Gingko (manager of Life in Teacup) Send Message

As a tea seller, whether or not the business is successful, I’ve got to count my blessings for all the tea I’ve tasted in name of business. :-D

I didn’t set out to look for this tea but it was an accidental encounter. Then I took all this tea from the supplier who showed it to me. Hui Yuan Yan Cha Tea Factory is a highly reputable factory in Wuyi Region. It’s named after Hui Yuan Cliff, where it’s located and all its tea leaves are from. I didn’t have much experience about their tea, but heard of this factory for so many times. So it was absolutely an exciting moment when I saw this tea.

It is a high fire roasted Da Hong Pao, made in 2008. The dry leaves don’t look as pretty as some medium fire Yan Cha, since roasting will always crush some tea leaves. The leaves don’t smell of much fire, due to the one year of rest.

I filled a 50ml small gaiwan with probably 4-5g leaves. As usual, I gave the tea a super short warm-up infusion, and as usually, I drank the warm-up infusion (while it’s often called “wash water” by people and most people won’t drink it). It already bore strong flavor. So the next, I made the first a few infusions roughly 10 sec. each.

The liquor is in a bright red color and the color is quite consistent in the first 7-8 infusions. What’s great about a rested, high-fire Yan Cha like this one is, it hits your throat strong without letting your mouth feel the fire. The liquor has slightly thick texture and leaves a sweet aftertaste in my mouth from the first infusion. The flavor feels heavy on the back part of the tongue and the throat, but it gives a lighter note at the end. In Wuyi, people describe good Yan Cha as having “the character of a rock and the fragrance of flower”. It’s an amazingly proper description!

I am extremely happy with this tea. That being said, I don’t drink tea of this level every day. This is a relative expensive tea in our store. Most of the days I am happy with inexpensive teas. To me, part of the fun is tasting teas of different levels and comparing them back and forth.