Phoenix Bird Dancong Oolong

I normally don’t post more than two reviews per day, but I wanted to keep making headway in my effort to clear out the new backlog, so I decided to go ahead and post this one. Much like the Phoenix Song Dynasty, I know very little about this tea. I again have no clue which cultivar was used in this production nor do I know which harvest produced this particular tea. Honestly, I have no clue if The Tao of Tea will ever be restocking this tea because it was not listed anywhere on their website as of my last check. Regardless, I found this to be a more or less excellent Dancong oolong (part of me wants to say this may have been a Da Wu Ye or something similar, though it also reminded me a little of a Ya Shi Xiang in places.).

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 7 seconds. This infusion was chased by 13 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, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, I noted aromas of roasted almond, toast, malt, cream, and custard coming from the dry tea leaves. After the rinse, I found emerging orchid and roasted peanut aromas accompanied by hints of grass and citrus. The first proper infusion brought out odd, yet interesting scents of strawberry and plum to go with a more clearly defined violet scent. In the mouth, I detected notes of roasted almond, toast, malt, cream, orchid, plum, and strawberry backed by subtle notes of sweet orange and unexpected hints of caraway and anise. Subsequent infusions brought out the violet, grass, and roasted peanut notes on the palate as well as somewhat stronger notes of sweet orange. I also began to detect impressions of minerals, pomelo, lemon zest, earth, rye, tea flower, golden raisin, butter, lychee, and peach accompanied by occasional hints of red raspberry. The later infusions mostly offered lingering notes of cream, malt, toast, minerals, and violet with some nutty and citrusy impressions in the background. Oddly, I never found any custard-like notes in the mouth.

This was yet another very respectable Dancong oolong from The Tao of Tea. I would like to know more about it and do hope that it makes a comeback at some point, but I’m not sure that either will happen. I would recommend it to any curious drinkers out there, but with it being unavailable, there really is no point. Still, for the record, I found it to be a very good tea.