Eight Immortals Dancong

This is one of our favorite dancong cultivars and Wen Zitong has an incredible ability to make this cultivar shine.  This is our most looked-forward to dancong of the year every year, and we are so happy with what Wen Zitong has crafted.  While the tea is mineral-sweet and sits pleasant in the stomach, it will do well with a few more months of again as the fire is still pretty strong.  Try it now and let it sit until deep winter to really taste its true nature

The aroma off the dry leaves in a warm gaiwan is currently a forceful hit of toasted popcorn, cedar wood, and pinesap, which should melt into something creamier as the roast settles into the leaves over the next few months.  When hit with dry leaves, the roast immediately becomes apparent, but this fades into the background to showcase something metmeatierier and engaging like fish grilled on a cedar plank.

The taste on the tongue is thick and grounded, offering less sweetness than last year's Ba Xian, but much more minerality.  The most exciting part about this tea for us, is how it performs in the cup.  The fragrances take a backseat, and we are left with the physical presence of this weighty tea on the tongue, coating the mouth, and sitting warm and pleasant in our stomachs.  Toward the end of the session, the minerality gives way to a delicate sweetness, like drinking thick spring water.

This tea is a blend of a few old Baxian trees that belong to Wen Zitong's family up above the Wudong village, on the slopes of the Wudong mountain itself.  These teas form older trees have a characteristic sweetness to their brew with much less of the bitterness so often associated with dancong oolongs, and the Wudong core region teas leave a lingering tingling sweetness on our tongue that is surprisingly consistent, apparent, and exclusive to the Wudong dancongs.