China Life Jin Ya Dian Hong, Yunnan black tea

A friend passed on this tea in a recent visit to Bangkok (full name Feng Qing Jin Ya Dian Hong, from China Life).  It's a nice friend that gives you tea this good to try, an interesting and very pleasant Chinese black tea, with a style that doesn't really match conventional black teas.  I'll describe what it is more at the end, with a little research into the type and explanation of the name, but basically it's a buds-only black tea from Yunnan.

Review:

The taste is just what one might hope for, soft, full, complex, a bit sweet, with a nice dryness to the feel, nothing questionable or out of place.  It works well to describe this particular tea as a list of flavors since there are so many to pick out.  So lets do that:  the package cites cocoa, malt, and hay, and this tea includes those as predominant elements, although malt seems to be used to describe a range of different closely related tastes in teas.  Flavor aspects also include yams, with just a hint of smoke, and I could swear there's a little vanilla in the background.  I'm not noticing pepper so much; maybe.


For me the sweet potato / yam range can be too much in some teas, leaning towards an artificial sweetener taste if too strong, but in this case it's all in great balance, all expressed as positive aspects that work well together.  I think there is even a mild mineral tone as a base flavor that helps it all really integrate, but that's hard to pick up, more like the context for the rest of the flavors.


It's the feel and balance that make the tea work so well though.  That slight dryness--nothing like astringency in typical Assamica black teas, although it is vaguely related--offsets a generally soft feel.  Along with that a nice sweetness brings all the aspects to a good balance.  I get the impression that the tea would deal well with being drank at different strengths, based on preference, working well quite wispy or standing up well to someone liking tea brewed strong.  It also seems like a tea that would be hard to screw up.


Some teas are difficult to brew, expressing a range of aspects depending on slight shifts in parameters, tricky to optimize, and this doesn't seem like that.  There seems to be no need to completely dial in approach, no astringency to brew around, no subtle aspects that are hard to draw out.  I guess one might see it as a trade-off that it's easy to get great results but capable of less variation.  For me it's really nice as it is so that's not really a trade off.




Seems too early to stop there, but that about reviews it.  From drinking pu'er lately I almost want to describe how the feel comes across within your mouth, where it's located, or how the aftertaste plays out, but those things don't seem to add so much (in general, for me, perhaps more than for this tea in particular).  For what it's worth I feel the tea more on the sides of my tongue, and a little in the back of my tongue at the end, which means nothing to me.  The taste does stick around after you drink it for a black tea, with that dry cocoa effect and a trace of yam sweetness lingering pleasantly.



About brewing, it's pretty simple, still black tea even though it is from tea buds (more on that in the next section).  The one interesting twist is that it brews really nice later infusions, not giving up much at all in terms of that full taste profile, sweetness, clean flavors, etc.  As with Silver Needle style white teas it keeps on brewing nice tea.  After several steeps you need to go a bit longer on time, and that draws out a little more mineral and dark caramel flavor but that's really nice too, and the sweetness and clean-flavored effects stick around.


Even after white teas seem done, having brewed lots, you can draw out one extra one by cold-steeping the leaves again (or buds only, depending on the tea).  To do so you just put the tea mixed with warm--but not hot water--in the refrigerator for a good long time, and let it steep on it's own.  How long doesn't seem to matter, six hours or a day.  I didn't think to check if that would work with this the first time I made it; I'll have to.

Dian Hong research section:

Why not a bit more about the general type.  It doesn't take much reading around to get to the idea that Dian Hong can include buds and leaves, and Jin Ya Dian Hong is just the buds (kind of obvious the tea was that from looking at it), with Feng Qing as the location, a county per the China Life description.  Here's a bit on the type from Seven Cups (a vendor, who's version I've not tried before):


Yunnan Province first began producing black tea in 1939.... Jin Ya was invented in 1958 by Feng Qing tea company. Instead of using 1 bud to 2-3 leaves, they started picking only tea buds. Yunnan Province was the first place to make black tea entirely from tea buds. If left on the tea bush, healthy tea buds will open in to five or six tea leaves...  The tea master must completely control the oxidation process throughout every layer of the bud... Black tea that is too oxidized will be sour, and under oxidized tea will very heavy and tannic.


This version wasn't tannic or sour at all so I guess they nailed it.  Not really about this tea type but there's an interesting mention of an old tea tree, a subject that keeps coming up:


There is one famous tea tree in Feng Qing County, called “Xiang Zhu Qing Cha Zu”. It is the largest and thickest tea tree that has been found, and is protected nationally because of its botanical significance. This tea tree is estimated to be 3200 years old and the diameter of the trunk of 1.84 meters thick.


Good to know!  They should try to make pu'er from that (just kidding).  I noticed a Seven Cups guide for brewing Dian Hong Jin Ya on You Tube looking for a China Life reference for it there, but as the video describes there isn't much to it; it's black tea.  China Life does post a lot of nice brewing and type guides on YouTube, just not related to this type.  The tea works out well brewed Western style using boiling water, steeped for three minutes or so, then for more time for later infusions.  As with any brewing all of that could be adjusted for preference, shifting any parameters as one is inclined, but again it seems to me a strength of this tea is that you don't need to fine tune brewing conditions to get great results.

It would even be possible to brew this grandpa-style, to use unregulated infusion time, to just drink the tea as leaves mixed with water without separating them, but I wouldn't.  The tea is too nice when brewed to a good infusion-strength balance point to give that up.

China life Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong, royal peach orchard

Dan Cong!  Definitely one of those types you'd love to find a good example of, and this Mi Lan Xiang / Peach Orchard version was nice (listed here).  It's hard for me to compare it to the range of a lot of other Dan Cong versions, since I'm newer to this type than many others, but it compares well enough with the few I've tried (a review of a commercial version with type background research is here, and a later review of another here).  Anyway, the aspects of the tea tell the story, so on to review, after one other related mention.

China Life has posting great introductory tea videos on You Tube, basics about brewing technique and such, and also on to more advanced content.  I just watched one on sourcing Dan Cong, and this video was a novel take on blind tasting four Dan Congs together, and this one a good introduction to the general Dan Cong tea type (probably a good place to start).  Don (the company owner) is visiting where those teas are made in China, walking around the plants growing and through a village where they process the teas, so the video background alone is worth a look.

The dry tea scent is sweet and rich. The tea appears very tightly twisted, and dark, perhaps a bit oxidized or roasted as Dan Cong goes, but tasting tells more about that.

Peach does come across first, as tastes go, fresh and intense.  The taste range is full and complex, with good sweetness, and a good bit of tartness as well.  As with many types the overall effect is more about how it all balances than which positive attributes come across.

The balance is nice, although the tartness is at the limit of what would balance well, perhaps too much for someone that doesn't care for that aspect.  It seems related to the mild astringency some Dan Congs have, just a different expression of something related, more a flavor element.  For a second infusion I dropped the temperature a bit more and went with a quite short infusion, to shift the aspects balance, and the tartness did fall into a more pleasant range in a light infusion version.


The peach aspect, and some general floral sweetness beyond that, is more than intense enough to stand out even brewed quite lightly. The honey orchid effect actually picked up a lot in a lighter brew strength, or at least it seemed more likely due to that change to lighter, than due to a natural flavors transition, since the tea was just getting started.


Normally brewing around aspects in a tea is a bad sign but Dan Cong are supposed to be more temperamental, and tend to work better as very light infusions, and some degree of tartness and a unique expression of astringency are normal.  Astringency often resembles the feel in an unripe fruit, nothing like the heavy earthy-flavor accompanied roughness / astringency in Assamica based black teas (assuming the normal connection I'm making between flavors and feel actually makes sense).  The tartness in this tea comes across as a taste element but it is tied to feel as well, the tea just isn't particularly astringent, it doesn't have much of such a bite to it.  One relatively well-informed tea friend has mentioned that Dan Cong wouldn't be as appealing to him without that bit of astringency / dryness, that it helps balance the sweetness and flavor intensity.  Maybe; I guess it depends on the tea.

Both the taste and the partly brewed leaf appearance show the tea to be mid - level oxidized, perhaps a trace more roast than average as Dan Cong goes (at a guess; I'm working from relatively limited exposure yet, not a large sample size of versions).  It's nowhere near the normal range for Wuyi Yancha, many of which are then roasted until char taste comes into play, so still a light version compared to the way those two aspects might play out in those oolongs (oxidation and roast level).  Editing note:  I hadn't checked the vendor page but it is listed as "deep fired."  Compared to Dan Cong standards, maybe, but related to Wuyi Yancha and highly roasted TKY I've tried still only medium.


As infusions go by the tea softens more, and honey sweetness picks up, with peach transitioning into floral aspects.  Brewed right the effect and balance is nice, and tastes are clean, with a good degree of aftertaste.  The tartness is a function of brewed strength, it seems, so balancing that isn't so difficult, through quite short infusion times, which works since the other flavor range and sweetness is well expressed in a lighter strength.

tea-tasting and funny face-making

A tasting aside, about my young co - taster's input (the one who flagged banana in that China Life Oriental Beauty--not so sure about that call).  I gave her a taste, and she said it tasted like tea.  I had that coming.  If by that one means Lipton tea bags it really doesn't.  I asked what other tastes, and she said like flowers.  I was so proud of her!   I had just written that, that the peach had transitioned to floral.  She is on the path.


She also just tried some of that China Life Oriental Beauty I had put aside, cold brewing the tea overnight to get the last out of it, through which it had picked up a bubble gum sweetness.  That tea had essentially been finished, through a full round of infusions, but it had the one more in it, interesting but largely spent.  Anyway, she said she liked it better, so maybe her flavor identification is picking up but she needs to continue a bit further along a preference curve.

normal range oxidation, per the story the brewed leaves tell

It was interesting comparing this experience to the Gongfu tea brewing instructions on the box:


...increase the amount of leaf to 5-8 grams per 200 ml of water  and reduce your brewing to 15 seconds... you can re infuse the tea  many times up to 10 times for oolong tea), just add about 5 seconds extra for each infusion.


Of course with any brewing approach that would need to be adjusted for the individual tea and for preference.  Dan Congs can be touchy, and this tea provides plenty of flavor but worked better with faster, lighter infusions, even shorter than that.  I mention it here as interesting background, related to what I was already saying, not as a critique of labeled instructions, because that is a reasonable standard starting point.  Different teas fade faster than others, but it's easy to shift timing to account for that since you've always just tried that last infusion to base it on.


I tried the tea later brewed more Western-style.  I really used a hybrid style, to be more specific, with a proportion and timing shifted a bit from conventional Western brewing towards those in Gongfu brewing, perhaps not something I should be recommending since that could get tricky balancing those factors.  It worked quite well; I was surprised.  In past experience Dan Cong really does need the short Gongfu style infusions to work out best, often limiting the unusual astringency I'd spoken of (or tartness in the version), but I was able to get a similar balance using a completely different approach and set of parameters, and in a slightly different flavor-aspect range.  The sweetness was about the same, with tartness diminished, and the taste started as peach--the same--and included a bit more of an almond aspect, then moving to more floral.  I might have liked it even better made that way.


All in all a nice tea, complex and refined.  I get drawn into questioning just how nice, how teas compare to the best of the type, or where they fall across a general range, or how value-related issues work out, but all of that is not part of a normal review scope, and more challenging for me to assess at this point.  I liked it; it was how I just described it, interesting and pleasant.

China Life Oriental Beauty (Bai Hao, Taiwanese oolong)

beautiful tea; that's pretty much the right look

A great example of this tea type from China Life; site link for this tea here. One of my favorite versions of oriental beauty is from Thailand,  a tea I just gave away the last of, so it's especially nice to try a version just as good.  Or this one may be better, depending on preference, since it's a little different.  That's really how the type goes, spanning an interesting range of related characteristics, so different in character there may or may not be one clear optimum.

The standard description of an oriental beauty (Bai Hao) fits this tea as a starting point:  good sweetness and complexity, tastes in the range of muscatel, citrus and other fruit, and spice (the package general type description trades out honey for spice but close enough; honey works too).

This version is on the more oxidized side, which works well with how the tea comes across.  Of course OB typically is on the more oxidized side of medium, but this one is a bit towards a black tea from upper medium.  It's still a very soft, sweet, fruity and complex tea, so the extra oxidation just adds some extra earthy undertone to the flavors context, and changes everything around a little in a way that works.

a very silly tea taster

There is a lot going on with this tea, starting with that type description (muscatel, citrus, honey, other fruit that's not so easy to clearly identify).  Someone really good at teasing out an extra long list of component tastes might add a lot more than I will here.  As can be typical for me the spice is an intriguing element.  It's not clearly cinnamon,  but in that range, maybe closer to nutmeg or cardamom, but I'm not sure either is a perfect match.  A pronounced honey component is layered in with the other tastes too, very strong as a scent in the empty cup.


I asked for some input from my tasting assistant and she guessed banana, but I'm going to have to say she missed it that time.  Or maybe if she meant dried banana she might be on to something; I could see that, a taste quite like the softer dried version of small bananas, not the hard chips.


Across some infusions the tea doesn't shift a lot. Some of the more forward taste elements diminish a little to let the base stand forward more but the taste range is still sweet and bright.  The fullness thins a little but the flavors stay clean and as complex, a good sign and a pleasant attribute.

not really black tea, but a good bit oxidized

China Life made a great introductory video about the type,  linked here, explaining that terpenes are the compounds responsible for the flavors complexity.  I've researched the type background for posts before (especially here) but that part wasn't familiar.  I don't think I've mentioned that they make great videos that span explaining the basics of tea brewing, to others going into types background, like this one on Dan Cong, or on lots of tangents, like how slurping works in tasting. 


 As Don mentioned in that video this is a tea type that does well brewed different ways, good across a range of preparations, not touchy or easy to screw up.  One could draw out different balances of nice flavors based on slight changes in approach.  Since this tea is on the darker / more oxidized side body could change a lot, drank as wispy and subtle, emphasizing the fruit aspects and complexity, or brewed stronger, as a substantial tea with lots of body and full earthy / mineral flavors.  I'd have more to say about that after trying this tea a couple more times, and could fill in a longer flavor-aspects list, but I'm getting behind in finishing post drafts and tasting teas, so I'll go with that more basic description here, my initial impression.


It would seem a shame to use Western style brewing for a tea this good, and there is no way I'd brew it grandpa style, as covered in a recent post, but Western style brewing would work since the tea is flexible.  To me the tea type doesn't transition as much across infusions as some other types of teas do, more about flavor aspects that seem more forward and more of a base shifting in proportion, so there might be less to miss of that aspect--the transition itself--using simpler brewing.


My wife gave me some fresh pineapple to have with breakfast after drinking the tea for several infusions and it occurred to me that a similar sweetness, citrus character, and pineapple taste range could have been one part of what I had been tasting. Or maybe that was just the power of suggestion, and a vaguely general range, but I could swear I was "getting" pineapple after I had both in front of me.


I might mention that pineapple really isn't one specific taste, that versions of the fruit share common aspects, but there are lots of types of pineapples in tropical countries that definitely don't all taste the same.  My understanding is that Dole chose the one type familiar to Americans as canned fruit not for sweetness or specific taste but because that fruit shape was closest to that of a can.  The one my wife had bought was nice, bright flavored, citrusy, honey - sweet and complex (some general character shared by the tea), and of course it tasted like pineapple.