Phoenix oolong: Eight Immortals — Baixan Dancong 潮汕、清香型鳳凰水仙: 八仙單樅
A humble Fenghuang Dancong
Of all the bouquet mannequin Phoenix Oolongs, Baxian — Eight Immortals — is simply not solely one among my favourites, however as well as one which I usually fall once more to when there is a menace in properly being or despair.
It’s normally the tea of different amongst Fenghuang producers for submitting to tea competitions to best signify their skills. It is definitely one among many most fascinating of Fenghuang, however not the very best to supply properly, nor its fashion readily enchantment to novice drinkers.
An excellent Eight Immortals is just not going to be as extraordinarily aromatic as one other Phoenix like Honey Orchid or Huangzhi Xiang. However the fragrance is as persistent. This enduring non-dominating kind of companionship probably one motive why it has a strong group of followers of seasoned drinkers.
What really makes me fall for this dancong, however, is its soothing smoothness and calming fashion, other than the curing outcomes for early indicators of colds and flus, despair, and feeling heavy. In such circumstances, I’d normally throw in 7 to eight grams of tealeaves in a 150ml gaiwan, blanche it with 95°C water and gives it an preliminary infusion of on the very least 30 sec.
A larger tea is one you may get additional events of infusion from. Is it true?
Fantasy says the upper a tea the additional rounds of infusion you get from it. This probably the popular delusion there could also be throughout the tea circle, however illogical and unscientific its ground. Try giving any tea a ten min preliminary infusion and see what variety of additional rounds you could get from it. Try moreover 30 sec per spherical on a premium gyokuro to test it with a matured Tieguanyin to see what variety of rounds you get.
Small gaiwan or enormous teapot, it really is what fashion you want to get from the tea leaves that points.
Whereas it is true {that a} larger tea holds additional fashion substances, it is how lots of these dissoluble constituents one can get in full from a tough and quick amount of a tea in each infusion that points. That is to say how pleasing the tea is with the infusion methodology you tailor-made for it, even there is only one spherical.
The bodily kind of the tea affect how briskly it releases its contents. Some tea leaves are thicker, some additional battered, some with the cuticle very lots intact, and so forth. Most importantly, some people need additional fashion in each sip, some merely make their tea very mild. That impacts tremendously the relative measurement of infusion and thereby the proportion of extractable provides into the tea liquor in each spherical.
For me, if I benefit from the short infusion time methodology with a gaiwan, I’d add 20 to 50% additional time to each consecutive spherical of infusion and I am happy with 5 rounds for even the right Eight Immortals.
After that many rounds, I can actually really feel pretty a bit lighter and by no means as tight. If I can afford the time, one different go of 1 different Fenghuang later throughout the day, like in 4, 5 hours.
My companion, my medicine, and my caffeine
The exact cup of Eight Immortals I was consuming when scripting this textual content. It was full until I wrote up to now and realised that I should take a picture of it
As I write this passage, I’ve actually sipped by way of a 300 ml cup of a strong infusion that I purchased from mixing two rounds of 5 min on 4.5 g to 150 ml. That’s how crazy I am with an awesome Baxian. Then as soon as extra, I am these number of folks that need chocolate that is really darkish and my wine dry comparatively than fruity.
So stop worrying or arguing about what variety of rounds you could get from a tea. Focus in how sturdy you could make that tea to be nonetheless tasteful. How do you get hold of its best gastronomical potential? How does that tea relate to you personally…
What you need to know: harvest and timing
Eight Immortals is the most recent tea plant to spout in all larger altitudes in Fenghuang Shan. Often the first choosing happens in early Would possibly. I on a regular basis buy solely that harvest. All respectful farmers throughout the peaks, harking back to Wudong, Shitau, and so forth do only one harvest per 12 months.
There is a notion that every one bouquet mannequin dancongs are best when latest. That is on account of most distributors promote primarily maocha. Maochas of any tea varieties are unstable and may change. One good occasion is these of sheng Pu’ers.
An awesome Phoenix producer on a regular basis bake the tea completely after stalk sorting the freshly processed tea. For me, I need a second spherical of fireside a month or so later to lock throughout the true goodness of the tea: its calming fashion. This additional course of not solely provides depth, however as well as the potential to mature. Then as soon as extra, good producers are normally not as many as you rely on in a key excellent oolong space.
How a humble existence is immortalised
Eight Immortals — Baixan is being picked in Wudong, Fenghuang Shan. These bushes are numerous generations from the distinctive eight.
On the end of the nineteenth Century, a poor farmer by the determine of Wen Huan Cong acquired some cuttings of Black Leaf ( cultivar determine, aka Da Wu Ye ) to transplant in his residence village of Li Zai Ping in Wudong throughout the Phoenix Mountains ( Fenghuang Shan, Chaozhou area, Guangdong ). Having effectively developed eight youthful vegetation, Wen’s downside now was to find a yard for them. He was too poor to private any land other than numerous meters for greens shut by his shed.
Creatively, he found tiny spots in between rocks in larger slopes shut by which have been all so small that no one cared to plant one thing in them. So these tiny bushes each grew in a singular cracks throughout the rocky slopes proper right here and there spherical Li Zai Ping. Miraculously they began producing good tea numerous years later. They’ve developed a method character additional superior and deeper than that of their guardian.
Wen known as his produce Quzailiao, paying homage to the village the place he purchased the cuttings from.
Some 60 years and some changes of dynasties later, throughout the age of fantasy creation nevertheless anti-religion in 1958, an officer of the native authorities tea levy regiment seen and tasted the harvest from these scattered matured bushes. Considerably than the common-or-garden village determine, he expressed that these eight bushes have been identical to the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea — an historic fable the place the equivalent number of fairies, each a particular character with explicit skills, crossed a mystical sea to realize godhood.
When a decide who represented an entity with absolute vitality said so, it was merely pure for little peasants to adjust to. The yields from the bushes from that point on have been referred with that celestial label, which was later abbreviated to Eight Immortals — Baxian. It is the solely choice in Fenghuang with such a heavenly determine. Totally different cultivars are named after the fashion, the place, the appears, or the historic previous of the plant.
Totally different bouquet mannequin Fenghuang dancongs, along with the well-known Duck Poo, Magnolia and Ginger Blossom and so forth will most likely be lined individually in later articles.
The last few paragraph of historic previous depends on the story instructed by the life prolonged Fenghuang tea scholar and advocate, Mr Huang Bozi in his e-book, Zhongguo Fenghuang Cha.