Mi Lan Dan Cong

If you have some of this tea, cold brew it. I mean it. Do it now and thank me later. The lychee and the honey. Oh my. So deliciously delicious. The autumnal leafy flavor is present but the lychee really stands out when cold brewed. The first time I tasted this, it seemed to me like a cold weather tea, but now with the lychee so prominent, I guess it’s an all weather tea! I guess it really reminds me of summer on the verge of turning into autumn.

Is there any tea that doesn’t cold brew well? So far everything I’ve tried has been a success. Maybe I’ll give pu-erh a whirl. :D

My last bit of this tea from the sample pack, and it’s ending up being a little more than the usual amount of leaf. It was really impressive how many different flavors I ended up getting from this, from a rice and vegetable beginning, through fruit and a mild roastiness to a grassy finish. Quite impressive when it’s all coming from one tea!

This Oolong is AMAZING! I had only enough for a gaiwan’s worth of this tea left, so I decided to go ahead and enjoy it this evening. What a lovely tea it is. I know that I read somewhere on the forums recently where someone was asking about Pheonix Honey Orchid… well, this is a Honey Orchid Oolong… so I guess I will head to the forums next to post about this one.

I absolutely love this. Rich with honey notes as well as fruity tones … just as the description suggests, a lychee-like flavor to it. It’s a very distinct kind of flavor like that. Sweet, with notes of sour, and very pleasantly balanced.

I must have watched around 10 episodes of Criminal Minds now back to back…that’s some hard core marathon activity. I have nothing better to do, packed my bag with copious amounts of tea ready for being picked up in the morning and taken to my parents house. They have the largest collection of horror films that I have ever seen so I will be in good company. :)

In raw form this tea is very dark brown/black in colour and is long and thin in shape. The scent is thick with a strong musky fruit tone. A little tobacco like or leather like with a sweet wood finish.

The packaging says to infuse into a teapot for at least 2 minutes so my first steep shall be as such.

Once steeped this tea is gold in colour with a rich, toasted aroma.

Flavour is toasty, fruity, fresh, honeyed and perhaps a little vegetal. There is no bitterness or astringency to speak of and flavours remain thick. I keep picking up a thick green taste like spinach which reminds me of a few Oolongs I have had recently. Food wise it would be a fresh loaf of bread with small pieces of spinach inside and glazed in honey. Interesting and strangely delicious!

ps. I’m still digging Dr Reid ;)
http://tinypic.com/r/33mqw6f/5

Floral and honey notes, certainly! But what I also find interesting about this is…the scent. The scent reminds me of being out in nature…like in the middle of the woods or even on a beach…those familiar nature-smells! Then when you taste it…it’s not really what you expect…altho even more pleasant. There is a soothing and lingering yummy aftertaste, too!

Very nice. It’s sweet and I can taste the lychee flavour. The first sip was wonderful and it had an enduring aftertaste that made me want more. My first pot did not re-steep well, so I tried again with more leaf and this time it has worked much better. It does not go on and on like some of my other teas, but I can still get three or four good mugs of tea out of one portion of leaf. I may have to try it in the gaiwan with lots of leaf and short steeps next to see how that works out, but I am very satisfied with this purchase as it is.

Thank you, Ricky, for this sample from my HoppiTea package!

I love Canton Tea Co. Everything seems so personalized. I love the handwriting on the labels, the non-uniform sizing of the packages. It feels so human and makes me feel so connected. Most of all, I love the tea.

The dry tea smells woodsy, almost like cedar, but with a deeper aroma. It implies strength. I love Dan Cong and am looking forward to this one.

190F(87C)/2 min – Because of the strength of the dry scent, I went with a lighter steep time and temp. The scent is now… sweet?! Yes, it has a sweetness to the scent, almost like peaches, but really ripe peaches. The taste has that peachy flavor (not the sweetness, but the essence of peach) with lychee, too, and it also has a slight vegetal flavor as well. It’s the fruitiness that’s throwing me. It’s delightful! The tea still has that woodsy taste that I’d expect from its initial scent when dry. It’s not bitter or astringent and I’m glad I adjusted the steeping parameters. It’s a perfect morning tea!

Holy crikey,

It’s been two weeks since I’ve chimed in on here. Where have I been (er…besides watching copious amounts of Youtube, and saying “OWWWWwwww!” after work)? Okay, maybe that answers that question.

Got this in the mail as part of the Canton Tea Club. I’d had it before, but it I didn’t quite remember what “exactly” I thought of it. After four steeps so far, I now know that I “wuvved” it. It was toasty and tart like a good Dan Cong should be. Further cementing this as my favorite style of Chinese oolong.

It also helped to alleviate my general feeling of “blah” that’d been prevalent for the better part of a week.

For more info, go here: http://www.cantonteaco.com/blog/2012/12/canton-tea-club-week-10-mi-lan-dan-cong/

I read a description of this before preparing the tea. Is it me or does every description of tea have the word fruity in it? Some teas actually have NO fruity notes whatsoever.

In time I have learned to ignore the descriptions and I actually learned to enjoy sitting for hours trying to figure out the name of a specific flavor. Today was different. I had to find out what Canton tea had the name “DAN” in it. The name was handwritten on my sampler so I wasn’t sure of the name – Milan DanCang sounded a bit off.
By the time I founded the correct entry I started to read the tasting notes just for the fun of it. When I went over the “fruity” description I ignored it. All teas can’t be fruity, It’s a naturelaw.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this tea really was fruity.
I still can’t figure out what fruit it is. Peach? Something like that. Anyway, the tea also have a nutty flavor in the end.

Fruity AND nutty!
I like it (honestly what don’t I like?!).

By the way! I just won some tea by Doulton! Yay!
- I shouldn’t write it in a teanote but I can’t help myself. I am just too happy ;)

Even better than I remember. Very intense flavor.