Today was rough. I ended the previous day with a very strong beer (DKML by Founders Brewing Company, a 14.2% abv malt liquor aged in bourbon barrels) and woke up feeling loopy and weak. By the time I took my morning tea, I was feeling even worse. The tea hit my stomach like a very large fist and I ended up nauseated. After a couple unhappy and unproductive hours at the office, I called it a day and went home to recover. To be fair, I think my rough go of it today was more due to the night before and general fatigue though, so I can’t really place all of the blame on this tea. It was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Now, before I go any further, let’s back up a bit. At some point late last year, I started buying up Dan Congs like crazy because I realized I was not very familiar with them. I bought this one, two other Dan Congs, and a roasted oolong blend from The Tao of Tea at the same time. After receiving them, they were all stored in one of my sealed tea totes. I broke open said tote over the weekend and began cleaning it out. I had and still have so much tea on hand that I decided to sort out some stuff to give to friends and family. Pretty soon, I found myself developing a thirst and decided to try this tea on a whim. I had been doing some research on traditional Dan Cong brewing methods anyway and couldn’t wait to try to adapt some of them to my preferred gongfu procedure. Upon opening the bag, however, I was crushed when I discovered that it contained mostly broken Mi Lan Xiang leaves. Soldiering on, I plucked out 8 grams of the most intact leaves, primed my 4 ounce gaiwan, cleaned and primed my cup, rinsed the leaves, and proceeded to brew. The first infusion was only 5 seconds. It was followed by infusions of 7 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.
Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted fruity, slightly floral aromas with a hint of woodiness. The rinse allowed me to pick up distinct impressions of honey, wood, damp grass, butter, nectarine, peach, and yuzu. The first infusion brought out vanilla, orchid, and grapefruit pith. There was a hint of nuttiness too. In the mouth, stone fruits, honey, butter, grass, and wood ruled the day, though I could kind of pick out some underlying nutty and floral impressions. Subsequent infusions brought out the vanilla, orchid, yuzu, and grapefruit pith impressions in the mouth. I also began to pick up impressions of roasted almond, chestnut, cashew, cattail shoots, apricot, sour plum, lemon, pomelo, osmanthus, marigold, and petunia. Minerals showed up too, as did something of a muddy, almost clay-like earthiness. The later infusions were earthy, woody, and grassy with a more distinct mineral presence and faint wisps of citrus, roasted nuts, butter, and stone fruits.
Despite the lower-than-expected leaf quality (to be fair, I did purchase this tea very shortly before it went out of stock), this oolong delivered a lot of flavor at a very reasonable price point. The slick soapiness one would generally expect from this type of oolong was there, but it wasn’t all that distracting. It also had a little more staying power than I would have expected. I would almost be willing to bet that a full leaf version of this tea would be amazing. As is, this was rock solid and would make a very nice introduction to the joys of Mi Lan Xiang.
Flavors: Almond, Apricot, Astringent, Butter, Chestnut, Citrus, Earth, Floral, Fruity, Grapefruit, Grass, Lemon Zest, Mineral, Osmanthus, Peach, Plum, Roasted Nuts, Vanilla, Vegetal, Wood
