Tea: Baxian Hongpei Maocha（八仙烘焙毛茶）
Type: Dancong Oolong Raw Tea
Harvest: Spring 2022
Region: Phoenix Village, Guangdong, China
Tasting notes: caramel, baked doughnut, steamed spinach, seaweed, buttered toast
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This tea is technically unfinished, it is still in its Maocha, or raw tea, state. This means that although it has passed through all the processes to take it from a leaf picked off a bush to a brewable tea leaf, there are still a few stages that it will undergo before being sold as a true Dancong Oolong (namely sorting and charcoal roasting).
Thus, this tea is raw, there are large yellow green leaves in it, there are stems and tea twigs, all of this usually gets removed before it arrives to the consumer, but we like this more earth experience and are happy to pass it on to you!
This version of the Eight Immortals Maocha has been baked in a gas oven. Although this hasn’t been roasted, you will notice a nice toasty aroma on the leaves and a thicker texture in the mouth.
The aroma off the leaves is deeply sweet like caramel or a baked sugar doughnut. While the brew is just as brightly gold as the Baxian Green Maocha, the sweet grass and fresh violet notes are all gone. These are replaced by a richer vegetal savor similar to seaweed or steamed spinach. The flavor profile of this tea is much more mellow than that of its green counterpoint, it already sits nicer on the stomach and has a relaxing chaqi.
While the bake of this tea shines through the first half of the session, towards the end it begins to resemble again its green Maocha counterpart.
