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Very likely the last tea of the morning. I was hoping to get a pu-erh in, but given the time, I don’t think that’ll be happening. There’s always tomorrow (holiday! more tea notes!).

Like the Dammann Freres of yesterday, I can find nothing about this tea on the web. There are many 8 Immortals teas, but I find the information about them somewhat confusing. Most of them are referred to as Dan Cong, and most of those as Ba Xian Dan Cong. I know that Dan Cong means single bush, and I glean from the interwebs that Ba Xian is 8 Immortals in Chinese. But this doesn’t help me much as it appears that this type of tea can come from different places in China. The Yunnan Sourcing web site says that they all come from several different villages around Wu Dong. I’ve also seen this type of tea referred to as a rock Oolong that comes from Wu Yi.

Bottom line, this tea seems destined to be forever a bit of a mystery.

What I can say is that it’s a dark oolong. The leaves are long, twisty, and a dark chocolate color. Dry, they smell like rocks. (Maybe it’s a rock oolong after all?)

Steeped in the gaiwan after a rinse starting at 15 seconds and adding 5, at 195F.

In the first steep, the aroma has an interesting floral quality that’s somewhat unexpected given the darkness of the leaves. I expected more roastiness than I’m getting, though there is some. The liquor is medium amber-gold. The flavor is not floral, however. It’s more a stone fruit, mineral flavor.

Steep the second is more stone fruit, apricot maybe, with something that reminds me a little of coffee. Less mineral than the first steep. The aroma maintains the nice floral note. I got a bit of astringency, a grab in the back of the throat with this steep.

Third steep. The leaves have pretty much unfurled. I expected more volume at this point. I think I may not have used enough tea. I usually fill the gaiwan to just under halfway. This time I did a little less because I thought I’d get more volume. This steep is more wet rocks than stonefruits. I’m still getting the unexpected coffee-like note.

Fourth steep. (This one went a bit longer than planned because I had to stop for a bio break while steeping.) It’s starting to lose something — the taste is flattening, with no distinct elements.

I enjoyed this, though I have no other 8 Immortals to compare it to. I’m still tasting a sort of espresso note in the aftertaste. The tea leaves a pleasant freshness in the mouth, like a really, really weak menthol.

I have so many oolongs and I’ve tasted them over so many years, I have reason to doubt the consistency of my ratings over time. So I’ll just muddle through here with what seems right for now.