Dancong Aria

I’m glad the description for this one says ‘perfumey’, because I definitely got that when sniffing this tea dry, and even now as it is brewed, and thought it was perhaps contaminated. I now doubt it :) Anyhow, thanks to Awkward Soul for this tea! I haven’t tried any dancongs aside from one or two from Verdant, and was interested to taste one that required less care and attention.

Even at 5 minutes, this tea is pretty mild. I can taste the “woodiness” that I get from darker oolongs (enjoyable), and also some perfumey, peachy notes that I wouldn’t have expected. Not bad, but not as flavourful as I would like, and I have doubts that it could hold up to a second infusion. There’s a lingering peachy aftertaste though that is quite appealing :) I’ll have to brew my next cup a bit stronger to see if it’s better that way.

Thanks again, Awkward Soul!

In honor of today’s Steepster Select, I’m drinking a cup of Dancong Aria. I honestly didn’t know that I had any until I noticed the “in cupboard” icon lit up. Oh cool…tea that I don’t remember buying. A sure sign of owning way too much leaf! :)

Dancong Aria is…different. It has a natural sweetness but also slips into a dryness like a white wine. There is sharpness to the smell and taste that I do not care for. Maybe it’s the notes of orchid? It’s just…“ok” in my book. sips Man, that astringency is killer. Dancong Aria is not smooth. I’ll just put this back into my “to be swapped” drawer.

On a happier note, I love reading all of the interviews for Adagio’s Roots Campaign. I wish more companies would do this. The tea tastes a little better if you know the story and people behind it.

Crazy day so far. Got new washer and dryer. Watched the husband install the thing without really looking at the manual. Had a gas leak. Hardware store trips. Fixed leak. Put stuff in the washer and during the spin cycle the washer sounded like an airplane taking off and smashing into the side of the house – which was the washer smashing around the closet trying to escape and kill everyone. Husband fixed that, which was him failing to do Step 1 and 2 of the instructions. Sigh. Now sitting down for tea. How about a perfumey oolong?

I’ve had this tea in my stash for awhile, I guess I didn’t drink much of it as it was kinda a pricey tea and I’m weird like that.

First off, steeping instructions said 5 mins, boiling. Yeah I’m not risking drinking another astringent tea so I went 190 for 4 mins.

Overall mild, but quite peachy perfumey, which lingers as an aftertaste as well. Starting to get astringent, but still good. Pretty good – I love my oolongs floral! I have a few more cups left, but not sure if I’d buy more, rather try some other dangcongs from other tea companies first.

WOW…what a flavor. I read the description on Adagio and had to give it a try, and I’m glad I did. I just got this in the mail today. I opened the container and instantly smelled tropics. It’s a light amber brew, naturally sweet, slightly astringent in a pleasant way, light on the mouth feel, but with a great unique flavor and a hint of malt. I find that the flavors are more pronounced once it cools down a bit. The flavors in the description are quite accurate: “The one we have chosen intrigued us with its hypnotic orchid notes and lingering honey sweetness.” I’m already partial to oolongs, but the unique flavor in this one made me do a “double take,” if you will. This is only my first cup, and it came out pretty much perfect, but I imagine that too long of a steep time with water that’s any hotter than 200F will result in it being overly bitter.

UPDATE: A purposefully overbrewed cup the following day wasn’t any more bitter.

I was pleasantly surprised by this tea. I threw the oolong sampler into my cart to meet the $50 free shipping limit, but I didn’t have very high expectations. Adagio is a solid company with some good flavored teas, but I certainly wasn’t expecting their pure teas to be so top-notch. In fact, this is a lot better than any of the blends/flavored teas I’ve had from them (except for the Thai Chai, which is heavenly).

There are definite floral notes, orchid most likely. I’m not overly familiar with orchid scented teas but that is what this seems like going off of other notes. It’s less overpowering than jasmine and it’s also got a strong, sweet honey flavor that hits you in the back of the throat. It’s perfume-y all the way through the sip too, unlike many other floral teas I’ve had where it’s just prominent when it first hits your tongue. I am also getting a mellow citrus feeling as it cools, mandarin orange or clementine. It’s a very crisp cup, though I increased the water temperature for the second steep and got more malty notes.

EDIT: That floral note is violet! It’s reminiscent of those violet candies you get in the pretty purple wrapper. There’s also a bit of “wet grass after a spring rain” taste going on in the 3rd steep…. they really need to make a perfume that smells like this tea, it’s so elegant.

I must be doing something wrong, or I’m having a bad tea week (but only with this tea?) because my sample tin is almost gone and I still have yet to produce a cup that has all that supposed honeyed peach ginger lychee goodness that other Steepsterites are raving about. I tried brewing in two different porcelain gaiwan, a glass gaiwan, two different yixing pots… using different water temps (from 190 to 200+), diff quantities, diff times… Gah. I even tried leaving the container open for a minute to let the leaves ‘acclimatize’. The best result I had was when cold brewing, but there was a rubbery taste I got like when I brew the Adagio peach oolong. Maybe my taste buds are off, maybe they’re wired wrongly and instead of “mmmm peach” they like to send me “ech, rubber”. Just for fun.

But, I will persevere! At the very least, I’ll have an empty tin to use to store other more cooperative teas.

Slowly sipping and trying to picture the Phoenix Mountain, China where it grows. Then I just googled it http://Scenery.cultural-china.com/en/109Scenery2859.html and yes that’s exactly how I imagined it :)

It’s malty, and fairly dark (which I like) and indeed I can taste some hints of honey.

Interview with the farmer: http://www.adagio.com/roots_campaign/pan_hui_huang.html?SID=4479b90a72dfa50bd67c2576cf0fcbce

I enjoyed this tea and so did my 3 year old daughter. What can I say I drank A LOT of tea when I was pregnant and there must have been some transference. LOL :o) The girl has a complex palette. Nevertheless, I felt this was a medium/light tea, earthy flavor but not grassy with floral accents and touch of sweetness. Tasty indeed!

I second Pat’s ‘double take’. What a fine tea! It’s like a wine: very fine focused taste. I did drink mine with sugar, but I have no doubt it the honey sweetness of the natural flavours make it fine on its own. I left my mug for a while and came back to a nearly chill tea, just as good as it was hot. Based on this, I think it would make a fabulous iced drink. This was a sample, I’m definitely ordering a full size.

It took several tries to get a good-tasting steep from this tea – it definitely does not benefit from oversteeping, and it is well worth while to time the steep and pull out the leaves after no more than 5 minutes. Oversteeping will result in an astringent aftertaste. It might benefit from a shorter steep with more leaves.

This looks like a black tea, but brews up very light and delicate. I added more leaves than I might for a Darjeeling or other black tea. During brewing, the smell reminded me of spinach – a strongly vegetal, mineral aroma. Even after adding more leaves, it brewed up a very light amber, with a light floral aroma. Once I got the steep right, I tasted a smooth, flavorful tea with a definite sweetness.

I like it very much, and think it is worth keeping on hand, even though it is a bit fussy to brew.

Decent oolong, naturally sweet and fruity.

Can definitely taste the peachy-tropical flavor in this, and the mellow sweetness. Waiting for it to cool down a bit so the flavors come out more.

It has dark twisted leaves with a pretty fruit smell. Steeping it creates a sweet oolong tea with a bit too much bitterness for my taste. One of the few teas I couldn’t finish.

As I opened this sample tin…It’s almost like a mix of black tea and oolong teas put together – but just for the first sniff. After steeping the aroma changed to a mild oolong type smell. I think it’s of the lighter colored oolongs I have seen. For an Oolong the taste is very smooth and not very woodsy tasting like some have been that I have tasted. Right at the end you get just a tad of the sweetness but it’s barely there. I am very surprised by this one…very different that I expected. Glad I bought it…will certainly be trying different steeps and amounts/lengths of steep just for fun.

Wow now this is a really good Dancong tea that makes me wish I would have gotten a larger size than the sample. Clearly a lightly roasted oolong but the roast is more subtile than with most Wuyi oolongs. This one has a very nice light and sweet fruity flavor to it and a REAL honey sweetness to it that I would actually naturally describe as tasting like honey might have been added when I know it wasn’t on my own without being told that it “is supposed to” taste like honey. Not to mention that this tea holds up very well to multiple gaiwan infusions for me.

Very tasty. Tannic without being bitter. Fruity without being sweet. Medium-bodied, but light enough to drink in the afternoon when I so often reach for a green.

I got a sample of this as a special 20th birthday present.

The dry leaves are beautifully twisted and dark. The initial smell is toasty and floral, but if one draws it higher up into the nose it develops a gorgeous tropical fruit scent, most notably of passion fruit, mango, and a touch of peach.

The liquor is a beautiful dark golden colour, almost light rusty brown. It smells much more strongly of passion fruit than the dry leaves, the more I smell it the more I love it. It also has that wonderful toasty warm aroma of dark oolongs which I love.

The first sip is bitter. Crap. The water must have been too hot. (MUST buy that thermometer!!) It still holds on to that passion fruit scent with floral notes lifting it up to another level. It is almost like drinking perfume, there is such strength to all the aromas. Passion fruit holding on all the way to the aftertaste, awesome. Off to brew the second infusion which will hopefully be more successful.

WOW! I was blown away by this! I’m having a very anxious day because I’m anticipating something later today, so I decided to take some time to relax with tea. Oolong seemed perfect, and it is.

I prepared this in my gaiwan. Dry, the leaves seemed long and dark and the scent was fantastic… a little musty and sweet. I rinsed the leaves for a few seconds. The first steep was for less than 1 minute. It was a bit strong… I should have steeped it for a shorter time. But it was nutty and sweet. The aftertaste was sweet as well! The second steep was for about 2 minutes, and it tasted like lychee and florals, but more lychee and sweetness. It was divine! I may go for a 3rd steep soon!

I love the smell of the wet leaves. Definitely sweet lychee! So relaxed now!

On first steep: I can taste the peach pit and a little bit of the honey but the floral taste really overpowers it. I’ll try for a shorter steep next time, right now it just tastes like bitter flowers.

Do I have the same tea as the rest of the people here? I don’t know. But mine doesn’t taste anything like flowers, or honey or fruit, all I can taste is rubber, burnt rubber… I tried different water temp ranging from 190F to boiling, varied time from 1 min to 3 min, still rubber no matter what I do.