Ling Tou Village "Bai Ye" Dan Cong Oolong tea * Spring 2018

It’s time to take a brief break from reviewing black teas. I have been so focused on posting reviews of all the black teas I have been drinking that I have been almost completely ignoring all of the other reviews I have allowed to pile up over the last year. This was one of my sipdowns from the second half of September. I normally enjoy Yunnan Sourcing’s Ling Tou Village “Bai Ye” every year, and this tea did not buck that trend, though it did strike me as being a little less enjoyable than the 2016 and 2017 offerings.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 7 seconds. This infusion was followed by 16 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 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, 5 minutes, and 7 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of cherry, pine, candied pomelo, orchid, and pomegranate. After the rinse, I detected aromas of peach, lotus, orange blossom, honey, and apricot. The first infusion brought out aromas of roasted almond, butter, cream, and grass as well as subtle cannabis and spinach scents. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of cherry, orchid, cream, butter, roasted almond, and grass that were chased by hints of pine, nectarine, peach, apricot, cannabis, spinach, and orange blossom. The bulk of the subsequent infusions introduced aromas of coriander, vanilla, and green bell pepper. Lotus and honey notes appeared in the mouth as well as stronger and more immediately notable flavors of orange blossom, peach, nectarine, and apricot. I also detected notes of minerals, green bell pepper, grass, green apple, unripened pear, vanilla, orange zest, white grape, and green wood. Hints of pomegranate, candied pomelo, coriander, and earth could also be detected here and there. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized impressions of minerals, cream, butter, green wood, roasted almond, grass, and green bell pepper that were supported by delicate, fleeting notes of orange blossom, orange zest, earth, vanilla, unripened pear, green apple, orchid, lotus, and white grape.

This was a very aromatic and flavorful tea with tons of fruity characteristics. Normally, I love Dancong oolongs that are very fruity and/or very floral, but there were instances where this tea’s mix of aroma and flavor components struck me as being a bit over-the-top. Still, this was a very good tea. People who tend to flip over sweeter, fruitier teas would probably love it.

I finished off a sample of this a few hours ago. I had first tried this tea a few months ago and jotted down notes, apparently not in my notebook because I can’t find them. Oh well.

Gone gaiwan, 6.8g, 100mL, 212F, rinse (drank) followed by 9 steeps at 8/10/12/16/20/30/45/60/90s

The dry leaf had sweet and bright aromas of honeydew, white grape, pear mingling with heavier scents of light roast coffee, brown sugar, biscuit and almond. Warming the leaf brought additions of a light, sweet mint, white peach and asian pear. The rinse transformed the leaf aroma into vanilla, pear, roast, a piercing scent like champagne and an unidentified floral (lily of the valley?).

Like the unroasted Qi Lan I had earlier today, I drank the rinse of this one. It was very clean and fruity with a good fragrance. Already the bottom of the cup had aromas of brown sugar, butter, violet, iris, osmanthus and another unidentified floral (lotus?).

The first several steeps were like drinking a fruit salad, thick and oily with flavors and aftertastes of lychee, honeydew, cantaloupe?, white peach, pear, minerals, honey, osmanthus, ruby red grapefruit, pomelo and that unplaced bottom-of-the-cup floral. Despite the light and bright fruity flavors, the tea also had a heavy quality. At this point, and this happened to me the first time I drank this tea, I had to lie down. I fell asleep, ha! Again! I continued the session several hours later and with the fourth steep, the liquor brought forward the typical dan cong bitterness, tongue-numbing and astringency but the aftertaste was still absolutely glowing. Around the sixth steep of 30s, the tea faded into a light fruitiness and continued to get lighter until the brew became too bitter for me to continue.

I feel like this was a pretty approachable dan cong. It lacked the extreme bitterness I’ve had in others and performed well with both more leaf/boiling water and less leaf/lower temperature (I believe my first session of this was 195F and 5g and it was very similar). This tea seemed to shine with its aftertastes while having less impact on the sip, though if left to cool, this performance switched. I enjoyed the lighter astringency and bitterness compared to other dan cong. The sweetness was not overwhelming and was very well balanced with the fruity flavors. Overall, a very pleasant tea.