Zhong Ping "Jasmine Aroma" Dan Cong Oolong Tea

Intensely floral and creamy scent which, despite the name, reminds me more of rosewater than of jasmine. Flavor is sweet and floral verging on overpowering, with a slight bitterness like lime peel. Texture is smooth and slightly oily. Well-priced for a dancong.

Here’s yet another spring 2018 Dan Cong from Yunnan Sourcing! The name and the low price convinced me I needed 25 g of this last year. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 7, 10, 12, 16, 20, 25, 30, 40, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of orchids and jasmine. The first couple steeps have notes of pungent jasmine, orchids, cucumber, green pepper, light roast, herbs, and grass. Subsequent rounds add peach, nectarine, and lavender, although the aroma is stronger than the taste. As Togo mentioned, the aftertaste is long, herbaceous, and persistent. The fruity notes are slight and disappear when the tea cools down. By steep seven or so, this turns into an herbaceous, vegetal, floral Dan Cong with some roast, minerality, and astringency.

This is a good Dan Cong that lives up to its name. If the last part of my gongfu session was kind of boring, it’s a reasonable price to pay for the lovely first steeps.

Opening the bag, a pleasant light roasted cookie like aroma emerges. After the first rinse, it becomes surprisingly fruity with some floral undertones. I can smell apricots, nectarines and orchid. The floral aspect gets stronger later on, with noticeable lavender and jasmine notes.

The liquor is very smooth, soft and velvety with medium body. It’s a very nice mouthfeel, as I would expect from a Dan Cong tea. The taste is not dominated by any particular flavor. There is some herbal bitterness, vegetal notes and some more robust roast flavors, which are unidentifiable for me. Aftertaste is VERY long (20 minutes or so), slightly sour, drying and extremely fragrant. I have never experienced something like this. An association that comes to mind is a high quality gin, but even that is quite far off.

The effect of the tea has been to make me very dreamy and defocused, already after 3 steeps or so. I definitely wouldn’t drink this tea while working.

The price point for this tea is great. Sure, maybe the aroma is not as pungent as the higher priced ones, but it delivers a good body, great aftertaste and has some nice cha qi as well. If you are a fan of bitter, herbal and floral flavors, I would recommend trying this one out.

I am going to stop writing now though, because I feel like I cannot write coherent sentences anymore :D