Dark Night | Dawuye Dancong

The Da Wu Ye dancong oolong cultivar was a cultivar we were introduced to on our first visit to the Phoenix Village outside of Chaozhou in Autumn of 2017.  We met a farmer named Lin who was making a huge amount of this cultivar.  He told us that this cultivar was one of the three most common dancongs in production, along with the Yashi Xiang and the Milan Xiang.  We’ve considered translating this tea as Raven Leaf Oolong, as Dawu Ye sounds a lot like Dawu Ya which means raven in Chinese, but we’ve decided to keep it up for interpretation naming it after everything that flies about in the mountain night.  

While this tea is very rarely pressed into tea cakes, we think that this is an ideal way to store and preserve the tea for aging experiments.  If you're interested in a set of all our dancong tea cakes, check out the discounted bundle!

The Dawu Ye cultivar was one of the first cultivars we considered aging for a year before we sell it, as there is an incredible transformation that comes to these leaves in the course of time.  The roast melts into the leaves creating an almost blackberry jam flavor with a sweetness unparalleled in the world of dancong oolong.  Tasting this tea after pressing, we are getting the same tell-tale signs on this forthcoming transformation.  This is a cake we would suggest trying now, but stashing away for some aging.

The dry leaves in the warmed gaiwan give off ground corn and resinous wood fragrances, while this turns into something very fruity and almost jolly-rancher sweet once infused with hot water.  The brew itself is a rich amber with plenty of weight on the tongue.  Compared to the Milan Xiang, this tea has a deeper roast, which is why we can't wait to see its transformations with time, at the moment, the leaves have a toasty aroma to them, making it a nice winter companion.  The tea itself has a nice dark sweetness to it, like honey on toast, with a berry-skin flavor that hides in the background.

Check out more teas from Wen Zitong here!