This is a dancong oolong tea pressed into a brick. I got this as a freebie in my order, so I’m not sure which year this one is (it looks like they have one from 2023 and from 2025 on their website).
Brewing parameters: 4g in a 125ml gaiwan, water at 95C.
Tasting notes:
- 15s steep: light florals
- 15s steep: slightly stronger florals, juicy mouthfeel.
- 20s steep: very punchy, perfumey, slightly astringent. Need to dial it back
- 10s steep: floral and juicy, but even still a bit too strong.
- 7s steep with water dropped to 90C: perfectly steeped this time. Like walking in an a field of magnolia trees. Juicy mouthfeel. My partner is detecting some earthy notes. I smell the leaves now and they’re also super floral with a savory, umami note that I associate with oolongs.
- 7s steep (x3): three more steeps in a row keep delivering beautiful bouquet of flowers and juicy mouthfeel.
- 15s steep: starting to lighten up now, still very pleasant though.
- 30s steep: even lighter florals.
- 60s steep: perfumey, light, pleasant.
- 5min steep: perfumey, light, and pleasant. probably gonna finish up here.
Overall a beautiful tea, mostly just displaying really strong magnolia aromas with a juicy mouthfeel. The flavor and the juiciness linger for a long time after finishing a cup. The W2T description of this tea talks about it being tricky to brew, and it is indeed pretty tricky even though I dropped to their recommended 4g of leaf. After dropping the temp to 90C and keeping the steeps real short at 7s, that seemed to be this tea’s happy place once the leaves opened up after the first steep or two.