen Summit - 冻顶 or 凍頂, source: Tea Babelcarp) is a traditional medium roasted Taiwan oolong. As the site claims, the Nantou style Dong Ding oolong was produced in January 2008 in Taiwan.

The character of this vintage is quite different from the one I bought last year. The tea produces dark yellow, nearly amber liquor. The taste is sweet, slightly caramel with fruity undertones. The aftertaste is strong and leaves an acidic citrus feeling in the mouth. I feel this tea is pushed from the “caramel” to “fruity” side, like the roasting was lighter this year. Altogether I like the change, especially the aftertaste.

I like this tea – the price is nice, so it’s affordable as an everyday beverage, yet the quality of the leaves and the taste is still good to very good. I prepare this tea using 4-6 grams of dry leaves in 120cc yixing, mostly making 8-9 infusions.

2007 Pomelo Flower You Hua Xiang

The summer finally arrived. The temperatures reach 35 degrees of Celsius, the sky is cloudless, and the sun burns as in hell. And sometimes after the sunset arrive wild thunderstorms. Just two days ago lightning hit the temple across the street – fortunately the clergy installed lightning rod instead of just pure belief, so only the lightning went out.



In these hot days I still drink tea, lot of tea. But instead of powerful ones I choose something more delicate. Today I tried a sample of Pomelo Fragrance Phoenix Dan Cong I got from Imen last time. The sample was quite small, 3 grams only so I decided to prepare it not in yixing but in my smaller gaiwan instead.

The leaves were large and uniform, very dark green with some lighter colours. This tea is different from other Dan Cong oolongs I got from Imen. It lacks the typical fruitness, the prevailing taste is spicy and fruity. Cinnamon, touch of pomelo, orchids, honey.

Unlike some of the oolong or Dan Cong teas, this tea performs well both in means of smell and taste. The taste is sweet, calming, and soft. It’s a nice tea ready to be enjoyed in hot evening. That's why I like Pohenix Dan Congs.

Dan Cong Godzilla

Today was very warm and sunny out there, so I wanted to welcome the spring with adequate tea. The one I decided to try is the 2007 Winter FengHuang WuDong Old Bush DanCong "Huang Jing" brought to us by HouDe.



The leaves catch the eyes first. They are totally different from standard Dan Cong oolong – colorful, huge and strong. The reminded me the sight of autumn forest - some trees still green, some yellow, others red and brown. Ok, there weren't red leaves, but green, yellow and brown were there in all shades.



Also the leaves were huge, so large that they didn’t fit my rather big yixing teapot. I had to soften the leaves with hot water of first infusion and only then I was able to cover the teapot with lid. The maker of this tea used mature leaves instead of young and fresh ones. Also, the leaves weren’t rolled into long stripes, so their overall look suggested heap of fallen fall leaves.



I believe that the smell of Dan Cong teas is mostly better then the taste. But it's not just attribute of Dan Congs, many oolongs prove like that.

This one smelled of grapes and raisins, very sweet but still fresh and with touch of spices. This was more powerful aroma than most of Dan Congs posses. Fortunately, the taste was very good, too – thick, long lasting, tickling the tongue and dancing in the throat.

I have to admit that this Dan Cong is excellent – it’s different from other oolongs, but follows their footsteps in means of aroma and taste. Very good tea.

Old tea at the morning

Today I wake up pretty early to watch Formula 1. The Australian race proved to be very exciting, only third of the cards was able to complete it. Fortunately, the weather is sunny, so I took few pictures from my window.



I like the contrast of centuries old catholic church I see to my left and the socialistic blocks of flat which were built in the seventies to my right. Well, the builders had to complete thousands of cheap lodgings, so they did what they could, in the lazy socialistic style.



Most Slovaks live in houses like that. I live in house like that. Houses too dry to age pu-erh properly. Well, I will see what they will do with my pu-erh stash in next decades.

Since the first race of F1 was a good moment to try some decent tea, I decided to drink aged Dan Cong. The 1986 aged Dan Cong from Imen is the oldest tea she has – well, I dated girls younger than this tea! Ok, one girl :-)



The dry leaves are small, of uniform dark color. Since they smelled pretty aged, I decided not to use my yixing teapot dedicated to fragrant Dan Cong oolongs and I prepared the tea in thick-walled yixing instead. Also, I used nearly boiling water, not 90C (195F) as I would use with fresh Dan Congs.

The brew came out dark showing the age of tea leaves. The color was like of aged sheng pu-erh with smell and taste close to it, too. Leaves are small, much smaller, than the current premium-quality Dan Congs. They are uniformly dark.



This tea is much more aged then Dan Cong. The flower, honey, orchid fragrances are long gone leaving wood, bark and cellar taste.

Still, it’s an interesting tea with OK price tag that lasts enough infusions. Maybe not as complex as aged pu-erh could be, nor as fragrant as young Dan Cong is, the nice and round with lingering aftertaste make this tea worth at least to try.

Handcrafted tea

My very favorite teas are (not in any particular order):

• sheng pu-erh
  
• dan cong oolongs
  
• wu yi oolongs
  
• anxi oolongs
  
• first flush darjeelings
  

And I especially love high quality teas. They are mostly much better than those of the low grade. And still, one gong fu session of very high grade tea can cost less than a bottle of so-so wine.



This evening I had very high grade of Rou Gui I obtained from Guang. This is a highest grade of spring Rou Gui, literally Cinnamon, from famous wu yi oolong producer, who was elected as one of the twelve "Wuyi Yen Cha Da Hong Pao Heritage Inheritors" in 2006.
This tea claims to be entirely hand processed, from beginning to end. The handcrafted teas tend to be stronger, more aromatic then the machine processed.

While the modern way of processing emphasizes the fruity side of Rou Gui leaving lots of the leaves greenish this tea was processed in more traditional way. Small dry leaves are uniformly dark giving nice roasted aroma.

The first infusion smelled of old wood, fire, spices and malt. While the tea was clearly roasted it wasn’t too robust, the aroma was strong but elegant. Big minus for some oolong is, that they smell much better than they taste. Not this one – the taste followed the aroma leaving long, round aftertaste in mouth and throat.
In later infusions the taste become even sweeter, the roasted bouquet was slowly cloaked by aroma of ripe fruits. Especially the aftertaste become better than most of the candy you can buy.



The tea lasted in way I like it for some 6-7 infusions – it was a short but intensive experience. On the other hand, I used less leaves, so I can enjoy this very special tea for longer.

Fall Orchid 2007

Two weeks passed since Imen from Teahabitat sent me the samples of Phoenix Dan Cong teas I ordered and today they finally arrived! I was pretty excited when I visited post office seeing the pretty big box - and it was really full. I would like to thank Imen for the additional samples.




So this evening I decided to try the 2007 Fall Orchid Dan Cong. I was really tempted to taste the 22 years old one, but I resisted the temptation. Mostly because I’m a bit tired and I do not want to waste that tea when I’m not fully concentrated.

Even if the 2007 Fall Orchid isn’t the highest grade of the Imens offering of Dan Congs, the leaves are nice and the tea is better, than most of the others available at western countries. Imen describes this tea as “sweet honey, floral aroma”.



I like the Dan Cong teas because of their unique fragrance – subtle but strong, playful but straight, long lasting and penetrating. In this tea I really found more flower aroma than fruits. I do not meet up many orchids in Slovakia, so I can easily believe, that the smell of orchids is like the fragrance of this tea.

As always, this tea is best at the first few brews, but it lasts lots of them. Nice everyday tea.

By the way, I'm not sure about the tea when brewing Dan Congs. I feel like using boiling water is too harsh treatment, but when I let the water cool down too much, the taste and aroma of the tea is just too weak. So mostly I just boil the water and then I let it rest a minute or two. Fortunately, the hot water does not damage the Dan Cong as it could damage green tea.

Mystery Dan Cong

When I look at my teas, most of the time I remember, when I purchased the tea, from whom and what was it name. And in the case of pu-erh I have evidence with names, producers, photos of wrapper and so, because my memory is much shorter, than my pu-erh stash.

When I purchase some tea, mostly, when I’m back home I put it into corresponding jar to keep the tea fresh. And because my jars aren’t labeled, sometimes I know what tea is inside, sometimes not.

Today my memory does not worked too well, so I had mystery tea. I got 50 grams of this Dan Cong oolong from local vendor Longfeng.cz. I know, that it’s his top single bush Dan Cong – unfortunately, it’s out of stock right now, so I cannot check on his web, what it is exactly. But since he gets his teas from JingTeaShop, I checked it there and I believe that it’s Single Bush Ba Xian Dancong. Or it isn’t. Who knows…?



The dry leaves emit beautiful fragrance, come gentle spices mixed with orchids and citrus fruits. Even if most of the Dan Cong oolongs smell and taste beautiful, this one is especially calm, and ideal tea for silent afternoon. Even the color of dry leaves – some are darker, some are very bright green – calms the stressed mind.

The most amazing on this tea is its smell. I believe this is the tea you should enjoy with a Wenxiangbei. The aroma contains tea, spices and orchids. And by tea I mean the smell of the tea I used to drink while I was a young boy. Lovely mix.

But even if the tea is calm, the leaves are quiet powerful, they last lots of infusions without loosing the taste. Even if some find the Dan Cong oolongs boring and uninteresting, because they lack the ability to change in subsequent infusions, I like them being a tasty and inspiring companion.

Update: I discovered, that the tea really is Single Bush Ba Xian Dan Cong.

Hidden fruits

Today I decided to try something lighter, the "tasty tea". Since I'm big fan of Dan Cong oolongs and today I ordered lot of samples from Imen, the Dan Cong is the way I want to go.



I got this particular tea from a local vendor, owner of Cha Dao, a tea house in Prague. I got four different Dan Cong oolongs from him, this is Yu Lang Xiang. You may also notice, that in Czech transcription the Dan Cong is written as Tan Chung.

What says the website about this tea?
Next example of 'Single Tree Phoenix' is one with the smell of Jade Orchid (Yu Lang). The tea is full of citrus undertones; the taste is full, straight with a bit of grassy tones. Also, you can find in the taste honey, nectar and sweet flowers.

And how performed the tea in the reality?
I prepared the tea in my 50 years old zhu ni teapot I use with Dan Cong oolongs with a traditional gong fu style, starting with very short steeping times and nearly boiling water. The taste was very pleasant, mix of flowers and fruits. To my biggest surprise, instead of usual citrus fruits I found in this tea a smell of... banana? Just a hint of banana. But... this taste is something I really like!

Certainly, the tea isn't pure banana, it is a mix of banana, exotic summer flowers, orange, honey.

The tea lasts long, 10 infusions at minimum. The taste does not change in such complex way as the pu-erh does, it remains pleasant all the time.



Please notice, how huge these leaves are! I put one of the unfurled leaves on top of my teapot - the leaf is nearly longer than the whole pot. And this isn't the smallest pot I got! Also, you may notice how the leaf was processed - it's still green with some brown edges. And how I chose leaf that big? I just reached into pot and took the first one.

Just for curiosity, 50 grams of this extraordinary tea (a bit less than 2oz) costs approximately $10. Good price! Only problem is, that the vendor sells tea only in Czech Republic. Fortunately, I visit Prague nearly each month, so maybe I can get a bit more of this tea to age in my next visit. Or I can wait until I tried the other samples - maybe some of them are even better.