2007 Yongxi Finetip

Many thanks to CB for this most unusual green tea, sold by The Whole Leaf where it goes for about $7/oz. I've been meaning to post this review for just under two months, and a steady stream of tea reviews landing in my inbox from CB herself prompted me into action!

It comes in a charming little black zip-lock bag, decorated with lovely Chinese art. It's easy to go overboard and get vulgar with the Chinese art and crazy amount of seals/calligraphy, but this is nicely understated. I appreciate the effort on their part. You can catch a glimpse of it in the background...

The leaves are very curious indeed, being tight, green snails that are very glossy, as if made from wax. Don't they look charming? They are similarly glossy to the touch. The aroma is fresh, classical lucha.

While there is a certain zesty energy on the tongue, the flavour is standard grassiness.

The wet leaves are charming, being entire tip systems, elegant and curled.

This tea is quite a looker, if not one to absorb you in its flavour.

2007 Milanxiang "Gold Medal" Dancong

So, then, dancong [single bush]. Also known as "Fenghuang" [phoenix] tea, after the mountains down in Guangdong, hence the surfeit of brands such as "Super Phoenix", "Imperial Phoenix", and "I Can't Believe It's Not Phoenix". Imen has a whole ream of interesting information on this genre of tea, for the curious reader.

I have a fairly strong set of prior assumptions when it comes to dancong:

i. Dancong is fruity and floral. It can be pleasant, but is usually fairly simple. It lacks the complexity and enduring appeal of, say, Wuyi yancha or pu'er.

ii. Dancong is fairly homogenous. Once past a certain level of quality, it all tastes the same to me. I can't distinguish a prize-winning uber-dancong at $200/1 mg from a good-quality, reasonably-priced $30/100g.

iii. It's best in the first few infusions, and then it tails off into a gently sweet warm water without developing or evolving into anything too exciting.

Dancong is, to me, a pretty girl who turns out to be horridly boring in conversation.


Don't get me wrong, I like dancong very much. However, I consider it a "light and pleasant" tea to enjoy on a fresh week-end morning, rather than an engaging, exciting voyage of discovery as some other teas can provide. The above are just my personal foibles, if you will.

The subject of this article, the Milanxiang [honey-orchid scent] is from Imen's new foray into the world of on-line tea selling, with which I hope to challenge my prejudice. It is a "gold medal winning" tea which is a statement that, coming from most other people, would make me roll my eyes, given that it's hard to substantiate and even harder to quantify. However, Imen knows her stuff and has been a good writer for so long, that it must mean something in this case.

The leaves are long, as you'd hope for a dancong, and have the fresh scent of fruits that you would expect.

Unlike many dancong, this one has a vibrant energy that is felt on contact with the lips and tongue. It has a smooth honey beidixiang [initial scent in the aroma-cup], which, while pleasant, doesn't endure. It's an aptly-named tea, at least.

The flavour is sweet and full, with a gentle, warming chaqi that flushes my neck. Against all odds, this dancong exhibits a huigan that leaves the mouth watering.

By the fifth infusion, it's all over, and we're into the familiar territory of sweet, fruity warm water.


Overall, this is one of the better dancong that I have had the pleasure of encountering. It didn't really shake my assumptions about the genre, but it was a treat finding out nonetheless.

These Diluvial Times

Oxford is pretty much underwater. This has been happening for the past thousand years, so it's not a great surprise (and is why all of our libraries are not built at ground level!), but it's quite hard to get used to.

Here's the view from our lounge:


It looks innocent enough, until you realise that this wide lake is actually a sports field. You can see the tops of park benches sticking out of the water!

This makes it good weather for drinking tea. Many thanks to Imen, Tomas, and Giorgio for the various samples - I'm looking forward to tucking into them over the next few weeks. Stay tuned for some notes!

In other news, we recently discovered a lovely old traditional shoeshop in town; raising a pair of good shoes seems very much akin to raising a good teapot, requiring plenty of polishing and care after each use, with the intention of developing a rich, deep patina over time. Oddly, polishing shoes seems to get me into the same psychological "zone" as does making tea.


I was standing in the entry lodge of Somerville College last night, and a passer-by stopped to say, "Are those shoes from Duckers?" It's good to see that some old, good things from the past can still hold their own against modern living. I think we'd all count good tea in that category.