Bai Ye Varietal Dan Cong Black Tea Spring 2016

Had western a few times.

What a spectacularly honeyed black tea! The aroma is at first of those cinnamon honey sticks that are like 25 cents then morphs to pure osmanthus. Sweet and tangy with complex and ever-morphing fruit, cinnamon honey and caramelized sweet potato tastes. As it cools, malt and cocoa come out in the mix. Thick and coating like a watered down honey. Aftertaste is strong and changing from sip to sip, ranging from lemon-honey-blackberry to cranberry and sweet potato to cooked pumpkin. Both cooling and warming waves felt throughout my body.

The tea was a little too intense for me flavorwise but I’m positive others would fall in love with it. Thank you Leafhopper for the opportunity to try a dancong oolong varietal processed into a black tea. It certainly displays the complexity and intensity of the Bai Ye dancong I’ve tried.

Addnedum: it gives a solid 3 steeps!

I’ve been trying to sip down old teas, which I define as anything bought before 2017. This sort of qualifies, as it’s a 2016 harvest bought in the spring of the next year. Anyway, I remember reading good things about it and resolving to try it, then “archiving” it in my cupboard. I steeped 6 g of tea in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

In the bag, the wiry dark leaves smell like floral sweet potato, and I could have spent several minutes just inhaling the aroma. The first steep has notes of candied sweet potato, malt, wood, caramel, flowers, and tart berries, with a long, sweet potato aftertaste. In short, it’s fantastic. The second steep even has that starchiness associated with sweet potatoes. The fruity element is kind of like cranberries, though it isn’t assertive enough to overwhelm the sweet potato flavours.

The cranberry/sweet-potato combo continues in the next few infusions. The tea stays consistent, which in this instance is a good thing. It has a lovely, silky mouthfeel and very little astringency. Can you tell I like this tea? The final few steeps are less floral, more malty, and a little drying.

If you like sweet potatoes at all—and I didn’t think I was such a fan until I drank this tea—do yourself a favour and pick it up. I found it hard to identify other notes amid the overwhelming fruity and sweet potato goodness, but this isn’t much of a complaint. I’m beginning to think that black Dan Congs are one of my favourite tea types.

I got a sample of this tea from a teafriend I swapped with earlier this year. It was a really interesting and different hong than I’m used to. The flavor was very floral, especially in the first few steeps, with a bit of a malty finish. I was not at all ready for that floral flavor when drinking a hongcha, though it does make sense that the Dancong varietal would lend a floral flavor to the tea. It got a little bit yammy in the mid session as well. Pretty sweet. No astringency or unpleasantness.

Not sure it was really my style, but I’m glad to have tried it for sure!

- had some expectations with this cross-genre Tea which seems more like an insiders tip.
My first try was a bit unsure since I have no idea how to properly brew it. The first steeps felt a bit more savory, mineral maybe a litle bit dry and bitter in tendency but it also developes later in a way more fruity, sweetpotato, also flowery/orchid hints directions. It keeps some dry fruitiness for a long time but there are many interacting other notes you can’t realy tell. I definitely like how it dances on the border between nice DanCongs and complexer RedTeas. Probably it realy depends on your ways of brewing whether it becomes more fruity or savoury or what else is possible within this great find.

You know what its like when you get that box of tea you ordered and one tea just stands out as the best one? That how it went for me with this tea. Really like it. Color is unique. Very smooth. Not sharp at all like some black tea can be. Will buy more

When I added this to my cart I doubted myself. I’ve never drunk black tea.

Well I can’t tell if I’m feeling the qi or just super excited about this tea’s smell and flavor. I love it when I just can’t wrap my head around a tea. I don’t understand how this can smell and taste soooo good. Scott is spot on with the sweet potato description but there’s a roasted sweetness behind it and oh my god the smell of the wet leaf has this tropical fruit/flower (maybe passion fruit ?) note that drives me crazy.

Wow, what an amazing tea. I think it’s got good qi too. I’m sitting here with sun on my feet, listening the birds tweet and need nothing more in life. I remember why I gravitated to this, the sweet potato description. I had read gaba tasted like that and I wanted to try that. Yep I’m relaxed. Off to buy more.