I bought this Dancong in 2017 or 2018 when DAVIDsTEA still had stores near me. (Those were the days!) I think it was a Frequent Steeper reward, as I got 50 g. Roswell Strange recently mentioned that it was a favourite Mi Lan Xiang, so I had to dig it out of the tea museum. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.
The dry aroma is of lychee, plum, char, and roast. The first steep has notes of lychee, plum, roast, grain, honey, orchid, oats, walnut, and wood. The plum is a lot more prominent than the lychee in the next couple steeps, and the tea is nutty and roasty. The lychee, honey, and florals are mainly in the aftertaste. Steeps five and six emphasize dates, plums, spices, hay, grass, and minerals, with the honey sweetness expected of a Mi Lan Xiang plus a lot of roast. There’s some honeydew melon in the aroma at the bottom of the cup, but it doesn’t make it into the tea. The sweet fruit persists for another couple steeps, after which the tea becomes nutty and roasty with some minerals.
This is a nice, middle-of-the-road Mi Lan with a bit more roast than I like. Maybe the fruit was more noticeable when the tea was fresher.
Flavors: Astringent, Char, Dates, Floral, Grain, Grass, Hay, Honey, Honeydew, Lychee, Mineral, Nutty, Oats, Orchid, Plum, Roasted, Spices, Walnut, Wood
