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This is an interesting one, my first thoughts screamed ‘Oriental Beauty!’, and lo & behold, its a Taiwanese cultivar ‘Qing Xin’, & grown in Fujian, which is right next to Taiwan. I dont know how much the location & varietal matters in the taste vs the process, but its interesting to note.

Taste-wise it has elements of Dongfang Meiren – slightly spicy & woody, slightly honey & molasses crossed with a flavour that I have noticed in some purple leaf tea, almost sharp – not sure what it is but tastes to me like a darker leaf. Really reminds me of varnished wood. Its also quite strong tasting (and looking!) – Brandy Oolong is an apt name for sure. Its robust, forgiving in the steeping method as well – rich.

Performed well with multiple steeps, and the price is very good considering its in the UK.

I asked when my last tea orders were harvested, got a bit of nice info from Jing:

’Dancong can be classified into 3 families: “baked”, “unbaked”, and the Lao Cong. The unbaked ones are the high fragrance teas like xing ren, ba xian, yulan, zhi lan… Those are better in winter because the aromatics are high and the tea taste is low.

The Lao Cong (old trees) and baked (song zhong dancong and milan) are only harvested in spring.’

Always nice to learn a bit more… On to the tea:

Woah! Wide leaves – chunky & nice looking. The aroma is creamy & thick & floral. I did my usual of 90c & let the liquid cool a bit to ~70c. The flavour is of flowers & very subtle thick milk or cream, full in the mouth with no bitterness or the nice nutty green notes you get from some other Dan Cong. Its exactly as described on the website – balanced, clear white flower, deep. Totally pleasant nose. It really is on the subtle side, but very good with it. A bit like the Yinzhen of Dan Cong, if that makes sense? Which is no bad thing at all. A perfect tea to have when you just want something totally pleasant. So pleasant I reckon you could possibly steep this for a long time and it would still hold up.

So I tried & a nice astringent huiguan appeared, still with all the nice flowery yum present before.. a bit more buttery than milky maybe.

Deleted my review by mistake. doh.

So i’ll do the short one:

Was very smooth, no fish or funk, but still, ripe & aged pu just tastes to me like mud with a bit of chocolate. Its nice mud & chocolate.. – OK nice dry mud & chocolate, but still. Theres maybe a hint of fruit in there… The taste stayed quite consistent throughout the session.

I cant recommend as I have no idea if its nice or not – I dont do things like black forest gateau / chocolate/earthy & fruit so ripe/aged might just never be for me.?

There is some hint of fruits in there, but hidden in amongst this flat solid mud taste. You ripe pu drinkers are weirdos.

I just dont get wowed by dark pu, actually now I think about it I dont drink much dark tea full stop any more..

Oh nom.

Ba Xian ‘Eight Immortals’ is one of my favourite Oolongs, the 53 distinct aromatic molecules in it might be a factor. Ive had more darker, more mineral, & more floral versions before, this one is floral & nutty & creamy – almost reminds me of ground up nut paste one would use for a korma base. Thick matte instead of sharp gloss. I dont know much about flower types so im always a bit basic when it comes to these descriptions. I just think orchids – apparently its white magnolia.

Milky, light, sometimes lychee, sometimes strawberries & cream, always about the oils, which, when brewed right are just gorgeous. If oversteeped you can get a bitter twist, same as other floral fenghuang, but when done right is thick silky heaven with a chameleon effect on the nose. You can get lost in the cup. Nom.

I was just thinking how amazing it is that good Ba Xian is my baseline tea that I compare others to, I feel blessed to have even tried it. It also does funny things to my head.