Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Product Description:
Dan Cong is the champagne of oolongs: ripe with intense fruit and sweetness. This high grade example comes from a plantation on the lower slopes of Wu Dong Mountain, Chao Zhou. The leaves are thoroughly fermented and baked to produce a rich liquor with unique flowery and honeyed notes that can be enjoyed through multiple infusions.
Our Buyer’s notes:
“This tea is more heavily baked than the Song Zhong Dan Cong to allow the tea to produce its unique honey and lychee flavours.”
Taster’s Review:
Ooooooh-Long! This tea definitely puts the Oooooh into Oolong. It is truly wonderful.
The aroma of the brewed liquor is delightful. It has this amazing sort of “outdoorsy” kind of scent, like the fragrance you might experience if you were walking through the woods on a quiet spring morning. It is smells of earth and damp wood, as well as newly blossoming flowers and hints of fruit, and even a clean, crisp air-like scent. This is a tea that you need to inhale deeply – taking in this extraordinary aroma – before taking a sip, to truly experience it in its entirety.
And then, of course, there is the flavor. And … put simply, this has a flavor that keeps you sipping. That is to say, my cup is now empty and I need to infuse the leaves again in order to compose the right words to describe this tea. It is so good that I finished the cup before I could start writing about it.
Now as I sip my second cup (the result of my third and fourth infusions combined), I can tell you a little more about this tea. The flavor is intense. It has a honey-esque tone to it … not just the sweetness of honey, but also the unique floral taste of honey. It is sweet with the subtlest tone of sharpness in the background, such an enchanting, piquant kind of taste.
And as the description from Canton Tea Co. suggests, there is a lychee kind of flavor to this too. It is so very similar to the unique flavor of lychee, in fact, that I had to double check on this tea to make sure it wasn’t a lychee flavored or scented tea. But no: these interesting flavors are achieved naturally through the baking process of the tea leaves, and not through a flavoring process.
I was able to infuse this tea a total of six times with no loss of flavor, making this not only a delicious tea, but also a good value for your money too. This is the kind of Oolong I would recommend to a tea enthusiast who finds some Oolong teas to be too delicate for their taste. The flavor of this is so intense, they’re sure to change their mind about Oolong!
Jasmine Silver Needle (Moli Yin Zhen) from Canton Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Product Description:
Other names: Jasmine Silver Needle Tea, Silver Tip Tea, White Pekoe, Bai Hao Yin Zhen
2011 Great Taste Award Winner
Jasmine Silver Needle is a soft, lush tea, made from the young, unopened silvery tea buds which have been layered with fresh Jasmine blossoms over several nights. The fragrance is absorbed by the buds and gives the tea a pure, sweet, distinctive flavour that is mellowed by the white Silver Needle. This tea is a great accompaniment to food and full of beneficial antioxidants.
Taster’s Review:
What a beautiful jasmine tea.
The white tea base is a silver needle. The flavor is so soft and has a pleasant sweetness to it. The mouthfeel is soft and supple. There is very little astringency and no bitterness.
The white tea seems to bring out a milder, lighter taste in the jasmine notes. It isn’t a sharp or perfume-y jasmine taste. The grassy tones to the tea are faint and they meld with the gentle floral tones of the jasmine so well. It becomes like a gentle spring breeze for the palate.
One of the finest jasmine teas I’ve tasted. I highly recommend this to all tea enthusiasts – even those who aren’t particularly fond of jasmine – because it is so delightfully perfect. I love this tea.
Silver Needle (Yin Zhen) from Canton Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Product Description:
This high grade Fuding Silver Needle is entirely made up of soft, plump young ‘needles’ or immature leaf buds that are densely covered in tiny silvery hairs. Very high in antioxidants, the buds are hand- picked at dawn and scattered in the sun to dry. The liquor is the colour of champagne and has a light creamy, delicate taste with sweet notes of melon. Try nibbling on a bud of this top Silver Needle after infusion: it will be sweet and delicious, unlike lower quality Silver Needle which can be bitter and woody.
Taster’s Review:
There are a lot of Silver Needle teas out there. And quite a few are very good! I think that this Silver Needle from Canton Tea Company ranks right up there with the very best. It has such a beautiful, serene quality that seems to wash away the stress of the day. So relaxing and rejuvenating!
As the description above suggests, this tea does brew to the color of champagne – very pale and lovely! It has a sweetness to it that is as light as the color, the flavor is very delicate and smooth. I am tasting the melon-like notes, along with a whisper of floral tone in the background.
I do recommend using a little extra leaf when steeping this Silver Needle. This will give the cup an extra creaminess that is almost buttery – reminiscent of a green Oolong but without the heavy quality that an Oolong might possess.
While silver needle teas tend to be more delicate than other teas, I really enjoy them, especially later in the day. It is a very gentle taste and seems to not only calm the body but restore the spirit. A wonderful tea, indeed!
Superior Earl Grey Tea from Canton Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black (Darjeeling)
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Product Description:
A truly superior Earl Grey that takes this traditional favourite to a completely different level. Unusually it is made with a blend of Darjeelings from the world renowned Goomtee and Glenburn Estates and then infused with natural oil of Bergamot (the oil extracted from the rind of the Bergamot orange). A light scattering of orange blossom petals adds to the visual appeal. It has a lively fresh taste, with the soft base flavours of the Darjeelings balancing the bright citrus notes.
This tea needs to be tasted to fully appreciate just how good an Earl Grey can be. Naturally it bears no resemblance to the mass-produced Earl Greys – but being made with such extraordinarily good black teas as a base, it may just be the best Earl Grey you’ve ever tasted.
Taster’s Review:
I do adore Earl Grey tea, as most of you probably know by now. And this is a decent Earl Grey offering, although I don’t know that I would go so far as to say it is the best I’ve ever tasted. It’s certainly pleasant though.
The Darjeeling base offers an interesting set of flavors on its own. The fruity notes of the Darjeeling together with the bright citrus tones of Bergamot create an interesting taste. It is a lighter base than most Earl Grey teas, but it makes for a delightful afternoon tea.
The Bergamot is not quite as strong with this Earl Grey as in others I’ve tasted, but, it works here because it allows for the subtle nuances of the Darjeeling to be appreciated. I am finding the Bergamot to be just a little on the tart side. While it is usually quite tangy, this is veering toward the sour side of things. Not a bad thing – just different.
Overall a nice Earl Grey, and it would make a good choice for those who sometimes find the Bergamot in other Earl Grey teas to be a bit overbearing. You may find this lighter touch to be just right for you. A little sweetening is fine with this Earl Grey, but I wouldn’t recommend milk with this one – it would overwhelm it.
Meng Ding Huang Ya Yellow Tea from Canton Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Yellow
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Product Information:
Only the valuable, tender young leaf buds picked from high up on the cool misty peak of Mount Meng can be considered true Meng Ding Huang Ya. It is made in the original mountainous area where tea cultivation dates back more than 2,000 years and is a very famous tea. It was once made as an Imperial Tribute Tea during the Tang Dynasty (meaning it was only made for the Emperor and his Court) and is still hugely sought after.
Meng Ding Huang Ya has yellowish green leaves with a fresh, raw nutty aroma. Because the leaves come from the cooler, higher level of the mountain, the buds have a less even, thinner appearance. Once they are infused, they become plump and soft and settle upright at the bottom of the vessel. Brew in a glass pot to appreciate this unusual quality.
The liquor is bright yellow with a smooth, fresh taste that offers a sweet, nutty flavour with a hint of citrus.
Taster’s Review:
I love Yellow Tea. It is my favorite type of tea leaf. In fact, I love it so much that I bought a Yixing tea mug just for my yellow tea. At the time of this writing, I own three Yixing mugs: one for yellow tea, one for jasmine tea, and one for Ali Shan Oolong.
But let’s get back to the tea that is in the mug that sits before me… this Meng Ding Huang Ya from Canton Tea is excellent. I steeped this tea in my gaiwan; I am sipping the combination of the first four infusions from my Yixing mug. A superior quality yellow tea such as this one submits to many infusions, I will get another full mug out of these leaves – a total of eight infusions.
The flavor is so amazing. There is a sweet, nutty flavor. Not a toasty nut taste, but more of a creamy nut taste – like the flavor of blanched nuts. There are notes of flower that weave in and out of the sip, as well as a hint of sweet, tangy citrus that rests upon the palate in the finish. I also taste a note of melon that arrives at the start of the sip and melds nicely with the nutty note previously mentioned.
There is a slight bitterness that hits the palate about mid-sip. This bitterness is a savory one. It is as if it is part of the nutty flavor which starts out sweet and ends with a hint of bitter. This note enhances the overall experience by cutting through some of the sweeter tones and adding dimension to the taste.
A soft mouthfeel coats the palate – it’s almost cushion-y soft! The barely-there note of astringency cleans this softness away in the finish so that you want to take another sip just to experience the mouthfeel. It’s like the palate glides along the surface of a cloud – it’s that kind of heavenly experience.
This yellow tea from Canton Tea Co. is a perfect example of why I love yellow teas so much. It’s absolutely exquisite … perfectly divine!