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Today I drank the last 9g of my cake. It was a very nice way as well. First I had some of it with breakfast, during which I also filled up my thermos. I then drank from it during the day, as I went skiing. It was an awesome powder day with blue skies, something we have had very little of this winter so far. After returning, I did another batch brew, which was super satisfying. I especially appreciated the amazing texture and strong flavour you can get from a tea like this without any danger of making it unpalatable as there is basically no astringency and only very little bitterness. To conclude, I boiled the tea for 15 minutes, which I do quite rarely these days, but I thought it was a fitting end to my very positive relationship with the Rooster King.

The king is dead, long live the king!

This Dan Cong is on the pricier side, but it delivers. It has a great complexity and depth overall.

The dry leaf aroma is nutty and flowery with additional hints of cookies and molasses. During the session, the smell gives a bunch of associations, such as purple corn, green pepper, Breckland thyme, and orchids.

The liquor itself is very fragrant as well, its smooth and tender character in the mouth quickly transforms into a strong presence with punch and astringency. The tea has a superb bitter and floral taste with notes of apple and sugarcane. Its aftertaste is also quite rich and mineral.

This tea has a great pungent taste, which is indeed very floral. I also love the aromas, they remind me of forest, nettle, peat, and also Mao Feng green tea.

The first infusion is sweet and bitter with strong forest vibes and a biting, spicy aftertaste. The second one bring vegetal notes (moss) and woody bitterness (pine). The aftertaste present really good huigan, as well as some apple note and a strong savoury minerality. Overall I get a sensation that makes me want to drink water in between the tea.

There is a strong clarifying energy to the whole experience. However, I found the mouthfeel to be a bit uninteresting for a tea at this price.

The bitterness of this tea has calmed down quite fast indeed. It still has a lot of grainy flavours and pungency to it though. The aroma reminds me of apples, soil, hay, and forest honey. The taste is sweet and herbaceous with a clear vegetal sourness. The aftertaste is more nutty with a honey-like character.

A good example of one of my favourite areas, but also not exceptional.

The aroma is sweet, floral and fruity. The taste is more bitter, sour, and mineral on the other hand. The tea is very bright at the moment with notes of rapeseed and green apples.

I like the progression of this tea, one of the cakes that has been in my collection for the longest time. It has a strong and unique taste that balances sweet, savoury and bitter flavours well. The notes remind me of dried fruits, ginseng, taro root, but also camphor and grain in the aftertaste. The mouthfeel is very thick and engaging too.

Two days ago I returned to this sheng in my collection, which always means engaging time.

The aroma is nutty and has hints of alcohol. The taste is sweeter than in the past, but still with plenty of pungency and the interesting bitterness layers present. It somehow tastes ‘yellow’ to me, but I’m not even sure myself what that means. Specific flavours include wood, hay, sugar beet, tree bark, gin, barley, birch, wet earth and others. There is a strong minerality and thickness to the mouthfeel. The qi is very grounding and warming in the core.

As the vendor description suggests, this tea lands somewhere in between a hong oolong from Taiwan and a wild black tea (e.g. taiwanese Shan Cha). It is more bitter than the former and more fruity than the latter. It also remains interesting for many infusions. Overall, I am quite happy with it, especially for drinking in this late autumn weather.

The aromas are flowery, vegetal, and leathery. The taste is spicy, bitter, floral, sweet, and woody. There are hints of mushrooms, nectarine, later on also malt. The mouthfeel is buttery and gets astringent towards the end of the session. The aftertaste is pungent, fragrant, and biting with a long-lasting sweetness.

This white tea has an interesting mix of tangy, tannic, savoury, and foresty flavours, as well as a hint of pastries. The aftertaste is also a bit sour, and the aroma reminds me of sawdust, apricots, sugarcane, and allspice.

This tea is quite oxidized for a fresh white tea, surely partly as a result of being pressed into balls. These are pretty tight and take a long time to open, it’s definitely not a tea for a quick session. Additionally, it also has a lot of staying power. A great tea for autumn vibes I would say :)