flavored oolongs

[Cofftea]

Adding a 4th should be possible, I do it everyday.

My choice is not close to any choices listed.

Let me know if you need help adding a 4th option.

I tried a couple times on 2 polls that I've listed. It just isn't working for me. The 4th doesn't show up.

[kymidwife]

Cofftea...

I'm not great with descriptive language when it comes to tea, but here goes.

The Dragon Eye Oolong from Revolution has a nice mid-roast oolong taste, very distinctly oolong, which mingles really nicely with the added flavors of safflower, peach, and apricot. Oolongs often seem to have peachy or apricot notes, so I think they partner very well with these flavors as a result. The thing I love so much about this particular one is that the tea flavor doesn't get lost in the other flavors... you definitely know you are drinking oolong.

Osmanthus Oolong... I think this is available from a number of vendors. I got mine from Upton because I'd enjoyed a sample of it from OmegaPD and wanted more. Osmanthus is a flower with a great aroma, very full and round and almost fruity... but more subtle to me than Jasmine. The soft fruity nature of the aroma is also a good mingler with oolong, although I thought the oolong taste was less distinct than the Dragon Eye.

As for the peach... I find a strong flavor of any kind undesired in tea lately... I think that's one reason why I enjoyed the Life's a Peach blend. The white peach is more delicate and understated, and it mellows out the peach oolong perfectly (for me anyway). What I don't want is tea that tastes like koolaid... and I think this blend tastes very light and natural, not artificial and cloying.

But again, these are my own preferences, and each person has to find their own way on this tea journey.

Hope this helps,

Sarah

[Chip]

OK, I added 2 poll options per our discussion.

[chrl42]

Flavored Oolongs come to my mind as Feng Huang Dan Cong. I find it OK but not like em too much.

I think they are talking about oolongs with added flavors, rather than just flavor created by the processing of the tea. Dan Cong shouldn't (properly) have any added flavor.

Originally Dan Cong doesn't mean to be scented but most of Dan Congs on the market are scented.

At Maliandao Dan Cong has Yuan Xiang (original scent, tastes like Wuyi) and other Xiangs are artificially scented ones.

I know my comment could give lots of doubt and conflict since their manufactering method is under guidance so I have no back-up with data. But this is story heard from some sellers selling Dan Cong.

[Janine]

sometimes I want an osmanthus oolong actually because osmanthus has medicinal benefits... same reason I might add roses to my tea. Or even jasmine blossoms. But I don't want anything with oils added, natural or not.

[hop_goblin]

The only reason one should flavor tea is only if it is crappy!

[Oni]

A high quality oolong cannot be flavoured, it has great flavour without adding something to it, and adding to such a tea would ruin its natural flavour. The chinese traditionally flavour green tea with jasmine petals, that is natural flavouring, but those that are flavoured with artificial jasmine essence are bad. After you try a great TGY that tastes like very mild fruit acid, you might understand that this miraculous plant is capable of delivering such a wida array of flavour that flavouring it becomes absolutely useless. Flavouring teas can only be accepted at the plantation by planting fruit trees near the tea trees, the tea takes up fruity aroma.

[Herb_Master]

Originally Dan Cong doesn't mean to be scented but most of Dan Congs on the market are scented.

At Maliandao Dan Cong has Yuan Xiang (original scent, tastes like Wuyi) and other Xiangs are artificially scented ones.

I know my comment could give lots of doubt and conflict since their manufactering method is under guidance so I have no back-up with data. But this is story heard from some sellers selling Dan Cong.

I find this statement hard to believe, so many good books and reputable bloggers do Believe that from the original Shui Xian cultivars that created the original famous Song Dynasty reputation for Fenghuang Dan Cong propogation was originally by seed.

Seeds tend to produce children with some differences from the parent (sometimes the difference is minimal, sometimes there is a relatively great difference)

The new strains of bush that showed sufficient difference were given new names and christened for their suggestion of differing fragrance, not that the bush or finished tea had actually come into contact with flowers of the suggested fragrance.

Nowadays propogation is usually by layering or from cuttings and these will usually result in near identical clones of the parent hence the number of individual bushes of each different Fragrance type strains have themselves been enabled to multiply and become a varietal in their own right, making themselves available for a wider market.

Not all Fenghuang Dancong varietals are christened after a Fragrance - if the factor distinguishing this strain is not redolent of a known fragrance it may be named after some geographical feature where the new Strain was found (e.g. "City Walls") or some historical incidence that led to it's discovery, hence the closest to the supposed original are often called "Song Dynasty".

The obvious ones for added scenting would be those with regularly used scenting flowers .!
Hence, unless you know more about a tea Osmanthus DanCong and Jasmine DanCong may well have added fragrance.

But as Guangdong has 3 grades of Oolong and DanCong is the highest - it is already in a position to attract a premium price without adding a scent, I would suggest that the 2 lower grades of Guangdong Oolong are more likely to have scent added.

[xuancheng]

Flavored Oolongs come to my mind as Feng Huang Dan Cong. I find it OK but not like em too much.

I think they are talking about oolongs with added flavors, rather than just flavor created by the processing of the tea. Dan Cong shouldn't (properly) have any added flavor.

Originally Dan Cong doesn't mean to be scented but most of Dan Congs on the market are scented.

At Maliandao Dan Cong has Yuan Xiang (original scent, tastes like Wuyi) and other Xiangs are artificially scented ones.

I know my comment could give lots of doubt and conflict since their manufactering method is under guidance so I have no back-up with data. But this is story heard from some sellers selling Dan Cong.

Yuanxiang is not a proper dancong name. The sellers are probably selling it under this name because they have sub-par dancong, and want to steer you away from other, more fragrant dancong by bad mouthing it.

There are lots of Dancong aromas and flavours, different aromatic compounds are released and others are destroyed during the rolling or 揉捻 step of processing. Lighter rolling will release certain aromatic compounds, while heavier rolling will destroy those released by lighter rolling and release slightly different ones.

[chrl42]

Thanks so much for your kind words and insights.

Not that I've tasted many types of DC. At Maliandao, it seems Guangdong Oolong and Taiwanese Oolong seem to be rather 'rare' to find comparing to TGY and Wuyi.

Maybe that's because Maliandao is a ground for commercialism and history is not farily old (mere a decade or so). But lots of money seem to put into this Beijing market and is ever-expanding than any other tea market in China.


To herb master, maybe I'd need to try out more of varieties including Songzhong but most of DC I got were Guihua, Milan etc that tasted like scented Oolong than any other.

To Xuancheng, I dunno what they meant by yuanxiang but it just tasted like a plain Shui Xian maybe I can ask them about it next time I see them.

[Herb_Master]

Thanks so much for your kind words and insights.

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but it just tasted like a plain Shui Xian maybe I can ask them about it next time I see them.

I believe the original Fenghuang Song specimens were imported from Wuyi Shan (they had been imported to Wuyi from the Dahu Prefecture in west central Fujian)

Once planted in Guangdong these were often replanted from seed , additionally seeds from these trees often freely seeded leading to surprises.

Whether planted intentionally or by the bounty of nature the majority of tea bushes used in Fenghuang are descendents of Shui Xian so it is not surprising that some of them strongly resemble Shui Xian itself.

[gingkoseto]

Thanks so much for your kind words and insights.

............
............
but it just tasted like a plain Shui Xian maybe I can ask them about it next time I see them.

I believe the original Fenghuang Song specimens were imported from Wuyi Shan (they had been imported to Wuyi from the Dahu Prefecture in west central Fujian)

Once planted in Guangdong these were often replanted from seed , additionally seeds from these trees often freely seeded leading to surprises.

Whether planted intentionally or by the bounty of nature the majority of tea bushes used in Fenghuang are descendents of Shui Xian so it is not surprising that some of them strongly resemble Shui Xian itself.

Yeah, all of them are shui xian. Traditionally there are 3 categories of feng huang shui xian, (from best to the plain), feng huang dan cong (best quality from single bush), feng huang lan cai (I don't know what lan cai mean ) and feng huang shui xian (same name as the general name of all 3 categories). Nowadays many vendor call their feng huang shui xian "dan cong", because it sounds premium. There are no commercial regulations what people may call their products. So nowadays many plain shui xian are sold under the name and price of dan cong. The "can cong" I had, I am not really sure if it is from single bush.

The third category of feng huang shui xian, has been an inexpensive tea and served in Cantonese restaurants commonly.

[Herb_Master]

Yeah, all of them are shui xian. Traditionally there are 3 categories of feng huang shui xian, (from best to the plain), feng huang dan cong (best quality from single bush), feng huang lan cai (I don't know what lan cai mean ) and feng huang shui xian (same name as the general name of all 3 categories). Nowadays many vendor call their feng huang shui xian "dan cong", because it sounds premium. There are no commercial regulations what people may call their products. So nowadays many plain shui xian are sold under the name and price of dan cong. The "can cong" I had, I am not really sure if it is from single bush.

The third category of feng huang shui xian, has been an inexpensive tea and served in Cantonese restaurants commonly.

Yes I came across these 3 grades in researching for my earlier post http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?t=6955

I had half a mind to search for some Lang Cai and some plain old Guangdong Shui Xian but then had a reality check - I have so many unopened quality Oolongs it would be foolish to intentionally purchase lower grade tea.

About the single bush misnomer or not - I believe it is now more or less accepted practice that it can include leaf from different bushes as long as they are all identical clones.

Where the trees are in the same micro climate and a similar age with roots developed to the same extent through the subsoil and into the underlying minerals then I have no problem.

But if leaf from young trees from miles away and lower down the mountains is added to a small amount of leaf from a decent tree in the best location - then we are being cheated.

[xuancheng]

...I believe the original Fenghuang Song specimens were imported from Wuyi Shan (they had been imported to Wuyi from the Dahu Prefecture in west central Fujian)...

Could you cite a source for this? There are also sources which say Fenghuang mountain had their own wild tea trees which were cultivated by the locals, and these are the ones which became the raw material for real Dancong.
my source for this is 凤凰单枞 from the publisher's series 中国名茶丛书ISBN7109108759

I have heard that the 崇安县志 says Fenghuang's tea plants were all imported from Wuyi, but have not read it myself.