Funalliance's dancongs

[Komsip]

Has anyone here bought the dancongs from Funalliance? I am new to Dancong and only had a Milan Xiang from a Swedish tea store before, a very powerful tea with a lot of honey aroma and slightly bitter but not in a bad way.
I had the idea that these teas were supposed to have a very strong aroma, but only one of the three dancongs I ordered had any real strong taste, the others were weak, one so weak I could barely notice any flavor at all.
The ones I bought were: Yulan Lone Bush, Snow Flake Lone Bush, and Big Black Leaf Lone Bush. Luckily the Yulan was the one i bought twice as much of as the others because it was the one with plenty of aroma.
The Snow Flake had a nice aroma too but very weak. The Big Black Leaf however tasted absolutely nothing!
Now my main reason for buying at Funalliance was the teaware which I got a really nice and good quality Yixing, tea tools, cups and a faircup, so it's not very upsetting to me, and the prices for the teas were very low anyway.
But tonight I roasted some of the Big Black Leaf in a pan on very low heat. I put a thermometer on it but didn't measure very well because of the flat surface, but I'm guessing 100-130°C, I did this for about 20 minutes, and at least now it tastes something, it's still weak but now has a flavor. I think I'll do the same with the Snow Flake and maybe it'll benefit even more, having more of an aroma to start from.
Has anyone else had this experience, or did I maybe get a bad batch?
Funalliance is really great for it's prices for someone who is a little new and unsure like me, and with a small budget (bio-chem student who doesn't have a job during terms), but I don't think I'll be buying from there again, except maybe some teapot if I find an interesting one. Anyway the teapot was real nice and even was traceable to a maker.

But for someone who bought teas that were weak like this, roasting is really something I can recommend, even though it's hard without proper tools, but it really brought out the flavors. I've done it once before when I bought a Tie Guan Yin that I later realized was much too green and floral for my taste.

[Tead Off]

My experience with their Dancongs is not positive. I found them to be a waste of time and money, although they are cheap.

[Oni]

Compared to real Dancong it is not worth mentioning, but very good for starters, generally Teasprings DC`s are not better either, DC is either cheap, that is for the masses, for teahouses, or it is like Imen`s or Jingteashop`s, or Houde`s DC, expencieve but authentic, Dancong has no middle quality category, it is either very expenceive and very good or cheap and not so good. But Funalliance is a very good vendor for starters, try TGY from them it is the best I ever had.

[mr. Less]

yes i really liked the tky too, i ordered it because you were so positive about it ,Oni, its a nice tea

now i also ordered some dc from them, i ordered some milan and some yulan dc

i had dc from imen and jingteashop before, so i know what the good stuff taste like.
i now hope i wont get too dissapointed with these dc's
Do they get bitter quick, or is it the taste that sets them apart from the real good ones?
i am curious to compare the funalliance milan dancong with the jing teashop dancong(which was great)

[Tead Off]

yes i really liked the tky too, i ordered it because you were so positive about it ,Oni, its a nice tea

now i also ordered some dc from them, i ordered some milan and some yulan dc

i had dc from imen and jingteashop before, so i know what the good stuff taste like.
i now hope i wont get too dissapointed with these dc's
Do they get bitter quick, or is it the taste that sets them apart from the real good ones?
i am curious to compare the funalliance milan dancong with the jing teashop dancong(which was great)

unfortunately, they are not comparable. Not in any way whatsoever. You might as well drink tea in teabags. This is some of the worst loose teas I've ever had.

[Oni]

This is why Dancong is such a rare treat, while Da Hong Pao can be good at lower grades, and it has middle grade too, Dancong has no middle grade, but best possible and commercial, I had no tea from teahabitat, but as I read that is another experience. Some producers use chemicals to enhance the aroma of their so called Dancong`s, even some teashops argue about the existance of the real thing just to promote their inferior tea.

[tenuki]

my 2 cents:

I recently did a 'bake off' between several dan cong vendors and surprisingly the ebay store - Dragon Tea House came out on top and was also the clear value as there were way more expensive DCs in the mix (Hou De, Jing, Tea Habitat, etc). There was also a clearly 'perfume added' one from Seven Cups that was just horribly and scary, which was very surprising even considering the low price - their teas are usually very reasonable and good quality. Just goes to show how hard it is to get a good one. Fun Alliance didn't have a representative in this test, but I can second that they are reasonable quality for the very low price, ie very low quality. lol.

I realize this will be a controversial position, but I don't think most people would benefit from Tea Habitat's DCs, they are generally very very finicky to brew, sensitive to water, heating, etc - hard to get 'wonderful' IMO but on the up side wonderful is always there to be found. Sadly I think that might also be the only source of 'real' DC quality in the US.

[cupioneer]

my 2 cents:

There was also a clearly 'perfume added' one from Seven Cups that was just horribly and scary, which was very surprising even considering the low price - their teas are usually very reasonable and good quality.

Which one, if you don't mind sharing?

[Komsip]

Yes I agree that Funalliance is very good for a starter, the price is so low that it isn't expected to be high grade.
And the Yulan Xiang and Snow Flake types were actually nice tasting, the snow flake was pretty weak though, on the good side at least that shows there's no perfume or anything such on it. I would like to try some high grade dancong like from Imen some time, but I thought it was better to start off exploring cheaper variants first. I must say Funalliance is a real good place to start out for exploring the world of Chinese tea if you don't want to empty your pockets right away. Also the delivery is very fast (6 days from Hong Kong to the middle of nowhere in Swedish forest).

Mostly it's the Big Black Leaf Lone Bush Tea (Da wu ye dan cong cha 大乌叶单丛茶) that was strange because it didn't really taste anything at all (really nothing), like it has been stored too long without being properly sealed.

[gingkoseto]

Even though I didn't have any dancong from seven cups, I tend to trust they don't sell perfumed tea. Not only because of their good reputation, but also because I don't see how perfuming can help the vendor gain any profit. Inexpensive dancong (and other inexpensive oolong) can have much more lovely fragrance than artificial scent. A $5 worth tea, after being perfumed, will not taste like $10 worth, and very likely will taste like worse than $5 worth. A big tea dealer in China once said confidently that perfume oolong nowadays is rare in market because it doesn't taste good and the fraudulence doesn't bring profit. I don't think I've ever had any perfumed oolong, unless some tea perfume was so good and made me love it without knowing it

[tenuki]

Even though I didn't have any dancong from seven cups, I tend to trust they don't sell perfumed tea.

Well, I order from the all the time and tend to trust them too. My observation was simply that - all indications was that it was flavored.

[Maitre_Tea]

Even though I didn't have any dancong from seven cups, I tend to trust they don't sell perfumed tea.

Well, I order from the all the time and tend to trust them too. My observation was simply that - all indications was that it was flavored.

I read somewhere, I think on Imen's blog about a method to see if a tea has been scented: after pouring a tea into a cup you put a piece of non-scented tissue paper over it for like a few seconds, and if there's a scent on the tissue paper...then the scent is added/artificial, and not an "inherent" part of the tea.

[Ritva]

Komsip, how did you brew the Funalliance Dan Congs? DCs have a wide variety of taste profiles and aromas. Some are more powerful like Milan DCs with their peachy flavour and some are more subtle. If you have subtle DC and you use yixing that is not made of real zhuni or modern good-quality zhuni it is possible that you lose those subtle flavours and aromas and end up with tasteless tea. I would recommend trying a porcelain gaiwan if you haven't already done that. If your DC doesn't have taste when brewed in porcelain gaiwan then you can be sure it's the tea and not the yixing. Same applies to high mountain oolongs and green TGY: floral nuances are easily lost if one doesn't use porcelain or good (and very often this means expensive) zhuni pot. I know it from experience

[Cha Nacho]

Interesting thread! I actually order a shipment of 5 Fun alliance dancongs about a week ago... Just my two cents but I have been really happy with everything from funalliance, this is my 3rd order. Like others have said the TGY is really nice and incredibly cheap compared to others of similar quality, the Long Jing is pretty good too.

As for the Dan Congs, I hope they won't be as bad as some have said. I currently have the snow flake and to be honest I really like it. I brew it by Gaiwan with about 5 grams of leaf. I like my tea strong and this comes out nice, tasty and aromatic, and good for 6+ brews. Have also tried the honey orchid in a sample and was quite flavourful as well. Of course I don't deny that they are not as good as more expensive DCs, and having not tried a really top notch variety, maybe my ignorance is bliss! Still, it was a run-of-the-mill DC that got me hooked on oolong about 7 years ago.

I'll keep my fingers crossed!

[mr. Less]

today i recieved my dc's from funalliance, and i tried out the yulan dc
tried it in a 100ml gaiwan, four grams,basically pretty much the same parameters imen suggests

but i did not like it , very little flavour , very little aroma, the taste was getting sharp as well after a few infusions

too bad , because i was hoping to have a decent every day dc, but this just wasnt good enough

i still have to try the milan dc, hope this one is better, then i will maybe play around with the parameters, but my hopes arent very high at the moment