Wu Yi Shan "Huang Guan Yin" Rock Oolong Tea * Spring 2016

I had to take a few days off due to illness, but I’m back again and ready to post some more reviews. This last week has been so frustrating. I interviewed for a new job, but I ended up not getting it. Has anyone ever had one of those interviews where you can tell the interviewer has already made up their mind and isn’t taking you seriously? This was definitely one of those interviews for me. The interviewer did not even bother to show up on time for the interview. It was that bad. Then the brakes blew out on my car. Then I ended up once again dealing with sinusitis when the cold weather broke. It’s been a struggle. This was the tea that kept me company through most of the week. Like my week, I found it to be difficult and frustrating. Unlike my week, however, it was not necessarily bad overall.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 205 F water for 7 seconds. This infusion was followed by 14 subsequent infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas reminiscent of char, dark wood, cream, and stone fruit. After the rinse, I found aromas of wild mushroom, cooked spinach, and some sort of roasted vegetable. The first proper infusion brought out hints of burnt sugar on the nose. On the palate, the liquor expressed elusive notes of burnt sugar, cream, wild strawberry, peach, and pomelo backed by hints of dark wood and char with a ghostly floral quality on the finish. So, the first infusion was not all that much like the nose. Subsequent infusions brought out impressions of rose, honey roasted peanut, roasted almond, orange zest, sweet cherry, earth, minerals, and slightly stronger impressions of wild mushroom and dark wood that belatedly managed to show up in the mouth as well. The char notes started to recede into the background while the nose started to take on some citrusy qualities. I also started to note emerging impressions of roasted green beans, watercress, cooked spinach, and collard greens. Interestingly enough, the finish on each of these infusions started off with hints of char, burnt sugar, earth, and vegetables before a blast of floral notes took over, dominating the aftertaste. To me, it was like a blend of rose, chrysanthemum, and dandelion. There was also something of a cooling presence in the nose, mouth, and throat after the swallow. The later infusions were mostly dominated by notes of minerals, dark wood, earth, and a stronger char note up front, though fleeting underpinnings of wild mushroom, cooked spinach, honey roasted peanut, and roasted green beans were still just barely detectable before cream, burnt sugar, and those odd cooling sensations once again took over on the finish.

There was a lot going on with this tea, but it was all so hard to pin down throughout the session. Just to be sure I wasn’t making this harder than it needed to be, I brewed this tea Western and tried a slightly different gongfu preparation and got very similar results. Overall, this just struck me as being an odd and rather difficult tea. It was also a little rough around the edges; the aromas and flavors it displayed clashed in a few places, setting up some odd, awkward contrasts. Again, it was not bad, but it also was not great. I’m glad I took the opportunity to try it, and perhaps others will get more satisfaction from it than I did, but this did not offer everything I tend to look for in a Wuyi oolong.

The dry leaf smell of this tea is not particularly strong. It is a roasted tea, but that doesn’t come through heavily in the dry leaf aroma. Instead, the dry leaf smells more like a black tea. The wet tea leaves change dramatically in aroma. There is some definite roasted, charcoal notes present, and I smell a leafy green smell similar to stewed turnip greens. I get a touch of seaweed, as well.

I did a rinse and then a 30 second infusion at around 190F, and the flavor of the tea is initially similar to a da hong pao but with less roasted intensity and not as heavily oxidized. While the tea is held in the mouth, the roasted notes are dominate. But after swallowing, the tea has a long-lasting aftertaste, and the aftertaste is more tie guan yin with green and fruity notes. At all times, there is a sweetness in the mouth. After a minute or so, there is some mouth-drying. The liquor is the color of urine-stained underbelly of a vixen fox. HA! Sometimes the descriptions I see are so over the top with flavors I know I’ll never be able to detect, I just had to throw that one in there as a joke. That’s actually a description of the fur to use for tying a Hendrickson dry fly, and it’s not yellow as you might expect, but pink. This tea isn’t pink. It is similar to the color of maple syrup, but with a bit more yellow.

The second infusion was done at cooler water temp for 40 seconds. There is little difference other than the char notes come out a little more.

Third infusion, I went back to 190F water and did 20 seconds. Char notes subsiding on this infusion, but aftertaste is barely there. Where in the first infusion there was a definite transformation, this infusion remains consistent during drinking and in after-taste.

Fourth infusion is rather weak, and I’m getting some of the seaweed notes. I’m going to call the session here.

- more a MiLanXiang than a TieGuanYin.