Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Tea Description:
This Dancong offers a full and engaging tasting experience. In early steepings, a crisp mineral or stone quality dominates the texture with a rosewood quality on the sides of the palate. Soon, a mouth-watering juicy note of apricot makes an entrance and continues to build up a thicker body for the tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I have tried Dancong teas in the past, but I don’t think I’ve tasted one quite like this one.
The first two steepings produced a flavor that is very mineral-y, I can almost feel the minerals on my tongue! This experience was a little jarring – ok, quite jarring – because I found myself having very little to say about those early sips except for the taste and texture of mineral. As I continue to sip, I notice fruit tones – yes, apricot, just as the description suggests.
These first steepings are thinner than I expected from an Oolong, but that is not meant to sound like a bad thing, because I find the texture to be quite interesting, especially the almost grain-y kind of feel on the tongue. The flavor is light but it teases the palate with flavors to come: more sweet, juicy apricot, hints of wood, and a honey-esque sweetness that slowly develops in the background and then begins to wash over the palate with every sip.
With the third and fourth steepings, the mineral texture and taste remained, but it had softened somewhat, allowing for the apricot notes to shine through more distinctly. The sip starts off soft, almost silky, and soon develops a mouthfeel that reminds me a little bit of a Darjeeling tea with its light, crisp quality and dry, somewhat astringent finish. Even with the astringency, I find these steepings to be remarkably soothing, especially at the start with its silky soft (it’s almost fluffy!) presentation.
Later infusions become softer in texture. The mineral-y taste and texture is but a memory, and now I have a tea that is much more like an “Oolong.” That is, much more like what I might expect from an Oolong. The flavor is sweet and slightly creamy. I notice hints of spice and wood which meld together in a taste that I want to describe as “wilderness” – it is as if I can actually taste the “wild” in this wild-picked tea.
Quite remarkable, really, this tea. But really, as Verdant has proven itself to offer nothing but the best, I expected nothing less!
Lingtou Dancong Oolong from Qing Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Qing Tea
Product Description:
Fenghuang Dancong wulong tea has a history of about 900 years. Nowadays there are still about 3000 tea bushes left of this kind that range from 200 up to 400 years old. Fenghuang Dancong wulong tea is named after a mountain in the northeast of Guangdong province. Like supreme tea plantations elsewhere, Fenghuang mountain also possesses all aspects necessary for producing great tea such as: high altitude, abundant rainfall, short periods of sunshine and diffused light.
Fenghuang Dancong is a typical Guangdong wulong tea, with a high degree of oxidation and a taste that resembles lychee fruit. This tea bears resemblances with Wuyi tea, yet Guangdong wulong tea has become a style of tea cherished by tea lovers all over the world.
Taster’s Review:
This Oolong is delightful!
As the description suggests, it does have a taste that is somewhat reminiscent of lychee fruit. There are also distant notes of smoke and a front note of flower. Such a beautifully complex tea, this Lingtou Dancong!
While the aroma of this tea is a bit lighter than some Oolong teas I’ve encountered, there is no lacking for flavor here. The palate is immediately greeted with a floral note (Orchid, perhaps?) which is followed up with the lychee note I previously mentioned. The smoky taste weaves throughout the sip, never making itself dominate within the taste, rather it merely hints at its presence.
The flavor is sweet with a distinct sour note with a suggestion of savory bitterness toward mid-sip. The mouthfeel is not as well-defined with this Oolong as it is with other Oolong teas. That is neither good nor bad in my eyes, simply different. There is some astringency to this cup, but it is not a pucker-y or an overly drying astringency.
I suggest resteeping the leaves several times – with each subsequent infusion, the flavor changes only slightly, but I notice different flavors with each. In the third and fourth infusions, the flavor is slightly sweeter and smoother than in the first two. By the fifth and sixth infusions, I notice very little of the smoky essence while the overall taste becomes almost seamless.This tea is top-notch, and I highly recommend it to all Oolong lovers out there!