TeaSpring's Song Zhong Dancong

[ummaya]

I will also suggest the DC's from East Teas in London.

Hi Tead Off, thank you very much for the tip. I will certainly try East Teas next time.

By the way, what makes a Dancong a "commercial" grade Dancong when it is not named "Commercial" by the vendor like Tea Habitat does? The price, the quality, both?

[Oni]

Unbelievable! When started to drink loose tea leaves about three years ago I had no problem to buy 100g of good quality Sencha for $25 or $30 but the first time that I was tempted to drink some pricey "Kame-Jiru-Shi" Gyokuro, my reaction was: what, $30 for 50g? No way!

Look at me now, I am ready to pay $42 or more to taste 30g of Single Bush Dan Cong... Scary!

I feel the same, I am spending more and more on tea, I recently bought tea that was 80 $/100 grams, and I also bought tea that was 100 $/100g, and recently I find it that gyokuro at 60$ for 10 servings is a decent price, back 3 years ago I would have thought this to be too expenceive to drink, I always said to myself that I would drink this if I got rich.

[Herb_Master]

By the way, what makes a Dancong a "commercial" grade Dancong when it is not named "Commercial" by the vendor like Tea Habitat does? The price, the quality, both?

They both come in to the final equation but to start with you have to have a tea bush / tea tree, and then a tea master to make the tea

In Feng Huang some trees are many hundred years old, some are 100 or 200 years old and some are less than 50 years old.

Originally the trees all sprang from tea seeds and each tree was unique, but by taking shoots from existing trees the last 50 years has seen an ever increasing trend for cloning the trees and often there will be a plantation of trees all cloned from the same original tree.
These plantations of the same tree are sometimes referred to as groves.

If all the output from a whole grove of 30 year old trees is processed together by a competent but not outstanding tea maker then you are right in the midst of commercial tea.

If the selected output from a single 400 year old tree (as the tree gets older it's root system stretches ever and ever deeper extracting minerals from the bedrock) is processed by a master teamaker then you are in the realms of quality dan cong.

The amount of tea that can be made from 1 old tree is extremely limited, the amount that can be made from a grove is huge.

If the tea vendor is offering a limited amount of the tea it may be good stuff, if his supply is unlimited it will likely be commercial.

[ummaya]

Wow!

Thank you Herb Master for the detailed and enlightening explanation. Very,very interesting and fascinating. I will definitely place an order for at least one these Single bush.

[rabbit]

By the way, what makes a Dancong a "commercial" grade Dancong when it is not named "Commercial" by the vendor like Tea Habitat does? The price, the quality, both?

They both come in to the final equation but to start with you have to have a tea bush / tea tree, and then a tea master to make the tea

In Feng Huang some trees are many hundred years old, some are 100 or 200 years old and some are less than 50 years old.

Originally the trees all sprang from tea seeds and each tree was unique, but by taking shoots from existing trees the last 50 years has seen an ever increasing trend for cloning the trees and often there will be a plantation of trees all cloned from the same original tree.
These plantations of the same tree are sometimes referred to as groves.

If all the output from a whole grove of 30 year old trees is processed together by a competent but not outstanding tea maker then you are right in the midst of commercial tea.

If the selected output from a single 400 year old tree (as the tree gets older it's root system stretches ever and ever deeper extracting minerals from the bedrock) is processed by a master teamaker then you are in the realms of quality dan cong.

The amount of tea that can be made from 1 old tree is extremely limited, the amount that can be made from a grove is huge.

If the tea vendor is offering a limited amount of the tea it may be good stuff, if his supply is unlimited it will likely be commercial.

That was enlightening.

[Herb_Master]

The Song Zhongs are REALLY old, unless you are paying a fortune from a reliable source you will be getting a cloned tree at best

I don't know when they first started cloning them but I would think in the last 50 years.

Then from unreliable sources it may not even be a clone.

I also believe that some of the really famous Song Zhong trees have died so with them you do need to get a clone.


I wonder how Imen is getting on with her book

[Tead Off]

I will also suggest the DC's from East Teas in London.

Hi Tead Off, thank you very much for the tip. I will certainly try East Teas next time.

By the way, what makes a Dancong a "commercial" grade Dancong when it is not named "Commercial" by the vendor like Tea Habitat does? The price, the quality, both?

Herb Master gave you some good info. The problem with buying DC seems to lie with the vendor. Knowledgeable vendors seem to deal directly with the growers and tea masters who are processing the teas. Many vendors buy from distributors and you don't really know what you are getting. Single bush varieties are more expensive, especially from older bushes. If I were living in America, I would try Houde's teas because they seem the most economical and he is a very knowledgeable tea man. Jing's teas in Guangzhou are also fairly priced. But, a basic Mi Lan Xiang from Jing will not be the same as one from Houde. Too many variables. You need to just try the teas and determine for yourself what you like best. Like I've said before, I try to avoid the low priced DC. They are not enjoyable to me. A waste of money. Good DC is a wow experience.

[alan logan]

cloning (ie taking a shoot from an existing tree) is not only signature of "commercial" category. a descendant from an old tree that is proccessed "single" can also be a clone obtained from a shoot. this method is frequent as for descendants of elder trees, because from a certain age, a tree will not produce seeds, so it will not propagate by itself.

for instance, Imen mentions the ba xian trees.

there is strict line that seems to be drawn between groves and single trees, but maybe it is sometimes interpreted in too strict a manner by us. we tend to think "grove=plantation=less quality" ; in fact the age (and thus maturity) of the trees makes a big difference (and also the way the trees are maintained, processing of leaves...). mature trees from a grove can yield good tea ; an immature (very young) tree processed single would not be ready to yield good tea. very young (thus immature) trees from a grove will not yield good tea. not that "immature/young=bad tea", but maturity of the trees naturally reflects on the aromatic contents.
So all that is grove is not necessarily inferior, at least theoritically, and there is, at least theoritically, a scale of quality between groves (or plantations).

[Herb_Master]

So all that is grove is not necessarily inferior,

To highlight the differences I was talking about the 2 ends of the spectrum rather than the middle ground

There are no groves as far as I know of 200 year old trees.

As the title is "Song Zhong" I presume we are talking OLD, except in the case I mentioned where an existing song zhong tree has died after they managed to get some clones.

[alan logan]

yes, I understood well all that, I don't think we are saying "contradictory" things.

[Cyphre]

so I have been buying teasprings Dancong for a while now. Even if it is not very good quality I really like the taste. Will the better, or higher end stuff ruin the taste of teasprings for me? Will I never be able to go back to lower cost dancong if I try the sights you suggest?

[debunix]

I just enjoyed some 'cheap' Phoenix oolong, brewed up a thermos full, and quite enjoyed it all the way to the end. Nice unfussy tea, in no way matching the 'single bush' dan congs from Tea Habitat, but nice enough for the bulk brew and afternoon clinic. I don't always have the attention to give to the very fanciest of my teas.

[mr. Less]

this week i received two dancongs from imen , two commercial grades
(milan and one orange flower fragrance)

i think they are wonderful, especially for the price, i really have the feeling this is good quality dancong

but if i did a comparison with her single bush , they would probably be a lot better
but if you would like to try a good dancong for not too much money, imens commercial grades are way better than others so called top (expensive) dc's