Dayuling High Mountain Oolong

Second tea from my new order from WFT. I remember how amazing this tea was now. I think that this year’s tea is a bit less dynamic than the winter 2022 batch I last drank, but this tea is still exquisite. That lovely mystical misty mountain forest flavor that made me fall in love with this tea is still present. The main drawback is I don’t get much in the way of tropical fruits on the nose this year. Not a huge deal though :).

So glad I splurged on 75 g of this. I will be enjoying it for at least a couple of months I bet. Phenomenal stuff really. Now I just wish I had more of the Bi Lu Xi as well haha.

Harvest: Spring 2024
Location: Da Yu Ling
Elevation: 2500 m
Cultivar: Qing Xin

Flavors: Mist, rainforest, sweet, vegetal, cabbage, cream, butter

This is my three hundredth tasting note! Let’s hope there will be many more to come. Even without the swaps, Steepster is a great place to explore new teas and hone my tasting skills. I appreciate you guys!

When I ordered from Wang Family Tea last summer, I got every high mountain oolong except for Dayuling, which only came in a 50 g bag. Fortunately, Daylon remedied this situation with a generous sample. I steeped it according to the vendor’s instructions using 6 g in 120 ml of boiling water for 60, 50, 65, 90, 120, 160, and 240 seconds, plus 4, 5, and 10 minute steeps.

The dry aroma is of orchids, veggies, and sugarcane. The first steep has notes of fresh veggies, including lettuce and green beans, plus orchid, peach, cookie, and sugarcane. The sweet orchid aftertaste goes on for minutes. The second steep gives me even headier orchid, veggies (I get cabbage in this steep), white sugar, peach, and other flowers I can’t name. There’s a green, sappy, “plant-like” quality to this tea. The next steep is quite similar, with orchid, peach, plants, cabbage, green beans, and sugarcane sweetness. Daylon detects hyacinths, and that might be the flower I’m also getting. The aftertaste is almost as good as the tea itself. The peach has bowed out by the fourth steep, though the veggies, florals, and sweetness are still prominent. By the seventh steep, this tea is mostly grassy and vegetal, though there’s no hint of the astringency that plagues most green oolongs in their final steeps. This seems to be a characteristic of Wang’s teas.

This tea is elegant, elusive, and ethereal while still having lots of flavour. I don’t claim to taste misty mountain forests, but I understand where that’s coming from. This tea deserves careful attention, and I’m going to hold off on rating it until I do a couple more sessions.

WARNING- LONG LONG LONG NOTE FOR AN OOLONG.

My stash is the 2020 lot, but it has the same notes as they used in their description for 2021. I actually ordered 50 grams of this last year but got 2 10 gram samples; I contacted the company and they sent me the 50 grams that I ordered.

Reviewing this one, it’s an extremely clean and thick high mountain oolong. It can handle high temperatures and it usually lasts at least 6 steeps for me when I brew it in the 20-30 sec increment scale, but I also follow the parameters on the website rinsing the tea, then going for 60, 50, 65, 90, and then long steeps ahead. The shorter steeps bring out more of the florals you smell in the aroma into the taste, but the longer steeps gong fu give you a more rounded mouthfeel. Boiling water amps up aroma, cooler temperatures make the tea a little bit sweeter in my experience.

The notes on this one are interesting because it really hits you more in feeling, while the tea is not lacking in flavor. It’s a lighter tea that I can see red tea drinkers snubbing, and it’s not as fruity as other Dayulings. While it’s definitely floral, the florals are harder to pin apart other than orchid, some hyacinth, and other more subtle white flowers. Snowdrops kept coming to my mind. It is definitely sweet having a white sugar note in the first two steeps, even in the rinse, and it’s got a refreshing vegetal creamy mouthfeel. The site describes the vegetal notes as being like mountain cabbage, and I can see it in the teas refreshing crisp quality. Sometimes it’s got a white egg quality in texture, and there were times where I get peach in steep 3, but not too often. Orchid, sugar, white flowers, and cabbage are the main notes I get.

Like most Dayuling’s it’s effervescent, and it feels like your drinking a mountain mist cloud in overlooking a forest kind of like the way the describe. Like a cuifeng, it’s got some alpine notes too which I usually don’t get. They were describing petrichor, but I am getting something like drinking dew and misty fog. This tea is the essence of moisture, and moisture is the essence of beauty……(mer-man high pitch pitiful coughing)
Comment if you know the movie reference!

So yes, this is leaf water, but it’s good leaf water that comes from mountains with water falls and mist. Basically, it’s what a Dayuling is supposed to be. I’ve only had one other Dayuling that I’ve liked a little bit more in terms of flavor, but I highly recommend this one mostly because I recommend Wang Family Tea period. Their customer service is awesome and none of their teas disappoint me. If you are looking more for something flavor forward and fruity, then the Fushou Shan might be a better bet or one of the specialty Shanlinxi’s. The cuifeng is also exceptional if you are looking for something cheaper but just as good.

I’m just glad that I finally got to reviewing this one. I know a few of you are probably tired of the constant high mountain oolongs I review. They are becoming a specialty at this point. Leafhopper, if you want me to save some of this for you, I will. Just let me know.