Yancha

Owes its flavors to oxidation levels between green & black tea.


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Mar 4th, '16, 21:26
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Re: Yancha

by kyarazen » Mar 4th, '16, 21:26

origins of Fenghuang Shuixian - it was said that a song dynasty emperor had travelled through chao-shan region and had his thirst quenched by a tea that was growing on fenghuang mountain. the leaf is sharp like the birds beak, that was how "song zhong" came about. (legend).

fenghuang region = chao an north east, east bordered by raoping... north bordered by da pu.. west by shunfeng.. all 4 sides surrounded by green mountains... elevation 1100m.. wudong is highest at 1500m...

specie is grown in chao-an, raping, shunfeng, jiaoling, ping yuan etc... many different tree shapes, qun-ti.. small qiaomu... rough trunk, rough branches etc. some of the leaves are large, the tip would point downwards resembling a bird's beak, so you get all that bird beak descriptions. traditionally fenghuang tea is divided into 3 major classes/grades, top grade is called fenghuang dancong... 2nd grade is referred to as fenghuang lang cai, 3rd grade is fenghuang shuixian..


for wuyi shuixian, shuixian cultivar is one of the cultivars that drives the floral type yancha. the production of minbei shuixian started around daoguang period during the qing dynasty, about 1821. in 1939, a publication by zhang tian fu on "shuixian mu shu ji" (shuixian mother tree records), said that during the daoguang era, there is a quanzhou man, with surname Su, in his journey towards yan yi mountain, near the cave "zhu xian dong", found a tea tree.. blahblahblahblah.. the tea was delish. it was initially called "Zhu xian" tea, but in minnan dialect, the "zhu" word is pronounced similarly to "水" back then.. so some how there was some overlap and screwing up, the tea finally settled into the using "水" in its name.. albeit similar to... chaozhou's

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May 9th, '16, 17:48
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Re: Yancha

by bagua7 » May 9th, '16, 17:48

Hey jay,

How does the yancha sold at Fook Ming Tong compare to jkteashop and cha wang shop?

Cheers! :)

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May 9th, '16, 23:57
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Re: Yancha

by jayinhk » May 9th, '16, 23:57

Originally I suggested FMT because I'd tried the Anxi Super Oolong and thought it was wonderful for the price paid. After trying FMT's DHP and Dancong, I'm less enthusiastic about FMT, especially for the prices.

JKTeashop's yancha is great--just don't brew it in pin zini or you'll lose a lot of complexity. Their tea is roasted lighter, which is what most vendors and producers offer up for the Mainland Chinese market. The yancha I buy in Hong Kong from HK's oldest companies is often MUCH higher fired and that kind of tea performs much better in pin zini. JKTeashop's yancha would be good in porcelain or hongni/zhuni, or even finer, thinner zini.

Chawangshop's shuixian is lovely, but also lower fired, as is common nowadays. Even the high roast stuff is what I'd call a medium roast, or low-medium! I haven't tried any of their other yancha offerings.

For 50s-60s style high fire oolongs for gongfucha, HK is the place. The Mainland Chinese and Malaysians buy high fire oolong tea here, so that tells you something. I'll be offering some high fire three stamp shuixian soon as I have to send some to someone stateside and I'll pick some up for myself, too. I've had some aging in an airtight glass jar for two or three years. I need to pull that jar out of the warehouse to see what it tastes like now!

As an aside...I just bought a roundtrip ticket to Fuzhou, Fujian for $110. It's going to be a HECK of a tea year! Yunnan in June, Fujian in July and Taiwan before the year is up!

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Re: Yancha

by bagua7 » May 10th, '16, 14:27

Thanks for the detailed info, jay...and also for the pot suggestions. Good luck with your upcoming trip. Cheers! :)

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May 10th, '16, 21:47
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Re: Yancha

by jayinhk » May 10th, '16, 21:47

bagua7 wrote:Thanks for the detailed info, jay...and also for the pot suggestions. Good luck with your upcoming trip. Cheers! :)
No problem! I got some interesting DHP from a Fujianese vendor here in HK last night; not too expensive, and interesting for the price, but not the best DHP I've ever had. This vendor specializes in tieguanyin, shuixian and pu erh (for the Cantonese masses here in HK). The DHP is flavorful with a floral sort of aroma that is classic DHP, but also very different at the same time. The textbook DHP aroma is not as intense as with the high grade stuff. This tea is definitely higher roast than is common in China now. I'll give it a whirl in a gaiwan or hongni as I brewed it in pin zini last night (I only have one Yixing for oolong at work)!

After testing in hongni, it is more bitter (I used more leaf) and surprisingly less distinctively floral than it was in the pin zini pot I used. It tastes more like DHP now, but less intense than the really good stuff. It is still floral in a manner that I'm not used to with DHP, which is interesting, but the floral note isn't quite as intense. I'll give it a shot in finer zini and porcelain too to see how it compares. For the price, though, I can't complain as it is significantly more flavorful than the DHP I got from a Chaozhou vendor three weeks ago, and it's like no wuyicha I've ever had. Further testing is definitely required!

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May 13th, '16, 01:35
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Re: Yancha

by bagua7 » May 13th, '16, 01:35

Good to read this....however nothing further I can really say because my exposure to DHP is near zero. Purchased 50g from Postcard Teas several years ago, it was good but I can't really measure its quality to anything else...except perhaps 'rubbish' DHP I bought on:

1. eBay. The typical run-of-the-mill vendor. Awful tea.
2. Wild DHP from a vendor that no longer exists. Ended up as garden compost after 2 sessions. :mrgreen: I am trying to understand why it lasted a second session. :lol:

So you can see that my knowledge about this particular oolong variety is very limited.

I'll have a go with jkteashop as I have purchased their dancong in the past which I quite enjoyed. Thanks again.

Cheers! :)

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Re: Yancha

by john.b » May 13th, '16, 02:33

A lot of da hong pao wouldn't even really be da hong pao, instead a blend of other wuyi yancha types, or maybe just shui xian. I researched cultivar types once used to make it and it's really from plant types referred to as qi dan or bei dou. One might wonder how that could be, since it's the opposite of the standard story that it's really a plant type, and there are the five original bushes that once wore red robes (maybe, probably not), but the rest is in that post.

The point here is that someone could try a tea like da hong pao for awhile, lots of sources of it, and never get all that close to a typical, decent version. It would help increase odds to spend more but that would certainly be no guarantee.

From there the usual discussion goes in two different tiresome directions: only use "trusted vendors," or related to someone bragging about how they drank something so great before that you could never find such a thing. There really is a lot to both lines of discussion; there are reliable vendors out there that would likely charge more than the average EBay source but for tea that's actually worth it. And some people probably did try some unusual teas, although it's hard to sort out when that's nonsense too, or even if not it doesn't generally contribute much to discussion, although I guess the potential is there for an interesting account to result. I say so much about the general types in other writing that it gets tiresome hearing myself talk about it, so I'll leave it at that here.

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May 13th, '16, 06:39
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Re: Yancha

by jayinhk » May 13th, '16, 06:39

john.b wrote:A lot of da hong pao wouldn't even really be da hong pao, instead a blend of other wuyi yancha types, or maybe just shui xian. I researched cultivar types once used to make it and it's really from plant types referred to as qi dan or bei dou. One might wonder how that could be, since it's the opposite of the standard story that it's really a plant type, and there are the five original bushes that once wore red robes (maybe, probably not), but the rest is in that post.

The point here is that someone could try a tea like da hong pao for awhile, lots of sources of it, and never get all that close to a typical, decent version. It would help increase odds to spend more but that would certainly be no guarantee.

From there the usual discussion goes in two different tiresome directions: only use "trusted vendors," or related to someone bragging about how they drank something so great before that you could never find such a thing. There really is a lot to both lines of discussion; there are reliable vendors out there that would likely charge more than the average EBay source but for tea that's actually worth it. And some people probably did try some unusual teas, although it's hard to sort out when that's nonsense too, or even if not it doesn't generally contribute much to discussion, although I guess the potential is there for an interesting account to result. I say so much about the general types in other writing that it gets tiresome hearing myself talk about it, so I'll leave it at that here.
There's a textbook DHP fruity taste that I identify as 'DHP.' I've tasted this in a local vendor's offerings (Cheung Hing Tea Hong) and in a much more expensive DHP sold by another retailer in HK. The second retailer sells very expensive modern Yixing and that put me off buying what I thought was overpriced DHP, but their DHP has an incredibly intense flavor to it. Fook Ming Tong's DHP is quite nice, too, and tastes like a DHP should (to me), but isn't cheap and isn't as good as the fancy vendor's DHP. I've made a metal note to only buy Cheung Hing Tea Hong's DHP, as it has the flavor I'm looking for and isn't too expensive either.

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Re: Yancha

by jayinhk » May 13th, '16, 08:26

Revisiting FMT's DHP. Really distinct and clean DHP flavor, but not as intensely flavorful as the better stuff I've had and it is a little bitter in F1 hongni. This is quite a high roasted tea--pretty good if you're used to lower roasts from other vendors. JKTeashop's DHPs are lower roast and with good complexity, but teapot selection is paramount with lighter roasted teas IMO.

Now I'm tempted to get the fancy DHP from the vendor downtown. I'll wait until after I visit Wuyishan, though, in case I can get tea as good or better for less money!

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Re: Yancha

by john.b » May 17th, '16, 03:26

It's an interesting subject, what the characteristic taste of real Da Hong Pao should be. The post before last mentioned fruity, but the best version of Da Hong Pao I've tried wasn't very close to that, more back towards the earthy / mineral range. Supposedly it was Bei Dou, and relatively closely related to the better versions of the broader type, but in reality who knows. The shop owners seem pretty legit, old-school Chinese people living in Bangkok, with a shop there in Chinatown for 90 years, and family ties back to that Wuyishan region, so maybe it was closer to "real." Or maybe not.

Based on talking to other tea friends, including one that lives in Wuyishan and makes yancha there, the teas vary as much based on processing, possibly as much as related to the plant type and environment factors combined. But one comment implied that a fruit characteristic might trace back to the specific leaves themselves, about a Rou Gui version having a strong fruit smell and taste evident in the early processing steps. This was apparently something unique to those leaves that grew under those conditions, quite different from the same leaves growing under relatively identical conditions in different years.

Of course the oxidation step and roasting level input would change the character. Maybe these would tend to emphasize or limit the fruit aspect or other specific tastes or maybe not, but it seems like that would only occur to a limited degree, if so. Per another set of discussion input from that same friend growing environment changes teas a lot, so the same plants grown with differing sunlight input would be different, or rainfall, etc. It would seem it had to be environmental factors that made the one version different than it typically had been.

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Re: Yancha

by jayinhk » May 17th, '16, 03:37

john.b wrote:It's an interesting subject, what the characteristic taste of real Da Hong Pao should be. The post before last mentioned fruity, but the best version of Da Hong Pao I've tried wasn't very close to that, more back towards the earthy / mineral range. Supposedly it was Bei Dou, and relatively closely related to the better versions of the broader type, but in reality who knows. The shop owners seem pretty legit, old-school Chinese people living in Bangkok, with a shop there in Chinatown for 90 years, and family ties back to that Wuyishan region, so maybe it was closer to "real." Or maybe not.

Based on talking to other tea friends, including one that lives in Wuyishan and makes yancha there, the teas vary as much based on processing, possibly as much as related to the plant type and environment factors combined. But one comment implied that a fruit characteristic might trace back to the specific leaves themselves, about a Rou Gui version having a strong fruit smell and taste evident in the early processing steps. This was apparently something unique to those leaves that grew under those conditions, quite different from the same leaves growing under relatively identical conditions in different years.

Of course the oxidation step and roasting level input would change the character. Maybe these would tend to emphasize or limit the fruit aspect or other specific tastes or maybe not, but it seems like that would only occur to a limited degree, if so. Per another set of discussion input from that same friend growing environment changes teas a lot, so the same plants grown with differing sunlight input would be different, or rainfall, etc. It would seem it had to be environmental factors that made the one version different than it typically had been.
Good DHP, to me, is flavorful in a manner that is distinct; not fruity, not floral, but kind of both and neither at the same time. Peaches and plums come to mind, but the flavor is different from both. It is a distinctive flavor that is very different from rou gui, since the flavor is somewhat darker and less sweet. I would think a more mineral-like DHP would be a lower grade, or one that had been roasted too high.

Terroir, time of harvest, age and quality of leaf and processing all make big differences to tea for sure. A lot of tea plants and trees are pumped full of fertilizer and sprayed heavily nowadays to maximize yields. While that may boost production and make for prettier leaves, it probably doesn't make for better tea in most cases.

I just remembered we get a chilled, bottled DHP in PET bottles at 7-11 here. That flavor is distinctly DHP--warm, dark mystery stone fruit and roasty, with light bitterness and sweetness. That bottled DHP is actually pretty good!

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May 17th, '16, 22:09
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Re: Yancha

by nada » May 17th, '16, 22:09

DHP in Wuyi can refer to any generic wuyi oolong tea. Most factories have their own proprietary blend of varietals (usually a guarded secret), which they maintain as a staple of their yearly offerings.

In my experience, Bei Dou, Qi Dan etc. are usually sold under their specific varietal names if they're unblended, or as 'Yuan Zhong Da Hong Pao' (original varietal Da Hong Pao).

In the market DHP is more a commercial name for wuyi oolong these days, rather than referring to anything in particular.

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Re: Yancha

by john.b » May 22nd, '16, 23:27

I was just considering how the same could be true of Tie Kuan Yin or Longjing, as these are sold in China now, that these are no longer used as cultivars but instead the names for a broad range of teas that all share characteristics with those original plant types and preparation styles.

Of course in a sense that doesn't work, saying that because a tea type is copied and names are used loosely that specific tea names no longer mean anything specific, but everywhere you go in a city like Beijing there are lots of bins of both sold from different types of shops as different grades. Surely some if not most of it is not even close to genuine.

Maybe the key difference here is in exported product versus local tea shop sales. I would expect that most foreign-sold imported teas of those two types are closer to original and authentic versions than DHP versions would work out to be, that most would at least match the plant types that go by those names, if not the regional designation implied. Of course Longjing does have a place of origin implied, and TKY is a plant type, only with most typically coming from Anxi, or better versions supposedly originating there, so the two are different types of designations.

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May 23rd, '16, 02:34
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Re: Yancha

by jayinhk » May 23rd, '16, 02:34

Even down here in HK, 'DHP' can be a blend, and 'Tieguanyin' can be Benshan oolong. I've had 'biluochun' from all over China and even Taiwan, where they have their own version of 'longjing' that is nothing like the Zhejiang kind (although I actually prefer the taste of the TW kind)! I even had a Taiwanese Wuyi-style tea at Wistaria, but at least it wasn't sold as Wuyicha!

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Re: Yancha

by theredbaron » May 25th, '16, 03:15

john.b wrote:It's an interesting subject, what the characteristic taste of real Da Hong Pao should be. The post before last mentioned fruity, but the best version of Da Hong Pao I've tried wasn't very close to that, more back towards the earthy / mineral range. Supposedly it was Bei Dou, and relatively closely related to the better versions of the broader type, but in reality who knows. The shop owners seem pretty legit, old-school Chinese people living in Bangkok, with a shop there in Chinatown for 90 years, and family ties back to that Wuyishan region, so maybe it was closer to "real." Or maybe not.
.

Thailand is a specific market - most Yancha have always been extremely high fired for that market, often to a degree that i takes years of storing to get rid of the firing taste and the real tea taste comes out. Da Hong Pao has a well known fruity taste, however much different from Shui Xien or Rou Gui, that is inherent to Da Hong Pao.
I have bought more than ten years ago a Da Hong Pao here in Bangkok, at the time so high fired that i could not drink it. Now, ten years later it actually turned out not bad at all with all the firing taste gone.

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