Jas-eTea

Shui Xian (narcissus) is famous for its mellowness and light narcissus floral aroma.  Even though this tea is from the Ban Yan growing areas, this particular Ban Yan growing area is very near to the Zheng Yan area and its rock taste is still very strong.  The highlight of this tea is the subtle, lasting narcissus aroma, sweet tea soup and long aftertaste.

Harvest time: 2009 Spring

Picking standard: one bud with two leaves

Shape: tight bar shaped tea leaves

Dried tea color: bloom with dark brown color

Aroma: natural and fresh unique fragrance

Tea soup color: bright golden yellow

Taste: freshness, softness, mellow, thickness, unique flower taste

Suggested brewing vessel: Gaiwan(120cc) or Yixing tea pot(120cc)

Brewing guidelines: Gaiwan or Yixing pot (120cc): 5-7grams per session (based on personal taste); the water temperature should be over 98C or 209 F.

1) Warm up: First warm up the vessels, pour out the hot water;

2) Smell dried tea fragrance: Then put the teas in the vessels, cover the Gaiwan or Yixing pot, and shake the vessels for about 3 seconds. Then smell the dried tea leaves aroma.

3) Wash the tea: Pour the hot water into the vessels and pour out the water within 8 seconds;

4) First infusion: pour the hot water into the vessels again, and steep for about 10-25 seconds (based on personal taste)

5) Ensuing infusions: the time for the successive infusion can be 5 seconds longer than the previous infusion.

Infusion numbers: at least 9 times

Wu Yi Wulong (also known as Oolong).  Wu Yi Yan Cha or “Rock Wulong” is a special subcategory of Wulong tea grown in the vicinity of Wu Yi Shan City in northern Fujian Province.  Wu Yi Shan is a UNSECO World Heritage site, internationally recognized and protected for its biological diversity and significance as an ancient cultural site.  A long time center of tea production, farmers in Wu Yi Shan developed the methods for making Wulong tea around 1650. To the present, Wu Yi Shan’s wulong tea, known as “Yan Cha” or “Rock Tea” is considered by many to be the preeminent style of wulong tea.  More so than any other famous tea, understanding Wu Yi Yan Cha is inextricable from examining the intricacies of its growing region.  Tea Production in Wu Yi Shan and the Origin of Wu Yi Wulong Wu Yi Shan has a long history of producing famous tea.  Nothern Fujian ascended to fame as the foremost tribute tea producing region during the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD) when the fields and factories of the region were recognized as the producer of the nation’s best quality tea and hosted the epicenter of the government controlled tea industry.  During the Song, all tea was essentially green tea that was compressed into cakes during its manufacture.  The compressed tea from Wu Yi Shan was so sought after that it was renowned to be worth more than its weight in gold.  The arrival of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD) forced Wu Yi’s craftsmen to change the way they made tea from the compressed form to the loose-leaf form we recognize today.  With much difficulty in adapting to this new standard of production, Wu Yi Shan slowly retooled its infrastructure and began to make loose-leaf green tea, in an attempt to copy the technique from successful tea producers in Anhui.  The producers of Wu Yi Shan, being unfamiliar with making pan fired green tea, inadvertently allowed their tea leaves oxidize.  Their imperfect efforts at making loose leaf green tea sired the creation of partially oxidized wulong tea and fully oxidized black tea in Wu Yi Shan at the end of the Ming.  Wu Yi Shan continues to produce the world most sought after wulong in the form of its famous Yan Cha.  The Climate and Tea Plant Biology of Wu Yi Shan Throughout its history spanning dynasties, tea scholars have been attracted to the biologically diverse and unique climate of Wu Yi Shan.  Even when the Scottish Spy, Robert Fortune, smuggled the first tea bushes out China, he traveled to Wu Yi Shan to take his samples.  In the last 1000 years, hundreds of varieties of tea bushes have been identified as growing in Wu Yi Shan.  Out of these hundreds of bushes, Da Hong Pao, Tie Luo Han, Bai Ji Guan, Shui Jin Gui are considered the Four Famous Wu Yi Wulongs.  Of the four, Da Hong Pao is unquestionably the most famous.  What are considered to be the mother bushes of Da Hong Pao still live in the cliffs of Wu Yi Shan, and are now over 350 years old.  Since Wu Yi shan has so many bush types, the famous teas are always produced in small quantities.  They will never be truly common products, at least the tea grown inside the mountain range; there are a lot of areas in the surrounding mountains that are producing large quantities of these cultivars.  Certainly the most common of the rock wulongs is Rou Gui, a cultivar that some locals rank as better than the more famous teas.  Wu Yi Shan’s climate offers a number of unique benefits to growing tea, most notably its mineral soil eroded from the volcanic rock faces.  A layer of soft red soil lies about 10-40 cm thick on the ground of Wu Yi’s interior.  This is the rich terrior that endows the characteristic flavor of Wu Yi’s tea.  In Chinese, this distinctive flavor is expressed as “Yan Yun,” literally “rock rhyme.”  The temperature averages 18C though the year, with a short frost time that won’t kill tea plants.  Precipitation is abundant and the region is almost always in a shroud of fog.  The humid conditions (80% humidity on average) keeps the soil moist and the bushes healthy.   Besides the humidity, the cliffs are continually weeping its minerals into the soil.  Even though Wu Yi Shan’s elevation averages lower (650M) than other high quality tea growing regions, its ideal temperature, soil and weather more than compensates. Hundreds of big rocks, some the size of a small mountain, are spread though the area.  There are ninety-nine large rock faces in the center of Wu Yi mountain, the Zheng Yan Cha growing area, alone.  The Zheng Yan Cha growing region itself is defined by two rivers encircling the heart of the region.  There is a myth that a princess was separated from her lover by a monster, all three represented by towering rocks.  The princess and her lover are two tall monoliths, separated by a large plateau.  The monster is the plateau, and it has many valleys scarring it.  It is within the monster that the best teas grow, on its back and in the narrow, cliff-sided valleys in between.  

Wu Yi Shan Wulong Terminology.  The particularity in Wu Yi Rock Wulong’s manufacture has given rise to a specialized vocabulary of terms used to describe the tea’s attributes.  Below you’ll find a reference for some of these terms.  Commercially, Wu Yi tea is typed by growing region: Zheng Yan Cha, Ban Yan Cha, and Zhou Cha. Zheng Yan– “Center rock tea.”  The soil consists solely of weathered rock soil.  The soil composition changes outside of this region creating a noticeably different flavor from tea grown inside of it.  

Ban Yan– “Half rock tea.” On the edge and in the surrounding foot hills of the Zheng Yan area. The essential qualities of yan cha flavor are less apparent than tea grown in Zheng Yan but are still recognizable. Besides growing the famous cultivers, this is the place where many not so famous teas, but still mysterious and special in their own right are grown, like Shui Xian and Ba Xian. Zhou Cha– “River bank tea.” Tea grown near the banks of Zhou and Huangbo Rivers. The quality is considered to be half that of Zheng Yan teas. Yan Yun- “Rock Rhyme” – The signature character of Wu Yi rock wulong. A combination of not only a tea’s flavor but its fragrance, color, and quality of liquor. This characteristic is a product of the special environment and mineral soil of Wu Yi Shan. The fundamental understanding of a Rock Wulong tea’s quality is the degree to which it exhibits “Yan Yun.”