"King of Duck Shit Aroma" Dan Cong Oolong Tea

(Spring 2023 harvest) Mid deep amber roast. Some honeysuckle, gentle satisfying toasty notes. Brisk. Second steep and even cleaner florals- echo of honeysuckle, hydrangea, rose, jasmine. Ultimately very nicely structured, mid-roast and still somewhat green oolong palate.

Big day for my Yunnan Sourcing haul. I’m trying this one side by side with the dehydrated-at-green version here (https://steepster.com/teas/yunnan-sourcing/95289-chou-shi-king-of-duck-shit-dan-cong-oolong-tea).

“Aroma” is right… roast, spinach, floral, sweet potato from the steaming leaves. Pow pow.

Pours a light yellowish brown. Smells of vanilla, creamy, cake… like if you caramelized some delicate Alishan notes… which is not what I expected after smelling the steamed leaves or seeing how dark the dry leaves are. Tastes like caramel, cooked spinach, sweet potato… but all very delicate and first-steepy.

Liquor is not much darker on the second steep, but the aroma is getting heavier… I can definitely smell the cream and florals with some caramel. Everything’s more intense in this pour. Butterscotch, stronger florals, roast coming through more now, white bean umami.

Opened my little pot to check on the wet leaves again after the third steep — got really bright flowers coming through roast on the nose. Campfire in a meadow full of wildflowers. Vegetal, floral, and roast spread evenly across the palate.

I over-steeped the next one. Extremely forgiving, just a little bitterness detected toward the cooler end of the cup. Nose is mostly vegetal. Flavor is more mellow, wood, perfumes, and florals. Still some roast permeating.

And just like that: florals are gone, wood perfume is gone, even the roast is mostly gone. Maybe I understeeped this cup, due to oversteeping the last? Wet leaves, earth.

Nice long steep on this one. Mushroom. Earthiness. Florals and Wood perfumes are definitely gone. Even the roasted flavor is pretty well absent here. Celery. Going to end it here… as much as I enjoy the watery vegetables, I anticipate the next steep is going to be more water than vegetable.

This is nice. And fun. It tastes a little loosey-goosey, maybe — casual, a beer instead of a scotch. But it’s tasty and I’m glad to have some in my cupboard.

Mastress Alita’s Sipdown Challenge
September 2022: A tea from a tea swap/traveling tea box

Pulled this one from the TTB a few months back and took advantage of a cool (well, relatively cool…) morning to steep it up.

I’m relatively new to oolongs but have liked what I’ve tasted so far! I think I got four steeps out of this one. I enjoyed watching the color change the longer I steeped it, from a pale yellow to a much deeper, earthier shade. As for flavors, I probably should have paid a little more attention, but I was reading outdoors and just enjoying the moment. I didn’t notice any particularly strong floral notes like other oolongs I’ve tasted; it had more of a mellow, toasty, roasty herbal earthiness. All in all, a pleasant — if not terribly memorable — sipper for a morning of reading outdoors.

(It strikes me as almost funny that I’m not using this for the “A tea with a strong aroma” prompt, given the name, but I’ve got plenty more sipdown contenders for that one!)

Mastress Alita’s Sipdown Challenge February 2022: A tea paired to a favorite fairy tale – “The Ugly Duckling” – 2021 Spring Harvest

Ok, this isn’t technically a sipdown, but I couldn’t resist. Also, on a tangent – I’ve had the misfortune of actually having tasted duck poop (advice: don’t scare the ducks into flight, and if you do then don’t immediately stick the lollipop you were holding into your mouth). I’m glad to say this tea tastes nothing like that avian pond sludge.

Aroma: Butter, Butterscotch, Ice Cream Waffle Cone, something Earthy and Roasted akin to Mocha (dark chocolate and heavy roast coffee beans).

The aroma is pretty spot on in alluding to the taste. There is a charming violet cream (Tieguanyin-like) flavour. The earthy mocha turns out to be kind of bitter and very much unsweetened, but tones down as the cup cools. There’s a note of metallic astringency that puts me in mind of an acidic wine (red, for sure). Something fruity-floral sweet and light emerges too (longan or lychee-ish, honeysuckle). Second steep keeps the violets and the earthy roast, albeit on a gentler scale, but introduces a very strong fruit salad cup (honeydew, mixed berries, pomelo). Third steep is kind of creamy, with familiar oolong notes (floral, veg). I’ll need to do a gongfu session for this sometime soon.

I don’t completely love it, but it’s interesting and makes me want to explore Dan Cong varieties. I’d previously written off these guys early on in my tea journey (roasted flowers were a nope at the time), but this has as much “butter” as some milk oolong and that interests me greatly (ever in search of “the great butter”)! If anyone has recommendations or favourites (doesn’t need to be buttery), drop me a line.

Steep Count: 3

Harvest & Year: Spring 2020

Pretty good, but I found it a little lacking in complexity compared to other similar teas. It is well-balanced, with some sweetness and astringency joined by a strong, savoury flavour that’s sort of bitter and sort of earthy. The initial taste has a note that almost reminds me of shou, though it fades quickly, and the tea is recognizably a dan cong oolong. It resteeps many times without losing flavour. The leaves I tried were from the spring 2020 harvest.