Praise Bee Spring 2024 Milan Xiang Dancong Oolong

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.

Dry leaf smell blew my socks off! Already it had a super sweet smell with hints of nuts. The sweet smell comprises of peach, honey, lychee, flowers and honeydew melon! The wet leaf hits you with a dominant lychee aroma with hints of stonefruit pit, licorice and cinnamon. The texture is clear, mineral and quenching. The tea has astringency but almost unnoticeable and after the astringent episode (neglectable) it leaves you with a lingering sweetness in the back of the throat. The taste is still sweet like honey and it still has the stonefruit pit aroma but this time with a unripe banana and surprisingly peanut notes. Furthermore it has notes of mango, passion fruit, mangosteen and lychee. In conclusion, this is a tea that is known as a classic ‘household’ tea (especially for the Teochew/Chaoshan people) but never have I ever tasted a household tea that offers such an experience. The producer had almost maxxed out this tea and I couldn’t imagine having a better tea for the same price even though this tea was quite pricy. Frankly, I’ve never experienced such a good milanxiang dancong before.