Heavy Tieguanyin

This is a classic traditionally processed Nonxiang Tieguanyin.  Master Zhang is a stubborn tea maker that is sticking to the old ways in most things.  This tea is not too heavily roasted to mask the tea's flavors, nor is it too green or floral to assail the nostrils; it is a goldilocks porridge of a tea: hearty, rich, and just right.

We have labeled this tea ‘heavy’ due to the Nongxiang processing (Nongxiang, which means heavy fragrance, sits on the other side of the TGY spectrum from the Qingxiang or light fragrance).  This heaviness typically refers to a heavier handling and thicker piling of the leaves during the withering and shake wilting processes.   In fact, despite this tea being called heavy, the roast is on the lighter side of the spectrum, which we would call medium for traditional Tieguanyins.

The dry leaves in the warmed gaiwan give off a rich aroma of melted butter and roasting pinewood.  The brew is a rich gold that is thick and sticky on the throat, very warming on the way down to settle comfortable on the stomach.  This is an excellent tea for rainy or cold days as its warmth of it can reach deep within the drinker.  The tea soup is rich with creamy flavors of steamed milk, toasted chestnut, and even candied walnut.  The medium roast provides a pleasantly thick mouthfeel without masking the more vegetal elements of the traditional tea processing.

While this tea requires a careful hand when brewing to avoid excess bitterness, it is preciesely this bitterness that creates the pleasant huigan, and a delight to the daily-drinking Tieguanyin devotees in costal Fujian.  We find it brews best with water just below boiling (90-95 celsius) and with 5 grams of tea per 100ml water.  In Xiamen and Anxi, they disregard this and pack the gaiwan with leaves so that the lid can barely fit after the leaves have unfurled and they will drink this bitter tonic until the sun goes down, and in fact well into the night.

As with the other Tieguanyin teas we have on offer, this tea belongs to the more traditional processing styles favored by thier maker Zhang Jiyuan, a tea master dedicated to bringing the traditional craft of Tieguanyin back to the forefront after the recent explosion of ultra-green modern style oolongs and the overproduction of monoculture in Anxi.  As a result, this tea comes not only from an ecologically dense, organically managed garden, but is also produced more in the traditional style for Tieguanyin: what this means is a longer oxidization process, more complex flavors from the heirloom cultivar, and a much longer lasting aftertaste.

Read more about the maker Zhang Jiyuan and his organic gardens here!