The Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong is a famous Oolong traditionally produced on the Huang Shan or “Phoenix Mountains” in the north of Guangdong. Besides saying these mountains have highs between the 1100 and the 1300 meters we have to clear up all the terms about these teas. The term Dan Cong stands for “single bush” and tells us the peculiarity of this tea. In fact this noun makes us aware of the fact that all the harvest leaves in one batch comes from a single trunk and there are no mixture between the plants of a same field. This selection in the picking process prized the tea plants variations on these mountains and preserves the botanical differences which provides teas with so many different flavors despite they come from the same mountains. The Mi Lan Xiang, which can be translate as “honey-orchid fragrance”, is one of these varieties and its name can already tell us which flavors we could find in the liquor. The leaves have a quite sustained floral smell plus some backed smells because of the roasting phase during the production of this tea. In the liquor the roasted feature evolves in dried fruit flavors which combine well their selves with the floral aroma on the palate and the sweet aftertaste.
Place of origin
Phoenix Mountain, Chao Zhou Village, Guangdong, China.
Production
After the harvest the leaves wither under the sunlight for a period of time between the 10 and 20 minutes before going on bamboo trays indoor. Here it’s where the oxidation process begin thanks to the tea master who rolled the tea leaves on the trays. When the leaves have the desire oxidation level (generally for Dan Con it is between the 50% and 80%) the leaves go into an oven heated up by coal where the enzymes related to the oxidation process are deactivated. After this phase the leaves are mechanical rolled in their final form before going into a series of roasting period where the product is dried a bit more and consolidate its flavors.
Ingredients: Oolong tea
Preparation
We invite you to brew this tea in the traditional Chinese style (gong fu cha) in order to extract more from your leaves. Following this preparation you could use 6 grams of leaves (about 4 teaspoons) in a gaiwan of 100 ml so you can obtains more infusions with different flavors. After a brief rinse of the leaves in a 95°C water you can go with a first infusion of 10 seconds and, after that, at the same water temperature, you can do multiple infusion adding 10 seconds every steeping time (10 – 20 – 30 …).
These leaves could be steep about 7 times. To prepare the tea in the western style we suggest 3 grams of leaves (about 2 teaspoons) in a 150 ml cup with 95°C water for a steeping time of one minute and an half.
The tea could be filtered if you want to avoid some little piece of the leaves during the tasting time and also the steeping time we recommend here could be modify on your personal preferences. If you want to exalt the sweetness of this tea you could try to make it rest in your cup for about a minute before drinking it.
Storage: we recommend to store the tea in a dry and cool place avoiding the direct sun light on the leaves.