Setting the record straight about Mei Leaf

 

The subject of this vendor won't end.  The back-story should be familiar:  Mei Leaf is either regarded positively, as a good source of tea and informational videos, with a personable owner (Don Mei), or else negatively, as a vendor prone to exaggeration, overcharging, PR mis-steps, or even lying and making false product claims.  Some people see Don Mei as annoying instead, as a tea vendor version of a used car salesman.  Can both perspectives be right?  Probably, in this case, but I do settle more on the second myself.

I've written about Mei Leaf before, reviewing their teas, and speaking about this controversy, and about published product details that look a little off.  Really all this takes some unpacking.  In general I'm not the person to tell people who not to buy tea from; I have no interest in that.  The problem comes in that I do discuss tea issues in a variety of places, and informing people of options also overlaps with conveying negative impressions of some of those.  Let's start with an example that's not Mei Leaf, and unpack the Don Mei controversies one by one after that.  

Some of all this maps onto either mentioning, or else not telling people, that Harney and Sons is a limited range option in beginner tea groups.  It's probably not bad as the actual tea products go; probably as good as tea that comes in tins tends to get, selling at a good value.  But moving past cinnamon spice flavored versions and mass-produced conventional types is a standard step people take in tea exploration, or else don't, if they never really dig deeper and branch out.

First, for further reading in this post I said a bit about a tea issue, obvious contradictions in that product listing (not directly related to the roasting sheng issue, but indirectly related).  And I've reviewed a tea from Mei Leaf here, a long time ago, 5 years ago to be specific, back when the brand was named China Life.  I went to a tasting where a number of their teas were served in February of 2017, 4 years ago, and I'm not sure if the re-branding had went through then or not, but at a guess it already had then.  

It doesn't matter, to me; changing a company name doesn't wipe the slate clean, related to then selling different things or using a different approach.  Obviously sourcing could have improved since then (it really should have), and pricing strategy could have changed (although it probably didn't), so let's start there.

1. Sourcing, quality level, and pricing

The typical discussion claims aren't that Mei Leaf tea is bad.  The often expressed theme is that their tea is overpriced for as good as it is.  There's an easy answer to that, but it's a little too easy:  teas sold out of physical shops are almost always higher in cost, because you pay extra overhead for the site rental, staffing, related costs, etc.  I'm open to paying a bit more in physical shops from time to time, to support all that, and keep shops open as a valuable option.  Luckily it doesn't work out that way related to Bangkok Chinatown shops, because overhead there is so low, but that's a tangent I won't address further here.

To me a primarily online business cannot use that as justification for describing teas as better than they really are, or selling well outside a standard price range.  But then there is no standard price range, to some extent; vendors can charge whatever they want for tea.  Vendors can state how good they think a tea is but that's always vague, and every tea is always described as good tea, in one form or another.  Pricing tends to imply a quality level, but it's not a direct connection.

Let's look at an example of how one particular tea type stacks up related to this, to get a feel for how well what I'm claiming really works (which is partly based on echoing a hearsay claim, and partly on making that same claim based on personal experience).  I picked a standard, well-known tea type to compare across different vendor sources, a type of Dan Cong (Chaozhou, Guangdong origin oolong).  This wasn't an example cherry-picked to show this difference, but instead one that should be easy to find versions of elsewhere, since no single tea type has been the subject of as much hype as this one:

Mei Leaf Duck Shit (Ya Shi) Dan Cong oolong, 1.14 cents per gram (30 gram quantity)

Wuyi Origin Ya Shi / Duck Shit Dan Cong, 48 cents a gram (25 gram quantity)

Tea Drunk (NYC shop) Ya Shi / Duck Shit Dan Cong, $2.25 / gram (28 gram quantity)**

Seven Cups (online shop) Yu Lan Xiang Dan Cong, 56 cents per gram (per 50 g; the most expensive Dan Cong they currently list, with no Ya Shi in stock now)

Yunnan Sourcing King of Duck Shit Dan Cong, 55 cents per gram (per 10 grams)

**Note:  this Tea Drunk citation was an error in the first published version, mixing up a 7 gram and 28 gram pricing for the calculation.  $2.25 is getting up there for tea pricing, but for the highest physical shop overhead cost range and most expensive tea type it might be a more reasonable value than it seems in comparison.  Really tea pricing depends on quality, and it's not as if there is any clear ceiling on those levels (quality or market price), as if $3-4 per gram for an unusual type of rare and high-demand product couldn't possibly make sense.

some Wuyi Origin already brewed Ya Shi / duck shit leaves

See a pattern?  The "two" physical shop locations are priced higher (with an error in the original write-up related to one), and the rest around 50 cents a gram.  The Seven Cups example isn't actually Ya Shi, but since they sold a half dozen types of currently listed Dan Cong, and that was the most expensive example, it probably works to assume their Ya Shi, when back in stock, would be around that range.  If it was really 10-20% higher that doesn't change the story being told here.

But what about quality level?  That's really what determines value in relation to price for any tea.  Is it possible that Mei Leaf sells the best Ya Shi version of these five vendors?  Technically yes, but in practice no, not really.  

Anything is possible, but Wuyi Origin is an incredibly well regarded, award winning direct from China vendor (don't take my word for that; do a search in any tea forum or group of that vendor name and confirm it yourself).  Seven Cups is a very well regarded online US site; the owner of that business played a formative role in developing current specialty tea awareness and culture to what it is now.  

Tea Drunk I'm a little less comfortable making claims about. That shop name comes up, as one of the best positioned shops in NYC, but someone would have to try the tea versions to get any decent input.  Nicole Wilson of Tea for Me Please says that their teas are good; that means something to me (even mentioning this type in that post).  Yunnan Sourcing probably isn't buying Dan Cong of the same quality level as Wuyi Origin and Seven Cups (which Wuyi Origin is making, not buying), but again tasting the teas would be better input than anyone's guesses.  It's standing in here as an extra comparison anyway, as a standard online vendor example.

Let me be clear on part of this context:  hearsay is valid input; it just has limits.  A longstanding tea acquaintance who lived in London passed on his evaluation that Mei Leaf teas aren't bad, but also not good, and definitely not worth what they cost.  That kind of input needs to be evaluated in relation to the source, and I trust that guy's opinion about as much as any others.  He said that Post Card Teas (a physical shop there) are also a bit pricey, but at least better in quality level.  

I've tried more than a half dozen versions of Mei Leaf teas myself, some just before the roughly 4 year back re-branding, and that really described all of them; good but not great, and not a good value.  To be clear if I don't like a tea I typically won't review it, so everything appearing in this blog doesn't represent everything I've tried.  

That reminds me to look up the first tea I ever tried from China Life (re-branded as Mei Leaf), a Dian Hong (Yunnan black) version, to check on cost and value for that buds based tea, reviewed in 2016, so 5 years ago.  I didn't mention value then; as is common for most bloggers I will only do so when a tea seems to be a great value, or if there is a concern that one is outside a standard pricing range on the high side.  I wouldn't have as easily evaluated value 5 years ago, especially for a less common tea type.  I looked up that pricing on the Wayback Machine internet page history:  it was selling for 14.50 British pounds for 30 grams, or equivalent to about 65 cents per gram converted today.  That's a good bit for a black tea, even a buds based version, but 5 years ago that would've been sky high pricing.  Over time people have acclimated to approaching $1/gram for rarer, higher demand versions, but it wasn't always like that.

This dated pricing issue--all these personal experience references from 4 years back or older--brings up an obvious problem:  no one who has spent years figuring out sourcing preferences and has noticed that Mei Leaf's pricing runs high, per quality of tea, or just in general, really, is going to have sampled a lot of their prior Spring lineup to keep on confirming that.  Unless they just figured this out.  They would move on, source-wise.  Let's check one more tea type that is familiar to me, Jing Mai sheng pu'er, one of the main origin regions, known for approachable character and somewhat moderate cost versions.

2. Second tea type comparison, Jing Mai origin sheng pu'er

A bit of a problem, since Mei Leaf only lists a blended version, but in a sense that should be instructive.

Paradise Snapper, He Kai & Jing Mai Sheng Gushu Spring 2020 (47.5 cents per gram, $95 for a 200 gram cake)

One of the most crisp, physical and zesty PuErh teas, made from a blend of He Kai and Jing Mai Gushu trees (estimated 300-400 years).

We wanted to create a tea which was bright, bracing, physical and delicious. Jing Mai is well known for its bright, high and zesty aromatics and we love this area for this character. This year we wanted to add a more adult edge to this lighter tea region by blending with another of our favourite regions - He Kai.

He Kai is in the West of Xishuangbanna and has a resinous, creamy and mineral character. Blended with the Jing Mai, the result is a very unique and powerful tea. The orange, apples and sweet flowers of Jing Mai combine with the mastic cream and rocky quench of He Kai to make a tea which is one of the most engaging teas.

Bright, zesty, crisp and quenching with plenty of physical bite and a deep Hui Gan sweetness. A wild and untamed tea with potent effects.

Who knows about the colorful description part; we can really set that aside.  Both teas are estimated to originate from 300 to 400 year old tea trees; that's dubious.  It's just not possible to date tree ages like that, for reasons that are explained in that video.  Good gushu versions of sheng are typically sold for around $1/gram, and I've never heard of a gushu version being used in a blend; that just doesn't happen, typically.  Blending is usually used for moderate quality material, to offset flaws in multiple versions, and to create something better than more than one limited-appeal input.

I've recently reviewed Jing Mai versions selling for around $30 (kind of low) and $70-some per 357 gram cake, and bought one sold for closer to $90 last year, but this "gushu" issue throws that off.  I just doubt that it is that.  Let's check in with a standard, known, reasonably well-regarded source on what their high-end Jing Mai is selling for, and in what form, from Crimson Lotus, a main US vendor:

Elemental Puerh - 2020 Jingmai Old Tree Sheng Puerh Tea Dragon Balls $ 16.99 (6 8-gram dragonballs, so 48 grams of tea, selling at 35 cents a gram, or $126 for a standard sized cake).

To start, I wouldn't buy dragonballs.  Those never brew well, related to the first several rounds brewing the outside layer while the middle unfurls.  This is described as from "old tree material" but that's it; I would assume that means "gushu," in excess of 100 years, or however one uses a timeframe cut-off for that term, but not necessarily 300 to 400 years old plants.  That comparison really didn't help a lot, but it is limited input, an indirect sort of baseline.

A reasonably well-regarded Jing Mai based vendor, Farmerleaf, tends to sell "wild arbor" presented teas from Jing Mai in the $80-100 per cake range, with gushu material selling for that more standard $1/gram range.  Here's an example of that, maybe a great-value tea for selling for $58 per 100 grams (so 58 cents per gram):

Spring 2020 Jingmai Ai Ban, $58 USD (100 gram pouch)

Every Spring season, we're busy making tea in Jingmai Mountain. We pressed most of our ancient garden productions into the Jingmai Gulan cake. We also keep a few batches from our favorite gardens in loose leaf form.

Ai Ban is located on the South-Eastern slope of Da Ping Zhang, it is cultivated by one of our uncles and grows leaves of consistently high quality.

This tea has an amazing mouthfeel, a mix of minerality and flowery freshness that makes it distinct from other tea gardens in Jingmai. On top of this special mouthfeel, you'll get a deep and lingering sweetness in the throat and a complex fragrance.

That "Gulan" cake they just mentioned had listed for $268 for 357 grams; not quite $1/gram but approaching that, 75 cents instead.

So what should we make of a blended, well-known source area cake, with old plant material selling for 50 cents a gram?  It's open to interpretation.  It sounds fishy to me, related to this needing to be a high-quality blend versus a mix that compensates for flaws, but if someone wanted to believe it is "real" they could.  And that is really the gist of the last blog post I wrote that talked about Mei Leaf; if someone is looking to accept what any given vendor says they don't need a lot of evidence to just go ahead and like a tea, maybe even especially an expensive one.

About blending, I don't mean to imply that it's an invalid practice, or that results can't be spectacular, with great material used as input.  That's seemingly the theory behind Farmerleaf mixing sources for that Gulan cake, and Crimson Lotus specializes in making sheng versions based around this principle, as White2Tea does, and Kuura (an Australian source); lots of vendors.  To me it's not unrelated to how very good Cabernet can be sold on its own or else blended as a Bordeaux style blend, not necessarily considered a lesser wine for being mixed with other grape type inputs, or necessarily selling for less.  In the world of tea a 50 cent per gram blended sheng is unconventional, but it's not as if it couldn't possibly make sense. 

Of all these Jing Mai versions I've discussed (that I've tried) this second one listed from Tea Mania, a 2016 tea without the age shown, might be the best (per my judgment, which is a bit subjective).  But then different versions have different strengths, and are at different places in an aging cycle, making it harder to judge a favorite.  It was a great value at $65 per 357 gram cake, reviewed here along with a Moychay version comparing the two.  But then I liked the freshness related to being newer in the Moychay version, and the Tea Mania version has settled and aged really well since that tasting.  I think the two were just made in different styles.

3. Exaggerated tea descriptions

I don't care about that part.  Description is a subjective process, and obviously Don has a good imagination, and continuing on and on with tea description is up to him.  Maybe it's even accurate.  In general vendors, bloggers, and people just discussing tea tend to only list a few main aspects of a version, maybe up to a half dozen, often including some feel and aftertaste coverage, so it's atypical.  

You can't really criticize the elaborate "cha qi / feel" descriptions, unless you are very sensitive to such things yourself, and have tried the teas, so who knows about that part too.  I suppose it's all a bit much.

4. Scandals, obvious lies

I really want to include this part in order to mostly set it aside.  One of the most recent scandals related to Mei Leaf related to them including Native American image themed stickers along with products, which of course caused outrage.  In a sense that's not even about tea.

An earlier claim that tea came from 1600 year old tea plants was the highest profile claim problem.  The oldest documented tea plants are right around that age, so to say that a moderate cost produced tea is from essentially the oldest tea plants in existence reflects a clear lack of awareness of that background.  Maybe the source was over 100 year old plants (gushu), and maybe it wasn't, but anyone making 1000+ year old tea plant claims is just pushing fictional story lines to an absurd degree, most likely just repeating what some farmer told them, which never made sense originally.

Then almost every sheng pu'er Mei Leaf sells is gushu (old plant sourced), even if it's blended or roasted, or shu.  Some matches a price that might make sense, and some is obviously too low, because source area wholesale costs do settle to known levels.  The general price levels are high enough to cover some relatively exaggerated claims (like selling Ya Shi for $1.14 per gram; if it was great tea that would be high enough, but not unfair), but once the claims become outrageous enough the $1 a gram range no longer applies, for example trying to say a Spring LBZ is selling for that (which I don't think Mei Leaf would do, but other somewhat related examples do come up).

The roasted sheng I mentioned in the earlier post works as an example: supposedly that starting point material was 500 year old Lao Man E plant source sheng, which they were selling for 80 cents a gram, which they then roasted on a whim.  The source and pricing claim is a bit of a stretch (kind of absurd to the point of impossible), but then using a roasting step for a tea like that makes just as little sense.  It's conceivable that it was flawed tea, explaining the unlikely rare source origin and for-type moderate cost, and roasting it "saved" it, but that's not much of a practical story line that makes sense of an odd mix of ideas.

I don't see the obvious scandal issues as problematic as these other details not adding up.  If you watch Don's videos you can spot obvious mistakes or errors, if you know what you are looking for, and in essentially all cases those are sales points for his own teas. This is a bigger problem, that small omissions or bigger errors point towards details not always being right.

5. Taking advantage of tea "newbies"

This bothers me.  People claim that "I've learned a lot from Don's videos," and I agree that well over 95% of the content is completely accurate, maybe 99% of it.  He has done a lot for tea awareness.  Then he also exaggerates tea descriptions, includes errors obvious enough to spot in some product descriptions, and surely includes many errors that you can't easily identify in others (although some you can spot, if you know the content as well as he does). Would it matter if most sheng he sells is really from the next village or region over, instead of as described, or from younger plants instead of older ones?  Sort of.  Maybe not, in a different sense.  

It makes sense to use vendors that you think you can trust to help identify those issues for yourself as you learn, and if a vendor is including obviously false claims then they are also probably including harder to identify ones.

Setting that aside, the value issue alone makes Mei Leaf a bad source of tea.  At a guess his Ya Shi version really probably is on par with Yunnan Sourcing's (it's probably harder for a business based out of Yunnan to source great Chaozhou origin tea), and not as high in quality as the other three sources I listed.  Two of those three sell tea that's probably better for around half as much.  At best the quality level is equivalent, but I doubt that's true, given the reputation of at least two of those vendors.  This is back to where you can benefit from following the input of others who have been through this vendor review process long before you ever even started.

One problem with that approach is that if you ask around in places where most people are new to tea, like in this Reddit question, you won't be drawing on that kind of experience.  People on the newer side of the experience curve are active there, in general, with notable exceptions in a more experienced core group there.

Someone could raise the argument that all this isn't fair to Don, that if he's going through a learning curve himself then his business practices and tea quality level from 4 to 5 years ago don't apply to what he's doing today.  Maybe.  That still requires that someone accept that he's selling tea versions that are so much better than the best regarded US sources that they are worth twice as much, per that one Ya Shi oolong example.  Or it shifts emphasis to wanting to support Don, to pay extra to help him, for producing good online content (let's say), like a tea vendor Patreon sort of theme.  I follow that line of reasoning myself, in supporting local shops, I just see Mei Leaf's main business as online sales.

To be clear I have nothing against Don personally.  He runs a business, he's trying to make a profit, and that's valid.  As I see it my role of trying to support tea awareness--which he also does--directly contradicts his apparent business practices, which as I interpret it relates to charging higher than normal market rates for tea.  Again, it's possible, just seemingly unlikely, that Mei Leaf is selling the best quality tea available on the Western market, and that pricing practice is justified.  More likely it's that physical shops tend to charge more to cover overhead, and they hold to that.

Wuyi Origin Ya Shi / "duck shit" Dan Cong oolong

 

This will probably be exactly what I expect, since their teas tend to always be great.  Great is all relative; I mean crowded towards the high quality end of the scale, for both Dan Cong and Wuyi Yancha.  A very exceptional Dian Hong (Yunnan black), Darjeeling, or Nepal white tea can be very good, but the quality, intensity, flavor range, complex feel, sophisticated form, and even the simplicity, in one sense, can all be on another level for teas like those oolongs.  In comparison other very good teas bang on a few positive notes, while better versions of these types really come together.

So no need for much build-up or further description.  Cindy, one owner, and part of two different tea making families, sent these teas for me to try, more so than to review.  Reviewing will repeat how great I thought every Ya Shi version I ever tried from them was, but maybe something slightly different will turn up, an interesting way the roast really integrates, or a particular intensity or subtlety.  

The teas do vary year to year, I'm just not dialed in enough to pick up very minor differences on that level.  There is always a case for another tea out there being better, so I'm not claiming that this is the peak for this type, but these teas would be better than most of what is sold as "a high quality level that never makes it out of China."  Don't take my word for that; type Wuyi Origin into a Facebook tea group search bar and see what others say.

I was recommending their teas in an online comment not so long ago and mentioned this might be a rare case of a tea being too good.  You don't want to start there, experiencing teas that close to as good as versions ever get.  It wouldn't be possible to fully appreciate the experience without some exposure, and it would limit exploration of higher quality range to follow.  That doesn't come up often, adding a conditional warning that in some cases teas may be too good to experience, under some circumstances.  If you start on more basic versions you can try progressively better teas for a few years, improving brewing technique as you go as well.  It would be madness to brew this tea Western style, for example.  It would still be good but that's crazy, deciding that you don't need to optimize results for this tea.

I'll add their website description (after review), and get right to making notes for now.  That product description (with the actual tea description at the end, after the type background):

Feature : In Fenghuang, the name of Dancong  tea varieties is dazzling, which makes everyone very puzzled.

There is also an interesting story about the origin of the name Yashixiang (duckshit)

The mother tree of "Duck Shit Fragrance" grows in Xiaping Kengtou Village, Fengxi District,  Chaozhou, at an altitude of 900 meters. Its age is 78 years. It belongs to Wei Chunshi, a tea farmer. Now it is managed by his eldest son.

According to the tea growers:

This famous Bush is ancestral. The original Bush was introduced from Wu Dong Mountain. It was planted in the "duck shit soil" (actually yellow loam soil, but containing mineral chalk) tea garden. 

People in the countryside commented on the tea's strong aroma and good flavor, and asked what was the name of the cultivar and what type of fragrance.

Tea growers are afraid of being stolen, so they call it "duck Shit fragrance".

However, some people have managed to obtain tea spikes for cutting and marrying.

As a result, the name "Duck Shit Xiang" was passed on, and tea seedlings were expanded in Fenghuang area.

The aroma of this tea is very special and impressive.

This tea shape is strong, compact, dark green, moist, fragrant after brewing, high-rise, soup green with yellow, mellow and strong taste, slightly sweet and bitter, lasting aftertaste, resistant to brewing.

The bottom of the leaf is dark green and thick. 

The taste of the tea thick and round, with long -lasting feedback. 

To me this tea is an absolute steal for selling for $38 per 100 gram.  There are surely plenty of $1 / gram versions of this type being sold that aren't even close to this quality level, and in a brick and mortar shop in a high rent area this tea would probably sell for $1.50-2 per gram.  To me the quality of this tea makes the average $80 sheng cake (357 grams, typically) seem like grocery store tea.  Like a cheap loose TGY tin version, I mean, not like Lipton or Twinings; that would be hyperbole.

Review:

First infusion:  fantastic, of course.  There is a characteristic flavor to Ya Shi that's a little hard to pin down.  To me it's just a complex floral flavor set, that comes across as simple, and probably supported by limited warm fruit range.  Breaking that down is the problem; specific flowers don't come to mind.  I tend to guess at floral range flavors sometimes but I'm really pointing towards a range, more than making direct associations.  I can't identify 20 or 30 specific floral tones by smell and tasting, and that's what it would take to do that mapping.  I don't know what flowers this tastes like.

The apparent simplicity and apparent complexity, at the same time, set up a cool contradiction.  It's floral, for sure, but then some sweetness and richness could be from fruit range, like a citrus-intensive dried mango, which are warmer in effect for the dried presentation.  I'll keep going with guesses and interpretation across infusions.

Second infusion:  warmth picks up a little.  Honey-like sweetness is present, a warm version of honey.  Mineral tone is limited.  Further roasting would draw out even more warmth, and caramel or toffee sweetness, but this balance seems quite positive, left unchanged in relation to the upper-medium roast level effect.  It's moderate in this, letting the natural positive nature of the tea shine through.

To look for flaws, this could be a little thicker in feel, or I suppose aftertaste could be longer.  I'm brewing it at moderate infusion strength, and bumping that just a little would ramp up both.  There is no astringency or any other negative range to brew around, so it's just a matter of preference related to optimum form of experience.  

Related to flavor a claim that this shares ground with peach wouldn't be wrong, I don't think, it's just not the most natural interpretation, to me.  The brightness, refined nature, and intensity are all really pleasant in this.  

I could imagine someone expecting a different style related to that level of roast, so a criticism would be most natural related to that, a style interpretation, related to other specific expectations.  For being in this type range it's quite pleasant.  Even though the feel could be a little thicker it has a creamy effect that's quite nice.  Even though the aftertaste could linger longer, or be stronger, that complex set of flavors is great, and the way a bit of floral, towards-lemon citrus, and subdued mineral tone trail off is great.

Third infusion:  I did let this brew a little longer, towards 20 seconds, and it is a lot more intense for that.  I finally ended up not pushing the dry leaf amount to what would fill up the gaiwan when wetted.  That's not completely an accident when I drink more than 9 out of every 10 teas proportioned in exactly that same way.  It's what I'm accustomed to, probably more so than what works best.

Mineral plays a larger role brewed slightly stronger, a bit of rock flavor.  Feel is cool like this; it's still smooth and creamy, but a trace of dryness along your tongue adds complexity to that part.  You seem to taste the mineral with the sides and back of your tongue, in a strange sense.  

To me the "characteristic astringency" people connect with Dan Cong is related more to lower quality Dan Cong.  I can see a bit of connection with that feel range and that type of effect but it's just not a part of the best versions in the same way.  Just breaking up these leaves a good bit would probably add to that effect; people might often be drinking the poorer quality sorted parts of batches, with more whole leaf going to other sales channels.  I suppose that could be part of the "quality level that never makes it out of China" effect.  Per my limited background knowledge take people are also buying Dan Cong from lower elevation sources, from younger conventional monoculture-grown plants, with output boosted through chemical use, and the teas just aren't processed as skillfully.

Fourth infusion:  a perfume-like effect picks up.  Better Wuyi Yancha often exhibits this too, a heavy floral tone that is reminiscent of perfume, with an aromatic part that also seems to match the solvent a bit too.  I don't mean this tastes something like acetone smells, nothing like that, but instead that it's an effect that often reminds me of cognac.  

Feel is actually transitioning round-to-round too; that's different.  It had been creamy but light, then brewing a round stronger drew out more structure, and this round is absolutely velvety, where two rounds ago it was more thick in feel like cream.  The flavors are just as complex but maybe more tightly integrated now, coming across as that one dominant flavor tone, which again is really a set.  I can't imagine anyone trying this tea and saying that they don't like Dan Cong.  My imagination has limits; maybe it could still happen.

Fifth infusion:  not so different than last time, but a lemony citrus supporting tone seems a little stronger.  For a tea this complex and subtle minor shifts in brewing time would shift the proportion of what you experience.  I think the next two or three rounds would be more about that story, both about later round transitions and how changing brewing approach changes things.

Sixth infusion:  not so different than last time.  I'm going to skip the part about highlighting subtle shifts from here on out, or checking if this makes a dozen strong infusions, or fades at 9 or so, with stretching out intensity changing character.  You already get the idea.  Per my past experience the two steps that change character, higher oxidation level and additional roasting, tend to extract that flavor change at a cost of limiting durability, number of positive rounds, so this should be fine into a late count, for using moderate degrees of those inputs to change the character.

Beyond that I'm off to swimming class, the usual Sunday routine.  I could write a thousand word post about how much playing my kids have done in the last ten days, during a school break, but this step is just the normal routine.

she said it was cold.  it is the cold season, but it was close to 30 C / over 80 F.

with a cousin a week ago; they love doing poses

On tea popularity and tea cults

An article recently raised these themes, with the "cult" idea already reoccuring once in awhile.  I'll start with the broader context and then move on to more about the cult issue.

That article included an interesting summary of where the interest in the subject stands now (here).  The title gives away some of his main concerns, "Artisanal Tea in America Is Having a Moment."  It's really not.  For the last decade people have continually said that artisanal / specialty / "better" tea is about to become the next big thing, and that hasn't happened, and it's probably not about to happen now.  As someone put it in a comment in his post, the author was the one having a moment.  All fair enough.

From there people might take issue with specific points made, with too many references to commercial interests (vendors), or to other parts of the perspective there.  In general I see a problem with the more exotic aspects of tea making headlines (most typically in news web pages versus newspapers), tied to duck shit (ya shi) dan cong oolong, or about obscure aged tea versions that you need to visit a tea master in an isolated basement shop to even try.  By appointment, maybe, screened with more care than your local drug dealer puts into keeping a low profile.

All that last part is actually a reference to one person in particular, with plenty of others coming to mind that it also fits.  Forbes mentioned that 'Duck Shit' Tea Is Taking the World by Storm, in 2015, but I was thinking more along the lines of LA Times mentioning Tea Habitat in 2009 and 2016, which also relates to that Dan Cong oolong theme.  Tea really doesn't need to be any more exotic or difficult to source and prepare than coffee; that can get lost in the hype over how some versions are really unique and unusual.

The article seemed fine to me, not based on a mature or balanced perspective of current tea culture or tea itself, but that is what it is.  This describes why the author thinks tea is having a moment:


TEA IS THE PERFECT CULTURAL DRINK FOR RIGHT NOW. It has such a big tent -- you can like it for the caffeine kick, or the rituals, or the scientific experiments in brewing time and temperature, or the cool hobbyist gear, or the Eastern religious undertones, or the dietary benefits, or matcha's Instagram friendly coloring. You can like it because it separates you out, or pulls you into a new community, because it makes you feel simultaneously like an outsider and an insider. 

Right now tea is exciting because tea feels fresh and new, which is ironic considering it is the oldest drink in the world. We're still in those early adopter stages, the energy and optimism and the hobbyist nature, but it's professionalizing slowly... 


That's the thing, we were in the early adopter stages 15 years ago, back when online tea groups, blogs and reference pages, public meet-ups, source options, and the rest started ramping up.  Most of the early versions of all that have ran their course, often replaced twice by other similar references, sites, vendor outlets, and groups since.  This reference explains what I mean: Cha Dao:  A Journal of Tea and Culture summarized input from various authors from 2005 to 2011, much more active for the first three years.

Bubble tea has had a moment in that longer time period, and Starbucks tried to make mall shops work and failed, in the case of Teavana.  Better tea is ramping up slowly but it's definitely not having a moment.

a Moychay tea club in Moscow, maybe tea is having a moment there

Onto the point I did want to address instead, in this section:


...As we drank the teas from small, handcrafted clay tea cups made by an Albuquerque artist, the Tea Heads talked their shit. They talked about the intense battles fought in the Reddit subreddit/tea. They talked about Steve Odell, an influential Portland, Oregon tea house owner who created a large, cultish following with his sober basement parties. And "Po" Rosenberg, another Portland tea master who guides folks through "tea tastings" at his Heavens Tea shop, sometimes letting them try 50 year old teas... 

There's that tea master offering ultra-rare teas theme, just still not the one I was thinking of, which also wasn't Imen. Technically this doesn't say that any tea following resembles a cult; it says that one following is "cultish."  Let's start with definitions and my own take on cults and get back to that. 


As to the mention of "intense battles fought in the tea subreddit," that's a joke.  People post pictures of brewing tea there, or cupboards full of tea-bag boxes of teas.  Once in awhile snarky responses blame them for not really drinking good tea, or for thinking that their tea is better than others' when they actually do.  There are no battles, hardly even any decent discussions.


To be clear on context I am active on that subreddit, posting or commenting there about every other day, but it's just not where tea is really discussed, people only post there.  Discussion works out better on Facebook groups, at least for now.  Like in this Gong Fu Cha group, the Puerh Tea Club related to that type, the International Tea Talk group I admin for, or in the Tea Drinkers group, more oriented towards people newer to tea, where this discussion took place.


Little glitches in that article, like that one, probably put off plenty of tea enthusiasts, but in general it's not a problem for me to read past them.  The author just passed on what he was told, and a majority of the references described real tea themes, just in light of such perspective biases.

What is a cult?

Google's take will work for a dictionary definition starting point:


1. a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.  "the cult of St. Olaf"

2. a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.  "a network of Satan-worshiping cults"

3. a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.  "a cult of personality surrounding the leaders"


All so negative!  There must be a more positive form of cult to balance all that.  I think the definition of "cultish" might lead back towards that:


1.  relating to or characteristic of a small group of people having religious beliefs regarded by others as strange or as imposing excessive control over members.  "weird cultish beliefs"

2.relating to a person or thing that is popular or fashionable among a particular group or section of society.


That last definition captures what I'm after; the negative value judgment isn't essential to the concept.  Even in "cult," as I see the concept range, but related to "cultish" Google's definition agrees.

The Wikipedia definition is the same:


In modern English, the term cult has usually been used in reference to a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or by its common interest in a particular personality, object or goal. This sense of the term is controversial and it has divergent definitions both in popular culture and academia and it has also been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study.[1][2] It is usually considered pejorative...


I'm probably interpreting the concept more broadly than most in wanting it to also have positive range, which raises a very problematic "private language" concern.  Word meanings that aren't shared are meaningless.

I'll skip ahead to an example; Crossfit could be considered cultish (although per the Google dictionary definition here not as a cult).

A close friend was into working out in a similar capacity--just not actually doing Crossfit--and at one point he posted about his workout routine daily.  Dedication to that pursuit took over his life, most of his daily social connections related to that, and most of his life's meaning was tied up in becoming very, very fit.  I don't necessarily see that as a problem.  It's shared obsessive behavior, for sure, but on a couple of different levels it is very healthy.

Another example:  in the late 70's when I was growing up in Western Pennsylvania fandom for the Steelers football team took on cult-like aspects.  People painted their houses and cars black and gold, wore the related clothing regularly, regarded the players as more important than typical celebrity status, and planned their lives around following the games.  It became one of the more important parts of a lot of people's reality.  Was it too much?  That seems like a judgment call.  That degree of frenzy was temporary, based on several years of unusual success, and it was harmless enough.

Tea as a cult

Tea can't be seen as a cult in relation to those Google and Wikipedia definitions.  There's not enough religious tie-in, and bias towards mind-control and other negative aims.  It's just a beverage choice, although it can relate to subculture.  A tea circle could be "cultish;" it could "relate to a person or thing that is popular or fashionable among a particular group or section of society."

The closest it seems to get is in the example of the Global Tea Hut.  That is a Zen-based group led by a single individual (Wu De, formerly Aaron Fisher), that puts emphasis on shared subject interest and perspective, and ceremonial aspects, based out of a central location, with some degree of financial interest.

Wu De (photo credit the Global Tea Hut Youtube channel)

This web page lists their subscription packages, and this Go Fund Me account shows them to be $156,000 towards meeting their million dollar goal to build a new retreat center.  Commercial enough.  The first link also leads to past issues of their monthly magazine on tea background, a great reference.

An online friend wrote a nice, neutral-tone article about visiting there for a lifestyle and travel blog.  It's probably as well to move on here rather than to try and force my own interpretation of to what degree this is or isn't a cult.  It doesn't matter.

Again, I don't necessarily see that "cult" concept as needing to be negative, as I think of it, so the discussion doesn't clearly mean any one thing.  If you strip away the negative connotation and leave the rest, about shared interest and perspective, underlying common philosophical themes, and so on, what concept remains?  Interest group?  They're definitely an interest group then.  Their goals and overlap with being a cult are perhaps best identified by the first paragraphs of their Go Fund Me proposal:


Imagine arriving at a retreat center to find you feel instantly at home. The smiles of all your new friends from around the world welcome you. Imagine the first bowl of tea, and how it warms and refreshes you after a long journey. You start letting go of the vicissitudes of daily life and the quiet rhythm of this amazing place takes over. Along with insights and wisdom, you find a stillness in yourself you didn’t even know was there.

You stay here for ten days — meditating; eating nourishing, healthy food; connecting with wonderful humans from around the world; wandering the gardens; learning and practicing tea brewing; and drinking lots and lots of the finest organic teas on earth.

And it’s all free. When you leave, you pass by the donation box and quietly leave an offering from your full heart and send a good thought to the future people that will be nourished here, as you have...


Sounds great; no concerns there.

That original article never unpacks why a tea circle was interpreted as "cultish."

That idea was passed on by the people discussing it in the article, and may well have been the author's interpretation, versus something they actually said.  If either of those circles of friends shared a strong interest in tea (as many people really do; an obsession even), a general perspective on life, a take on ethics, and maybe even aesthetic sensibilities (taste in clothing) then that would seem to fit.  Religious interest, personality-centering, negative goals, and mind control wouldn't need to apply.

Actual tea culture

Another criticism was that real tea culture wasn't fleshed out in the article, which I completely agree with.  The individual fragments of "what tea is" kind of worked towards that, but in some of those cases people were forwarding their own agendas instead of sharing perspective.  Or the two were the same thing.

There's no way I can do justice to what tea culture is here, and I'm probably not the right person for the job anyway.  I drink tea alone, almost all the time.  I have tea friends but not many living locally, so the idea of a culture base seems to not imply.  Still I should say a little.  I've been active in discussing tea online for quite awhile, and have met lots of people related to tea over the last two years, so some perspectives and generalities definitely apply.

Which perspectives should I describe though?  That article spends a few sentences on individual people and cases; that's as far as a review would typically go.  The snap-shots and limited reference frameworks would need to knit together into a continuum of what tea culture is, or could be, which would always leave out more than it actually includes, and lack depth for boiling perspectives down to a couple of sentences.  Groups would gain importance, as if one person obsessed with tea, working back through older cultural influences and new experiences, wouldn't be as important as any given dozen associated people doing the same things.  Hundreds of those somewhat isolated, partially networked-in tea enthusiasts are as much the story of modern tea culture as anything else.

Groups like the Global Tea Hut and Tea Masters (mentioned in the article; it's a long story what that is) do promote relatively universal background information along with their own perspective.  Facebook tea groups are exactly what you'd expect, diverse in nature.  There it's interesting how vendor specific tea groups can also serve as a way to share common perspective (like this Yunnan Sourcing version).  Other online tea groups come and go, as references do; the Tea Chat forum more or less morphed into Tea Forum.

Online discussions don't do an experiential subject like tea justice.  People gathering in person to share the experience really is a much more complete, and therefore valid, expression of tea culture.

In an initial comment on that article post I mentioned how furthering tea awareness is a common goal that such articles promote, maybe even more effectively than tea blogs, like this one.  The reason for why people want to promote tea interest may not be clear.  For vendors it is; increasing income.  Beyond that, and beyond sharing an experience enthusiasts themselves value, there is desire to promote tea consumption to help producers.  That subject gets covered here to such length I'll not add to it in this.


All of this reminds me of guessing that other interests I've pursued were surely the next big thing.  I was amazed by the intensity of the experience when I took up rock climbing, and thought for sure that would catch on.  It's clear enough why it didn't, and never will:  it's difficult, dangerous, hard to train for, and gear intensive.  I was a vegetarian for 17 years and never even considered that might become more popular someday, and now some years after I gave that up it has.

There's no telling what critical mass of acceptance subjects require before something triggers broader interest in them, or how that all works.  Tea may or may not ever become the next big thing, it may never really "have a moment."  Whether or not that happens doesn't seem to matter.  It's an interesting, multi-faceted, essentially bottomless subject that means a lot to some people, and that's enough.

Ya Shi (duck shit) Dan Cong from Jip Eu, a Bangkok Chinatown shop

I'm reviewing the first of two teas from visiting the Jip Eu shop a couple weeks ago, this one a Ya Shi (duck shit) Dan Cong.  I usually pick up Wuyi Yancha from that shop, more or less their specialty, but I did try a commercial version of Dan Cong that seemed reasonable awhile back.  I wasn't really familiar with the tea type then (two years ago; the time just flies), so it will be interesting to try another based on a good bit more exposure.

Along with the various versions I have reviewed I tried a round of four Dan Cong samples from a European vendor passing through town this year on a sourcing trip, but didn't write about those teas.  Without really knowing an origin part of the point drops out, reviewing what someone else might try, and they were essentially presented as some random samples.  One was even a mao cha, an unfinished tea.



Based on the last commercial version from this shop I'd expect this tea to be good, just with a bit more astringency than is present in some of the others I've been writing about.  As for appearance and dry scent the tea seems about right, rich and sweet, with just a bit more yellowed leaves than is typical for well-sorted tea but not really much for extra stem.

Review

The rinse, which I didn't discard, is in the right range, sweet, complex, and rich flavored.  It seems heavy on aroma versus flavor, if that means anything, typical for the type.  And perhaps just a little edgy, with just a bit more of that unripened fruit bite than some other better Ya Shi had (like this one reviewed last).  It's an odd aspect, a feel element, really, but one that also can be combined with a bitter flavor aspect in some instances.  There are two different ways to moderate that:  to drop brewing temperature, as is common with other tea types, or to use very short infusion times, which seems a standard approach for these types of teas. 


I'm using water around 90, so not full boiling point but not really cool, and I'll see about shifting timing to make it work out.  Maybe it goes without saying or maybe it's only a judgment call on my part but to me Dan Cong as a type really do require Gongfu style brewing to draw out most of their potential; they just haven't turned out well experimenting with Western style brewing in the past.  This particular tea would also be great cold-brewed, which I normally wouldn't use for Dan Cong due to trying to maximize the potential of a tea, but a moderate cost version like this one is suitable for experimentation.

The tea is nice.  It isn't quite as soft, subtle, and aromatic as some versions I've tried but it's nice tea.  It does have a similar complexity and flavor range as other Ya Shi, which is all not so easy to describe.  It's mostly floral, but a soft, subdued range of floral tone.  There is good sweetness, towards the range of honey, and complexity that extends beyond obvious flavor range.  It tastes like Ya Shi Dan Cong, but that's sort of a circular description, only saying that it tastes like what it is.

The most promising approach would be to zero in on floral tones it relates to, but I'm not so good with flower flavors.  Beyond that the sweetness reminds me most of yellow watermelon, which itself is a bit non-distinct.  It's bright but rich at the same time, with plenty of high tones similar to flowers or that fruit, extending and connecting to a richness that is subtle, like a very light form of toffee, not so far off honey.  Oddly my wife bought yellow watermelon the day after I made these notes, and the red kind; I should try that again before my kids eat all of it.


Something about the warmth and aroma-based nature of aspects in the background also reminds me of spice, but no specific spices come to mind, maybe a mild and sweet root spice, along the lines of sasafrass.  Astringency is pretty limited, not the potential issue I thought might come up.

Mind you it's good tea, just not great tea.  There is another level out there, a way that similar flavors and feel can extend into a really creamy and full richness, covering lots of subtle range that defies description.  For the price--550 baht, as I remember, for 100 grams, just over $15--it seems a steal.


On the next infusion the brightness gives way to more richness.  It might have related to using a slightly longer time but the astringency picked up just a little, not making the tea edgy, just shifting the balance a little.  The light toffee moves towards light caramel, and the feel thickens a little, maybe related to being brewed a little stronger, or it could just be transition.  To bring that back to talk about flavors the bright yellow watermelon fruit tone diminishes and the bright sweet floral moves to a richer floral range.  The astringency isn't just a feel in this tea, it ties to a trace of light bitterness, like biting a plant stem, but not much of that, so it still works well.

The level of roast seems to work well for this tea.  It's not roasted much, so it doesn't push the flavors to be much richer and heavier, but it must be a little, softening the tone and filling in some of that light toffee / caramel sweetness.  This tea is really exactly what I'd hoped it would be.  It could be slightly better, more like $20 / 50 gram quality tea instead, but for costing less than half that it seems a lot better than it should be.  There are certainly specialty vendors out there selling tea that's not this good for twice the price, or more, and they could still be right in claiming that the various quality level versions are type-typical.


At around the sixth infusion in the flavors are shifting to thin out and astringency (that light edge) is playing a larger role.  The best Dan Cong go a little longer in the original range, or stay more positive longer, but at the same time it's also not that unusual for the type to transition on that time-frame.  It's still what I would have expected.  It went on to brew a good number of infusions, it just lost that most positive and interesting character after the first five or so infusions, transitioning throughout those as well.


For a daily-drinker type tea this version is great, better tea than a lot of people who consider themselves tea drinkers might know exists.  For tea enthusiasts with broader types exposure it seems worthwhile to appreciate a range of teas for what they are, to not get caught in the trap of expecting every tea to be better than the last.  Supported by the right tea budget someone could stick with only curated, high level versions of teas but even a limited degree of trying out different sources would bring up variation in tea quality and aspects range.

at a piano lesson, actually looking at the phone / camera

Ya Shi (duck shit) and Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong from Wuyi Origin

Mi Lan Xiang, honey orchid aroma Dan Cong

Ya Shi (duck shit) Dan Cong

I've been drinking some Dan Cong relatively recently so I decided to start with these teas before moving on to oolong samples sent by Cindy (from Wuyi Origin, their brand name).  Of course I've been drinking Wuyi Yancha too (Wuyishan oolong), but I decide what to review next by way of immediate impulse, the same way I pick what to drink with breakfast.  I already said plenty about Cindy and the source in the last post so I'll skip that part, and ramble on about other things instead before the review.

An online friend passed through town recently and gave me some samples of other Dan Cong, after visiting a few tea regions in China.  He's a vendor, but with regionally limited business scope, and I don't think it would matter if I mention his business here, so I'll skip that part.  The samples were interesting; one a maocha, a tea that isn't completely finished, so interesting related to that.  Two others were quite good, and one a bit off, so it made for an interesting refresher for the type.  Of course trying only exceptionally good versions also makes for a pleasant reminder or initial introduction, but it's informative in a different sense to try teas across a range of quality.

I had planned to try one of his samples along with one of Cindy's, since I've been on the page of doing comparisons, and it helps to point out differences in body and minor aspects.  After thinking it through I really don't want to write a half dozen different reviews of Cindy's teas, since that would get repetitive, both for me to do and for readers, so trying two of Cindy's together resolves that.

Most people reading a tea blog would be quite familiar with these teas.  Mi Lan Xiang is honey orchid aroma Dan Cong (oolong from the Chaozhou area), although those tend to taste a lot like peach sometimes.  Ya Shi is duck shit (just a funny name; no connection to actual duck shit), and those can be harder to pin down in terms of a characteristic flavor element.  They tend to be warmer, fuller, with more going on, and more subtle, maybe bridging ranges of floral, fruit, and spice instead of coming across as one or two main flavors.  Per only trying a few they do tend to taste like one thing, it's just not as easy to say what that is related to it being just like a honey orchid flower or peach.  They're more complex, heavier on aroma than flavor.

Related to a recent online discussion about flavor being identified as taste (what the tongue does) versus aroma (related to sensors in the lower rear of the nasal passages, where most subtle distinctions in flavors are identified) I'm not using "aroma" in a conventional sense here.  I think I covered what I mean by that in the last post, about how Chinese producers tend to use the term as a distinction within the range of what we would call aroma based flavor.  You can read back to that last post to reference it, or just read past it here; it's not critical to the explanation.

As to tasting process a blogger friend--who I only know online; maybe should I be saying "acquaintance" until I meet these people?--has been considering if long term effects of caffeine are getting to him.  I've had some problems with comparison tasting adding up related to caffeine intake, so I'm going with small gaiwans for this, which probably should have been an obvious step for tasting multiple teas all along.

On to these version specifics in tasting then.

Review

Skipping the appearance and scent parts, the initial infusion--more a rinse that I didn't discard--shows the characters to be like that expectations summary I just covered.  The Mi Lan Xiang is bright, sweet, intense, and complex, mostly in the range of peach with a good bit of supporting floral tone.  The Ya Shi (I should probably just say "duck shit" instead, since it's catchy) is warm, full, complex, and aromatic, and won't be so easy to describe in terms of two or three main flavor elements.  I won't even start on that until the first real infusion.

The Mi Lan is the same but more pronounced in aspects intensity at the normal infusion strength.  It's brewed to a medium level of infusion concentration to me, but people might well tend to drink Dan Cong either on the lighter side compared to some other types, or on the much lighter side, and this could be in between those ranges.  The peach really ramps up in intensity.  It's interesting the way that the astringency (which is moderate, but one of the main defining aspects) seems to mimic the way that peach skin comes across, the separate flavor of that from ripe flesh.  It trails into that unripe fruit range, with a slight bite of an unusual type of astringency, nothing like that found in black teas or sheng pu'er.  But it's in great balance, not negative, even if it would be a matter of preference deciding if that added or took away from the effect of the other aspects.

The roast is not heavy but you can notice it, a bit of caramel or light toffee in the back, or really not exactly that but in that range.  Maybe if you fire-roasted a peach and it picked up a brown-sugar to cooked fruit tone that's closer to what I mean, although of course there is no smoke aspect in this tea, so the "fire" part might just be for descriptive color.  With some allowance for preferences varying this is more or less exactly how this tea should taste, to me.  It's tempting to try and put it on a scale of good to unbelievably good but I would need more experience with very high end Dan Cong to reference against.  It's a lot better than typical generalist specialty versions would be, teas typically sold in the $15 dollars per 50 grams range, described as great examples that are really just not that bad, only in the general range of type-correct.  I suppose there is always room for improvement but it's quite good.

The Duck Shit version is warm, complex, and subtle; a totally different kind of experience.  It's also aromatic, not pronounced in terms of flavor, although there is plenty going on with that, as much as in a broad range that covers sensation trailing off into sensory ranges that you sense but don't fully capture.

I'm having trouble assigning specific flavors to the experience, but it has to come to that if I'm going to review it; it would be strange doing a tea review and never getting there.  The main range is floral, but not in the same sense as bright, sweet, pronounced flowers, so I suppose just an earthier, richer, more subtle flower range.  Tropical flowers here seem to be bright, sweet, and intense, the different orchids, plumeria, and such, more like wildflowers back in the US.  This tea's range is on the opposite side of all that.  It's not far from how I'd imagine a sunflower to be, but I can't think of a flower type I actually have smelled that's a close match, something warm and complex.  It's towards chrysanthemum but not that, with more depth and richness than that flower blended with chamomile, but in that general range.

With all the complexity it wouldn't be wrong to say it also tastes like some warm, subtle, earthy but light fruit, maybe in the range of dried longan.  But the flavor range is well integrated, so it doesn't come across as tasting like a few different things.  I'll keep tasting, since that complexity may well also related to extension into mineral and spice ranges.

Ya Shi left, Mi Lan Xiang right

On the next infusion I probably went a touch longer on the time--not long at all though, around half a minute--and the strength and astringency of the Mi Lan Xiang picked up.  It would be more conventional to use slightly hotter water and go with really fast infusions instead, ten seconds, and the astringency would be light along with the flavors being less pronounced too.  This was brewed at 80 C; I tend to like teas prepared a little cooler than some if offsetting astringency is a concern.  It's really about personal preference more than one approach being objectively best, or at least that's my take.  It would've balanced better brewed for ten seconds less but it's still nice, but at this strength the astringency starts to pick up enough to be more pronounced than the flavors.  Nothing like a young sheng, not that type or on that level, I mean related to the balance per what I like to experience.

This same infusion time worked better for the duck shit; without astringency as much of an input at all, not even to the extent of filling in structure.  The flavors just intensify and the feel thickens a little.  It comes across as richer, almost buttery, just in a completely different sense than for Jin Xuan oolongs.  I tried a decent one of those I bought for the staff at the office, a Thai version, so related to me always going on about how mediocre Thai oolongs are I was going to review that and put the record straight.  But that tea is not on this quality level, not even close.  It may be two full levels down, but for what it is drinking that tea makes for a nice experience, good as a "daily drinker," as people tend to say, as something to have with lunch.

The sweetness and rich flavor changes for this duck shit version, a little, more towards a lightly browned butter effect, which isn't so far from a really light caramel.  Someone that absolutely prefers intense floral aspects might not appreciate that but the complexity, fullness of flavor and other range, and the way it all balances makes for a cool effect.  It's a good tea.  Again I can't map it to best of the best; it's about as good as the best duck shit Dan Cong I've tried, more or less, but I haven't put effort into exploring the highest range.  Or expense, more to the point; better Dan Cong moves to $1 a gram or beyond much faster than most other tea types.

Ya Shi left, Mi Lan Xiang right

On the next infusion I went more like 15 seconds for the Mi Lan Xiang and around 30 for the duck shit; brewing and tasting different teas at the same time can go like that.  The balance is back to great for the Mi Lan version; the flavor is plenty intense, quite sweet, nicely complex, and the astringency level compliments the tea instead of taking away from it.  If someone absolutely loves soft teas instead something like the duck shit version might work better, or another style of tea altogether might, or possibly just a different version.  Then again it's hard to imagine someone not liking these teas.

The duck shit version aspects haven't changed.  I've tried a version before where the aromatic / complex effect cost the tea in terms of flavor complexity but this one strikes a nice balance, covering a lot of range but still offering up plenty to taste as flavor.  It's definitely warmer than the Mi Lan, and richer, in one sense, but perhaps less intense for being more complex.  It makes consider how level of roast comes into play, but I really won't venture much about that, since I don't know.  The Mi Lan brews darker but the brewed leaves look about the same; I'd guess it's roasted a bit more but that isn't much in the way of an informed guess.  With Wuyi Yancha it's possible to tell that medium to darker / heavier roasting occurred because the teas taste more or less charred, slightly toasted in a normal sense if not a bit burnt in cases where it goes too far.  It's not possible to pick up anything like that effect in these two teas.

I could keep going for a couple more infusions to talk about transitions, or to pin down a few more flavor aspects, or to stretch this out to some vague, potentially invalid analogy (astringency effect like biting a tree bud, etc.), but I'll skip all that.  The teas aren't close to finished but not transitioning a lot.
I will try to mention which I like better, but that's hard to say too.  They're both great for what they are expressing, for being so different in type.  In different senses I like both best.  I think they work really well for tasting two teas that don't overlap all that much in character together, for comparison tasting related to contrast instead of shared range.  Usually the opposite works much better, picking out finer levels of aspects related to them sharing common ground, and I may well have missed some levels of range for going against that.  This said next to nothing about "feel" aspects, for example, and when two teas share a lot in taste range and that differs your attention tends to drift there (or didn't get that far with taste description, really).


My final assessment:  two more great teas from Cindy.  Someone that has been drinking the best of the best Dan Cong available for some time might disagree, and these could seem quite ordinary to them, but that's how tea tends to go.  I would expect that for someone only exposed to a conventional, typical-supplier quality range of Dan Cong these two teas would be a step up in quality instead, teas that they would really enjoy.  For someone only exposed to so-so versions or new to the type they could open a whole new world.  I've tried Dan Cong sold as relatively higher end versions--at upper medium level pricing--that wasn't nearly this good.  It will be interesting to look around at other reviews and see what other people think, if I get around to that.

my girl surfer at swim lesson with some kid

Ya Shi (duck shit) and Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong from the Lin farm

the Lin farm Mi Lan version, the right general look

I'll come right out with it; trying these teas was the closest I've been to having a religious experience related to tea, like starting over again.  The better versions of Cindy's teas are the only ones I can compare them to, also a bit transcendent, and I do actually make a direct side by side comparison with one of hers in this post.  I was never under the illusion that I am familiar with the best versions of almost any types, and I'm fine with exploring teas organically, pursuing whatever seems most interesting next, drinking teas from different quality levels.  I'm not very far along in general with Dan Cong, so it doesn't come as a surprise to try some examples from the next level.

A chance internet contact offered to send these samples for review, from the Lin tea farming family.  Of course that is a nice part about being a tea blogger.  It's not as nice when teas are good but not really favorites, harder to place in regards to aspects not relating to preferences, or how to describe limitations in the teas.  Those things don't come up in this post; if anything I might switch over to a bit too much of a subjective take.

One might wonder about family history, how long they've been making tea, if there is more to the story to tell, but this post will focus on tea review.  I'm confident the story is what one would like to hear, about production on all levels drawing on generations of tea making.  I'm sure decades have went into honing specialized skills to make the tea, that it is truly organically produced, as described, and so on.

The way that networking worked out seems typical; the family member that I talked to is a more internet savvy younger daughter in a traditional tea farming family.  Their Facebook page has 96 friends in common so I'm guessing that their tea is probably a relatively open secret.  But the end customers that have tried it would probably not typically know details related to the original source.

There is more I could say than I will here about these teas, about the naming, types, or processing style (eg. level of roast), or related to cultivar types, organic farming, brewing method, etc.  The post runs long covering multiple comparison tastings, so I'll stick to only that, after a short introduction to types.

Even the name of the Lin farm Mi Lan Xiang version would take more unpacking than I'll go through; it was labeled as a "Qing Xiang Mi Lan Dan Cong."  A vague Tea Spring vendor reference identifies a tea with the first name as "a variety of lightly oxidized Song Zhong Dan Cong," which doesn't shed much light on it.  This Tea Guardian reference describe Qing Xiang Fenghuang Dan Cong--Feng Huang is the name Cindy uses for the type instead, meaning "phoenix"--as "literally clear fragrance Phoenix single bush — aka bouquet style Phoenix oolongs, floral style Phoenix “single bush” oolongs."  Another reference by the same site divides styles of Dan Cong into two groups, but that sort of categorization tends to not match in different reference sources.

An old Tea Obsession blog post goes into Dan Cong naming, not really fully clarifying use of those names but spelling out some more background and types.  That post points out that Song Zhong is used to mean different things, most generally "old tree" in reference to a past dynasty name, but used inconsistently so still non-specific.  So onto what the teas are like instead.

First review:  Lin farm Qing Xiang Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong

the lighter roast stands out even in the dry leaves

I tried this tea first since I've reviewed another good version of this type recently (Cindy's), which would make it easier to place.  I compare it directly to that tea in a second round of tasting here.

The scent of the dry tea was intriguing, and on tasting the rinse I already knew this tea was one of the best Dan Cong I ever tried, maybe even one of the best teas I ever tried.  There was plenty to the fruit and floral range, honey orchid and peach, or perhaps apricot, even a touch of roasted almond.  Sweetness, complexity, and clean flavors stood out most.

leaves look different in different lighting

It's not that far off the version of the same type Cindy sent not too long ago, maybe just prepared differently, a little off the bright fruit effect to accentuate a warm roasted quality.  That's nothing like even the mid-level roasts in Wuyi Yancha, not just different for basic starting-point flavors but also different in aspects drawn out.  It tastes absolutely nothing like "char," and is light roasted compared to Wuyi Yancha styles, but the typical range is lower related to roasting, with finer levels of variation in that for Dan Cong.


There might be potential for them to have prepared this tea differently but per my initial judgement there is no space left to improve upon it; it's essentially perfect as it is.  Listing aspects and drawing on indirect impressions other ways won't really bring that across, but that's how reviewing goes, so I'll continue on with it.


The flavor of the tea extends well beyond drinking it; it might even get a little stronger right after swallowing it.  Astringency is exactly where it should be; quite limited, barely adding a faint edge to the tea.  There isn't much for "tartness," present in some degree for typical types, maybe just a hint that offsets the much more pronounced sweetness well, but really barely any.

The tea is aromatic.  It wasn't so long ago that wouldn't have meant so much to me; most of taste in terms of complex flavors is carried through scent, so in a sense every tea is aromatic.  But some more so than others; a vague centering of experience can occur in that range for some teas more so than for others.  This post on comparing Jin Jun Mei versions might help explain that, or really only my own take, still a work in progress.

It seems like I'm just saying that it's a great example of the tea type, both the general type and this specific flavor version, Mi Lan Xiang, honey orchid aroma, and it surely is.  The final effect is about the balance of those aspects coming together, not so much about what those are individually.  Tasting comparison with a similar tea could help define both, and since I didn't feel like I got to the bottom of all the complexity in one go I'll do that next.

Comparing two Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong and one Ya Shi (Duck Shit)

Since I just tried Cindy's tea of the same type I'll taste this version in comparison with that, along with the Ya Shi / "duck shit" version.  It typically works better to compare quite similar teas, to help highlight more minor differences, or else it can just get confusing, with too many differences to be as informative.  Hopefully tasting two types and three teas will still strike a reasonable balance.

Ya Shi / "duck shit" Dan Cong:

This general type seemed interesting enough to draw a lot of media hype awhile back, rare for any subject related to tea, perhaps in part due to the name.

The tea is different, very nice, aromatic, round-flavored.  Breaking this tea into flavor aspects is going to be difficult (something I might not want to keep repeating).  It's generally in the floral range, so there's that, but it seems to have a complex, integrated, positive flavor that won't easily be captured by a flavors comparison list.  The normal descriptors of exceptional tea clearly apply:  clean flavored, complex, with a different version of a full feel typical to the general type (no need to dwell on all that; best to stick to these teas, and with three versions to cover easier to stick more to flavors description).

brewed Ya Shi leaves

The flavors range reminds me of root and bark spices.  I tend to reference sassafrass since that's essentially the only one I remember, but it's not that close a match for sassafrass, and definitely not so close to cinnamon, the only bark spice I'm now familiar with.  During a decade plus of drinking various tisanes--herb teas, to some--I crossed paths with lots of others, but I wasn't writing reviews then, or keeping track for any particular reason, and I probably wouldn't be able to refer back to a tisane that I drank over a decade ago anyway.  Or maybe I could, if keeping those sorted back then had seemed more of priority.


The tea definitely includes floral range, I'm just at a loss to mention a specific flower.  I suppose it's perhaps somewhere in the orchid range, just a warmer, richer aspect than honey orchid might be.  Or so I'd guess; I drink teas that are supposed to taste like honey orchid, enough I feel like I have a sense of what that means, but I don't remember smelling one.  More on this tea's transition through different infusions after roughing out the basics on the other two.

Lin Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong compared to Cindy's version:

Cindy's Mi Lan version, in a similar range

Both teas are so nice, both quite different.  On first taste Cindy's comes across as a bit brighter and sweeter, with more dramatic flavor profile, more intense, but in the same general direction.  That could sound like I'm saying it's better, and it would be for some people, but it's not quite that simple.  Having a warmer, more subtle and spice oriented flavor profile isn't necessarily a bad thing for the other tea.  Actually it's fantastic, just in a different sense.  In a way that also maps onto the difference between the Dan Cong version types, with the Lin's Mi Lan Xiang brighter, sweeter, and more intense, with the Ya Shi more subtle, but giving up nothing related to being complex, positive, and enjoyable.


In a sense I'm implying the Lin Mi Lan Xiang is somehow "between" the other two teas in terms of flavors range, and that sort of works, although the spatial analogy only goes so far.  To be more specific, the Lin farm version of Mi Lan Xiang leans towards the Ya Shi version in terms of warmth, and including a bit of the root / bark spice range.  These descriptions seem a bit rough to me though; the teas flavors are basically floral, nothing like brewing spices, I'm just using that to describe real aspects and to place the range.


I didn't notice it before but I'm picking up a similar range of nutmeg, in the Lin Mi Lan tea just a little, a spice that itself seems complex to me, not a simple taste at all.  It doesn't do the tea justice to say that it's nice.  All three are absolutely amazing teas, just in completely different ways.  It's odd how much variation there is in the two teas of a relatively similar type, which stands out a lot more tasting them together.

the look varies with parameters, yellow to light gold in general

There is a touch of spice adding complexity to Cindy's tea version, just very little in the background, likely brought out more by the power of suggestion, looking for it.  But the focus is on the bright floral range, with a little drift into stone-fruit territory (peach / apricot, not so distinct I'd say either one but for a more standard list-style review I'd just list both).  That trace of tartness and mild astringency (mild in good versions) is more pronounced in Cindy's tea, a balance that really works.  Then again I'm also loving how soft and full the other teas are, and of course the mind-blowing complexity.


It's not my place to speculate but I'm wondering how the Lin family made teas like this.  Of course the starting point must have been positive, the leaves, surely properly harvested from very happy, thriving tea trees (old, growing at elevation, all of that), but lots of things must have went right in processing too.  Cindy's family's tea is also great but more like a better version of other teas I've tried, but something fundamentally different in character is going on with those others.  It could be tied to different leaf sourcing, but it seems likely it's a result of a lot of factors coming together, with processing steps as a major input.

Cindy's Mi Lan brewed leaves

The depth of experience of tasting the Lin Mi Lan Xiang defies description (but then I was going to stop saying that).  It's like that first time you try a really nice Anxi Tie Kuan Yin, or Taiwanese light oolong, or Wuyi Yancha.  It feels like turning to a new page, a sort of "now I get it."  Astringency and tartness are not significant aspects of those teas, and the flavors scope extends to spice, or so I'm interpreting it.  But it's really not about a few positive aspects, the novelty relates to the overall experience.



The flavors do transition a bit, for all these teas, but it ends up being a lot to write about.  The Ya Shi might be drifting a little into a more typical range for Dan Cong, showing a bit of that flower-stem type nature that gives them a slight tanginess, just not much, the tea remains quite soft but full in feel and flavor.  It seems to be the case that the longer infusion times required after lots of infusions (in the range of ten) draws out more of that aspect, something I'd noticed the day before in tasting the other tea initially.


Odd that Cindy's tea seems to soften instead, after a lot of brewing; that might mean more to someone else.  The Lin Mi Lan Xiang stays in the same range but changes, shifting balance between the floral and spice tones.  The honey sweetness in the Ya Shi changes a little, with "honey" really too non-specific, so that a more detailed description reference used by someone familiar with different types of honey seems more in order.  I taste different tropical versions here, based on wide variations in flowers, but to me it's just honey, and then a different kind of honey.

Brewing variations would likely bring out lots of different aspects, and over multiple tastings appreciation of minor aspects or even awareness of different levels to appreciate would probably develop.  I've talked mostly about flavors here but there is more going on to appreciate; the aftertaste component is significant, and the feel is nice, lots more going on with that.

In none of these cases are there negative aspects to discuss or brew around.  All the teas could hardly be said to improve or diminish over infusions, they just change.

As far as my favorite of the three, that would be hard to say.  The novelty of the character of the Lin teas gave them a slight edge over Cindy's, but it would be hard to choose between them, and a preference choice might change with more exposure.  The Ya Shi / duck shit was a bit more subtle, not the kind of tea one tasting really takes in, but the Mi Lan gave up nothing in terms of complexity, and the range of aspects overlapped a little.  I feel lucky just to try teas like these three.