Tea with the Black Dragon

It's not often that I get to do TWO tea sessions in a row, much less from the same tea club! I'm trying the second tea from Box #5 from Old Ways tea, this time, Jiu Jiu Shui Xian. I love the shui xian cultivar, and I'm always curious on the different methods of roasting & preparation of it. It was made by her uncle, who had made a huang meu gui that was typical of what I expect of a rock oolong, and a good daily drinker.  So I am very hopeful of this particular tea, having a good roaster is like having a good mechanic that you can count on to produce good results. Tea Information Type: Wuyi Oolong Vendor: Old Ways Tea Recommendations: n/a Cost per gram: Part of the Tea club Description from Company: I got this Shui Xian from my uncle, the source of the Huang Mei Gui A from December 2020. It is is from his garden in Lan Shang, which he has managed for a number of users now, using no pesticide or herbicide; lots of sticky traps and manual weeding.   ...

Tea is like wine. A particular type of tea changes year-to-year, even if grown by the same farmer on the same plantation & roasted by the same person. Environmental factors (such as rain fall) and terroir play a factor, not to mention how the roaster might have felt that day. Then there's the aging factor. Over time (especially with roasted & fermented teas), the flavor profile starts to shift. Sufficed to say, tea is never the same from session to session even if all of your brewing variables are the same.  If one thing is constant, tea always changes. This is a 2006 harvested Da Hong Pao (DHP) that I purchased 2 years ago. It's a very fine specimen of DHP that I've had the pleasure of drinking. I've carefully stored it in the time I've owned it, and it's just gotten better with age.  It's with great sadness that I've now come to the absolute last of this particular tea. I've tried to drink smaller amounts in smaller teaware, but I can't...

I picked up about 10grams of this particular tea from West China Tea Company. This is a sub-cultivar  of the more popular Honey Orchid dancong oolong.  (Read the description below) I like to get anywhere from 10-30grams of a tea to see if I want to order more. Ideally, 25 grams allows me about 3 tea sessions with a tea....enough for me to listen to a tea to see how to brew it well. Sometimes, getting 30 grams isn't possible, for whatever reason. Ten grams is enough for two tea sessions.

For this tea tasting, I chose a Shihmen Tie Guan Yin. Why? Because it's May 1st, it's warm & beautiful outside, and I associate Taiwanese teas with spring. Also, I absolutely love trying new teas that are unusual, rare, or some other characteristic that makes it "different" from other teas, and this one fits the bill very well.  When I was looking through the 2020 harvest of tea from Taiwan Sourcing, this description caught my eye.  This region, Shihmen, is now a fading legend of tea.... First thing you will notice from this tea is the pungent Jackfruit aroma from the boiled water, then after that you will be soaked into its only-found-in-Shihmen taste and body feeling no where else can offer. (See below for full description) I realize that many tea vendors might hype up their descriptions for selling, but I was definitely very curious about this tea.   One of the owners, "Old Dog" called it a "unicorn tea", and had to be somewhat convinced to ...

This particular tea is one I purchased from West China Tea Company. I love charcoal roasted teas, especially traditional style Tie Guan Yins. I love the taste of the roast, the smoke, the underlying notes of potentially chocolate, carmel/toffee, mild sweetness, etc. Each charcoal roasted teas are different from each other, depending on what flavors the roaster decides is needed.

I've seen ginseng oolongs on various tea forums as people post asking questions about them, but this is the first time I've actually had a chance to try this particular tea. It's something that I wouldn't purchase for myself, but it was part of my Teaphile tea subscription and I am happy for a chance to now try this tea out. So, here are my notes for this particular tea session.

This tea is part of a recent Yunnan Sourcing Order that I made in September, received in November, and I'm slowly doing an initial taste of the different teas that I ordered. For this session, I chose: Wu Yi Shan "Zi Hong Pao" Purple Da Hong Pao Oolong Tea (Spring 2019)  From their website: "Zi Hong Pao" is a purple varietal that's a naturally mutated offshoot from the classic "Da Hong Pao" varietal.  It's also called "Jiu Long Pao" (lit.  9 Dragon Robe) or Wu Yi varietal #303.  It's "medium-leaf" class of tea, not purely Assamica or Sinensis.  The leaves are thick and dense with a purple/red/green color when fresh. Zi Hong Pao is a very rare tea with only about 10 mu of land in total producing this tea.  The buds and leaf shoots are slow to grow and the harvest is the last of the spring harvests. Perhaps the most special aspect of "Zi Hong Pao" is the lovely delicious, thick and pungent tea that it...