Hide

Welcome to Steepster, an online tea community.

Write a tea journal, see what others are drinking and get recommendations from people you trust. or Learn More

Song Zhong Dan Chong from TeaSpring

Steepster Score 1 Rating Rate This Tea

74/100

Song Zhong Dan Chong

Oolong Tea by TeaSpring

http://www.teaspring.com/Song-Zhong-Dan-Chong.asp

Song Zhong Dan Cong are harvested from old tea trees descended from the Song Dynasty specimen. These trees grow in the high mountains of Feng Huang Shan, about 1,000 metres above sea level, where the soil, sun light, clean air and water provide an ideal environment for it to grow. Song Zhong is the best of Dan Cong variety and is considered a treasure in Chao An county, where only close friends and relatives are served with a tea of this grade. Like Pu-erh tea, this tea improves with age.

Other names:
Feng Huang Song Zhong Dan Cong, Song Specimen Dan Cong

Taste:
The dried leaves are very aromatic even before they are steeped. The tea has a distinct orchid-like sweet taste and a pleasing aroma. Delicious and refreshing.

Appearance:
Slightly curled, long amberish tea leaves.

Origin:
Feng Huang Shan, Guangdong Province

Harvest Period:
Spring ’09

2 Tasting Notes

GreenTeaSteve
65
GreenTeaSteve 2 tasting notes

This is my first time trying this tea; I like it. I rinsed the leaves once and used a rather short brewing time.

This tea first struck me as very “foresty” — bark, leaves, and earthiness — but there’s a strong flower scent and taste, and a bit of fruitiness (raisins?) too. I brewed it to a light orange color, but the flavor is still robust. There’s a bit of pleasant astringency, particularly on the aftertaste.

This is a solid tea with some complexity to it. While it might not be for everyone, it’s one I enjoy. I drank it by itself, but I think it might be even better paired with food or dark chocolate.

I got 4 infusions from these leaves. I think they could probably keep going for 1 or 2 more, but that was enough for me. =)

I used more leaves this time, to make this a little stronger, but it came out almost exactly the same — if anything, the first infusion seemed a bit weaker. I made five infusions.

The wet leaves have a strong, pleasant smell to them — very flowery, and stronger than I remember — and that smell makes its way into the tea’s flavor. This has a woody aftertaste which hangs around for a while. Very pleasant and enjoyable.

Edit: Later, I made three additional infusions using the same leaves (for a total of 8), using a longer brew time (3-4 minutes). There is certainly a hint of bitterness, but the tea is quite good overall — and much stronger. I suspect this can handle even more infusions, and that even the early infusions will be forgiving — next time, I’ll try some normal infusion times, instead of the shorter ones I started off with today.

Show 1 more