teaddict

2008 Song Zhong #5
Phoenix Dan Cong Oolong from TeaHabitat,
March 2011
A first brewing of a spectacular tea. I was intending to reach for my 60mL Chao Zhou pot, having planned on a small series of infusions, but without really paying attention grabbed a larger pot instead. So there were fewer than anticipated infusions because the tea was really quite dilute. Despite that, it really shone.

Sweet, scent of dried apricots from the long, thin, twisted, quite dark brown leaves

Used 1.5g leaf in 100 mL clay pot—which as you can see is not much for the size of the pot

205 degrees, first infusion 20 seconds—still that apricot scent, floral in the first infusion, and the flavor matches—stone fruit with flowers. Oh my oh my.

2nd infusion, 45 seconds, sweet, floral, fruity, more intense with the longer infusion. A touch of spice—cinnamon, mace—on the back of the tongue, along with the floral.

3rd infusion, 45 second, more of the same—floral, fruity.

5th infusion, 1 minute—spicier coming to the fore, with the fruity/floral notes still rounding out the flavor, felt more at the sides of my mouth and in the sweet aftertaste. I open my mouth, inhale though it, and the sweet floral taste remains. I set a part of this apart in the aroma cup, and when I remembered it a couple of minutes later, it had cooled, but still, wow!, it was brilliant.

6th infusion, probably 2-3 minutes, more floral and fruity, didn’t drink it slow enough to really process the flavors in great detail.

Setting it aside for a while now, before I float away on this pool of tea inside me.

A 7th infusion again needed more patience. Will go away from the next one for a while, but pour water over the pot to try to keep it hot and brewing….

And 8th at about 6 minutes was clearly demonstrating that the leaves were spent. Sigh. They’re still an elegant mix of red edges and green middle.

Can’t wait to do this one again with the Chao Zhou pot and double the leaf.

Link to my web page version with photos

http://www.well.com/user/debunix/recipes/2008SongZhong.3.11.html

Trying a more formal tasting for the Shui Xian: 2.5 grams tightly curled leaf, 2.5 oz water in a gaiwan.

30 seconds 1st infusion—sweet, silky, earthy, toasty, warm, a bit too dilute, should have let it go longer, because the warm flavor is there, but nothing else yet.

1 minute 2nd infusion—now the grassy, herbaceous flavors are strong, but not bitter, and it tastes utterly different—chameleon tea! (this is why I am quite in love with it)

30 seconds 3rd infusion—what will it be this time? The hay/straw/warm toasty flavor is still noticeable now, but the grassy top notes are strongly present too. Mmm.

1 minutes 4th infusion—again, a nice mix, a little more of the grassy/herbaceous notes above the warm, toasted finish.

1 minute 5th infusion—nothing new to describe, just marvelous.

90 seconds 6th infusion, flavor fading a little, should have been a longer infusion….and can be a longer infusion…..returned tea to the gaiwan for another minute….and….warm toasty hay/straw still dominant, but a bit richer now.

And….checking kettle…there’s no more water left. I think I will call it done for now.

Enjoying a gongfu session with this tea again. I love the mildly smoky start and the sweet finish, and tonight, I just forgot the third or fourth infusion as I was doing something else, returned five minutes later, and it was a little overdone—improved with a bit of dilution—but even before dilution, not bitter. I think this is one whose maturation would be interesting to follow, but I will probably drink it all, bit by bit, long before it is old enough to vote.

First impression is mild, floral, sweet, gentle spiciness. Delicious. Will edit/add to this note as I work through the infusions, but already happy with it.

No notes yet.

I’ve had this tea several times, but oddly enough, this is all I can find that I’ve written about it:

“A delicious and mellow Dan Cong. Fruity, warm, caramel notes, but still Dan Cong with some assertiveness too.”

Will try to take notes next time!

Drank some of this for the first time in a while, and it was terrific, rich, spicy, sweet, delightful.

Can’t believe I never wrote this one up. It’s awfully good stuff. I’m not sure my taste buds are up to distinguishing the specialness of the jassid-bite effects, but it is terrific.

For those who are interested, I should point out that more is available, on end of harvest sale, vacuum sealed and still lovely, from Norbu.

First time I’ve brewed this one in a while, and it’s so nice to come back to. So many teas, so little time. It has the fruity delicate flavor I associate with Yunnan greens, and in the first couple of infusions it does indeed do a good oolong impersonation, with hints of caramel and fresh summer hay. It definitely has a bit of a bitter edge if I am careless and let it go too long, especially in the later infusions. I think I’m going to try a bit of it brewed hotter next time, to see what happens when I treat it more ‘oolong-ish’.

As usual when I brew this tea, I don’t have detailed notes on exact quantities of tea, infusion timing, because it is mellow and forgiving, and I don’t have to pay that much attention. I brewed up a thermos full of it and have been enjoying all day. It is not as plummy/fruity as the Lao Cha Tou that I also got from Norbu, but is sweet, subtly earthy, reminding me of the floor of a redwood forest after rain. It’s a tea that easily pleases.

A lovely tea put through a tea torture test today: Fill kettle with water. Pour some (cold) over chunk of tea in kamjove. Let sit a few seconds, pour off rinse water. Add more water, now slightly warm. Let sit while doing things in another room for 45 minutes. Return, pour off first cold infusion into thermos, add boiling water, leave for a 1 hour meeting. Return, pour off the long steep into the thermos, and pour hot water through the leaves several times while tossing papers together for afternoon clinic on another floor. Thermos filled with water, all of which has touched the leaves, at least. How can it possibly be good? And it is!

Gotta love this stuff.

Took longer than I expected to get back to this tea, and I went in a completely different direction: I was determined to get a mellow brewing, so used a small quantity of leaf and brewed up a whole thermos of tea with relatively cool water—185°F/85°C. This came out toasty, a little earthy, mellow and pleasant. I’ll work up from here now, to try to get more of those plummy fruity notes without reactivating the astringency that was off-putting the first time through.

In the middle of a rare gongfu session with this lovely tea this evening—I usually do it by the thermos full, to share with a group of colleagues during an afternoon clinic. Gongfu brings out the variations in flavor well, and this is one shu that stands up to this. I’m into about the 8th or so infusion, and there are notes of honey, apricot, caramel, delicious.

Opened another packet of this lovely sencha, after quite a while with other teas, and it was so nice to come back to it. Sweet, lovely, vegetal, mellow. So nice.

A first trial of this one this evening was interesting. The catalog description noted chocolate and roasted notes, and those were certainly present in the finely broken up bits of dark toasted leaf and stem.

I used 3 grams of leaf to about 3 ounces of water, in a preheated kyusu, with water about 195 degrees. The first infusion at 30 seconds was lightly fruity but also toasty, and reminded me mostly of the Hwang Cha Korean ‘oolong’ from Hankook—in that mellow combination of earthy/toasty sweetness with fruity plummy highlights. The second infusion, also 30 seconds, was more reminiscent of a black tea, with stronger astringency coming to the fore. I had to dilute this infusion to enjoy it, with about 50% more water than originally infused, to drop the astringency to a tolerable level, but because I was eyeballing the water level in a measuring cup to try to get the right tea/water ratio, I might have simply added too little water.

I decided at that point to stop for the night, and to try again tomorrow with a little larger quantity of leaf, so that the infusions will fill my 5 oz kyusu, and I won’t have to guess on the water quantities.

Overall, my first impression is that this one might be of great interest to those who mostly drink black teas, as something less radically different than matcha or sencha, but still a quite unique japanese tea. I’m not sure whether a little tweaking will make this as much a favorite as the Hwang Cha, a tea that took a little while to grow on me, or not.

This is a wonderful tart, delicious fruit & herbal tea a friend brought back from Germany. Tart, sweet, delicious. I don’t know where the description ends and name of the tea begins, but this one clearly has bits of apple, ‘sea buckthorn fruit’, orange rind, lemongrass, and more. It’s terrific stuff, with a nice purple-red liquor, and tolerates full boiling water and long infusions. I did a couple of infusions, but I think it would be ok with one longer infusion.

Warm toasty friendly bedtime tea
Finally broke into this tea this afternoon, wanting something mellow. And it is warm, toasty, mellow, cozy, a little sweet. It smells very darkly toasted, much like a genmaicha, but the brew, while clearly toasty, has none of the bitter scorched notes that have put me off of that tea. I love it.

Just another love note to this interesting tea, which has such an interesting combo of sweet fruity (plum/peach/cherry) floral notes, and spicy herby backup (cinnamon, cloves, thyme). It is a bright light green deeply rolled tea that looks like it should be a new-style TGY, but when the water hits the leaves it’s much more Dan Cong-like. And the flavor varies and unfolds infusion by infusion, just delightful stuff. Today’s infusions deserve a higher rating—this is 95+ stuff.

This is a lovely, floral, spicy-sweet TGY, entirely as expected from Jing Tea Shop. Reliable tea happiness, brewed up a little today in a small gaiwan, enough leaf to just cover the bottom when rolled tightly, which fills the cup entirely and is trying to sneak out the top as it has unfurled completely. When I get impatient to get the water back to 205 degrees, the leaves forgive and at 185 still give a tasty brewn. Many steeps of sweet spicy floral delight!

Another lovely brewing of this tea—a thermos full of it to drink all day long at the satellite office, marvelous stuff. Sweet, mellow, just enough spice and astringency to keep it interesting.

Two Tai Ping Hou Kui green teas

Head to head comparison of an inexpensive version from Wing Hop Fung, and a fancier grade from Jing Tea Shop.

2 grams of leaf: Wing Hop Fung on the left, and Jing Tea Shop on the right
Jing’s version has larger, more intact leaves, and the color is brighter and fresher

I reviewed this one in a head-to-head comparison with an inexpensive version from Wing Hop Fung. Full notes with photos are on my web site here:

I used 2 grams of tea in gaiwans with about two and half ounces (75mL) of water at 160-165 degrees per infusion, and infusions times of 45 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute, and 90 seconds.

Even though the leaves are quite long, they soften enough to fit in the gaiwans.

The Jing tea is not only lighter in color of liquor and leaf, but cleaner and lighter in flavor, with lemon notes amid the sweet pea vegetal flavors. There is a bit more spiciness in the WHF version, probably a bit of astringency coming out. This was consistent through all of the infusions, the greater refinement and higher quality of the Jing tea being obvious.

silky, sweet, earthy, but still with a bit of bite on an early infusion when I forgot it and left the room for a few minutes. A very nice evening tea with a rich dinner.

Only one tasting note for this tea? I’ve nearly finished my 50g pouch of it. It continues to be a lovely, giving tea, mellow and wonderful, and I expect to keep teas like it in my regular rotation, as long as I can find them. It’s enough of an oddity that I can easily imagine it vanishing.

Another Dan Cong finishing tonight. Fruity sweet and just a little Dan Cong spice, so pleasant and mellow and lovely. This was one of Imen’s recommendations for me getting started with Dan Congs. Mmmm. But this is the last of the pouch.

Sadly finished off this tea tonight, a nice set of last infusions, although the leaf seems to have given up a little earlier than I’d have expected. Sigh.

Have finished or nearly finished a few other Dan Congs from Tea Habitat—soon will be able to justify another order!