Drinking and recording my notes of drinking the phoenix oolong ‘Wudong Mi Lan Xiang’ that I sell (the cheaper of the 2), I made some interesting observations. All of the results are based off of using a tetsubin (iron kettle) and brewing in glass (except the 1:10, which I’ll explain later). All were brewed with water at rolling boil and steeped for 2 minutes.
Peach Tart Spectrum:
Starting at a ratio of 1g:75ml, you can feel the special qualities of phoenix oolongs, especially mi lan xiang. An oily film will coat the tongue which slowly releases an aroma/flavor similar to tropical punch/Hawaiian punch. Over all the tea is like a peach pie with a custard layer. Something that looks like this:
This effect gets better and better up to a point. As the ratio of tea:water increases, the peach notes become lost and the over-all the fragrance shifts more towards the aromas ‘baked crust’, specifically how dark the crust is becoming. 1:50 is the best ratio to experience the ideal peach tart concept (I think) where you get a great balance of both fruit:crust.
At 1:40 the aroma becomes esoteric — ‘woody peach core’, more ‘warmth’, while in the flavor there little daggers of acidity which prick the tongue. My wife and daughter dislike this tea if brewed stronger than 1:40, and prefer to go in the direction of 1:75 rather than 1:10.
Between 1:40 and 1:30 is a ‘dead zone’ where it’s either too weak for the gongfu flavor spectrum or too strong for the western spectrum. It’s best to avoid it, at least that’s my advice.
Gan Spectrum
At 1:30 there’s a fragrance that comes out which leads you to believe that the tea will be bitter, lets call this fragrance ‘gan’. When drinking it, sourness hits immediately, the bitterness unfolds in beautiful layers, revealing a sweet sensation afterwards. For someone who wants the ‘gongfu’ experience but doesn’t want to go through the hassle of setting it up, this is the weakest you can brew it. There is a definite effect on the tongue, you’ll feel it buzzing for minutes, this is totally normal.
At 1:25 this effect is even better, the fruitiness of the teas aroma is more complex. I’d say it’s a toss up between apricots, sour plums, peaches, nectarines. The tongue buzz sensation lasts about 5 minutes.
At 1:10 you enter the ‘whoaaa’ zone. This was the only infusion that I didn’t do in glass because I have a little yixing clay tea pot perfect for this. Also, when brewing tea at such a strong ratio it can be incredibly expensive to use such a substantial amount of tea leaf in each pot (if the amount of water is large).
Bitterness and astringency hit like a wall and it takes me over 20 seconds before I’m able to process what’s happening. At the time I was drinking this, what I actually thought was: this is like in those movies where a person is caught between 2 walls which are closing in and they have nowhere to escape to and are frozen in fear — but the walls here are giant slices of peach tart, and I was about to get crushed by them.
I think with the extra strength of the tea, the idea of ‘sourness’ is muscled out. After that initial 30 seconds, the flavor works up to a peak which happens at around the 1m30s mark. My tongue felt like it was bound up with the sweetness that an extremely ripe kiwi has. It’s that deep, almost medicinal, green sweetness that I’m referring to.
I had a timer going, the flavors ‘finish’ (how long the flavors really linger in the mouth for) lasted 7 minutes before fizzling away and my tongue stopped buzzing. Really amazing stuff.
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