Mi Lan Xiang Black Tea

Whenever a vendor offers a black Dancong, it ends up in my cart. This one is from spring 2019. 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 honey, malt, hay, orchids, apricot, plum, and other flowers. Togo noticed olives, which I can also detect now. The leaves were so long and spindly that I had trouble getting some of them into the pot. The first steep is very soft, with milder than expected notes of honey, malt, cereal, orchid, apricot, hay, sugarcane, wood, and zucchini. Raisins, plums, and cherries make an appearance in steep two, and the tea is a little more floral, though still very vegetal and woody for a black Dancong. The florality increases in the next couple steeps, though the tea is still more sweet and vegetal than fruity, with a drying sensation in the mouth and an aftertaste similar to sugarcane. There are hints of apricot and caramel in steeps four to six, along with lots of honey and tannins. Letting the tea cool, as I did accidentally on the sixth steep, brings out the apricot more strongly. Apricot, cream, honey, and malt are even more present in the next couple long steeps. The session ends with honey, malt, tannins, wood, and lingering stonefruit sweetness.

Unlike most teas, which flatten out after the first few steeps, this one became more fruity and pleasant as the session progressed. It is unassuming for a black Dancong and it was hard to pin down some of the flavours, probably due to it being stored for so long in my tea museum. In the three sessions I’ve had with this tea, using more leaf brought out the fruity notes, while using less leaf highlighted the florals. I tend to prefer more fruit-forward black Dancongs, but I’ll have no trouble finishing this tea.

This tea is like a good MLX with heightened woody notes. It has a very perfumy aroma with hints of apricot pits and olives before the rinse. Afterwards, I get a sweet, woody and floral aroma, reminiscent of apricot jam, muscat grape and rhododendrons.

The taste is again of similar character, followed by a mildly sour and fairly drying and cooling aftertaste. There is a unique mint flower fragrance and after a while, a fruity sweetness emerges too. If pushed, the bitterness that we know from a classic MLX also appears, but otherwise it’s fairly muted.

Liquor has a full body with a soft and a little powdery mouthfeel. The body effects mostly show up as an intense chest warming sensation as well as a very mild and pleasant high. It’s more of an attention-channeling rather than focus-dissolving tea.

Why take a good Dan Cong and make it into a black tea? Because you can and someone will drink it I guess are the main reasons. I personally have no bias as long as the price is not too steep. Brewed this western and gongfu, short steeps, long steeps , over steeped to get an idea on the depth. The longer processing of this into a black tea adds the requisite maltiness we all love but dampens and mutes the floral notes. The underlying sweetness is still present early but dissipates quickly. It has very good structure in dry form and on the tongue, all in all I would drink this as an every day tea.

Leaves are on the small-medium side. Jet black, with a slightly metallic sheen. Steamed aroma is a deep, fragrant orchid. Brewed aroma is sweeter, with more honey notes. Tea liquor is dark, muddy black-red. Not very clear, but not impenetrable. First taste is bitter, that rapidly evolves into a thick, honey sweetness. On the finish, a slightly bitter orchid is mixed up with the sweetness. It is so incredibly sweet. Like I was sucking on a crystallized piece of honey. Finish is long lasting. Throat feeling is negligible. No noticeable cha qi.

This tea isn’t super complex. What it is, is tasty, and a pleasure to drink.