Tea Habitat

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.

Probably the mellowest of the Dan Congs I first tried from Tea Habitat. It is hard to make this one harsh, and the mellow delights just keep coming, infusion after infusion, tart & sweet, and a little spicy.

I start with a modest leaf to water ratio (0.5g per oz/30mL) and infuse over and over, 15-20+ times.

Tried this last night in my new Chao Zhou teapot from Tea Habitat, and compared it to a porcelain gaiwan. I’d recently tried one of my other Dan Congs in the Chao Zhou, and that particular infusion seemed to lack a lot of the high notes from the tea, so I was a little worried about that. This is a young pot, having been used only perhaps a dozen times since first seasoning, so I suspected it of taking more than giving to the teas.

As it turned out, I could not tell any difference. Both were fruity, sweet, spicy. I will continue to use the pot and work on its seasoning without worries. But I am almost out of the Po Tou, so there will not be very many more infusions to come.

Today was the first time I brewed this up in the Chao Zhou pot I got from Imen. I am not sure if that was what made the difference, but the tea was definitely sweeter, mellower, more rounded, almost too much so.

I clearly need to do a head-to-head with the same tea in a gaiwan.

This is a wonderful, brilliant tea. Spicy, fruity, sweet, and with complexity and depth to carry through many infusions.

I have generally given up before the tea has, somewhere around 20 to 25 infusions.

The dry leaves are long, twisted, and open up into reddish green when infused. They don’t smell like much until they hit the prewarmed infusion vessel, and then the scent starts to grow strong and exotic. The spicy scent remains in the leaves after many infusions, promising more goodness to come.

I use about 1 gram of leaf per ounce or 30mL water, use a small yixing or gaiwan, and keep infusing over hours or leave the leaves overnight, do a flash rinse with boiling water, and keep going the next day. Water 185-195 degrees, and infusions that start at about 15 seconds but later extend to a couple of minutes. You do have to watch this one—it is not quite as friendly as the Honey Orchid “commercial” Dan Cong I got at Imen’s recommendation as a ’beginner’s Dan Cong’—this one can get bitter if you abuse it. But if you work with it gently, such a wonderful, wonderful tea.

Today I had a delightful time with this tea, brewed in my gaiwan, and enjoyed for a few hours. Yup, hours. It’s remarkable how much it gives and how forgiving it can be (when I remember to not cook it in too-hot a bath).

There’s something about sipping this tea that centers and soothes. I found calm on a Monday.

So today I was a little testy. You know, not quite in a good mood, and trying to get through to Friday, smiling. About mid-morning, I needed a pick-me-up, without a lot of caffeine. I dumped a small heap of this in a mug, and it saw me through a rough patch.

Something about drinking tea flowers is uplifting. It’s not overly sweet tasting, but you feel a little sweeter afterward.

This is a deeply sensual tea, aged to complexity, that can be steeped more than 20 times, and keeps on giving flavorful cups. It took a while for me to be able to get any decent flavor in this at home. If you try it, don’t give up. The water needs to be just off boiling, not cooled, and I steep no less than a tablespoon, mostly a bit more, at a time. Best in my smallest guywan.