Today we have 滇红金螺茶 (Diānhóng jīn luó chá, "Dianhong Gold Snail Tea"). This is a tea from 云南省临沧市凤庆县 (Yúnnán Shěng Líncāng Shì Fèngqìng Xiàn, "Yunnan Province, Lincang City, Fengqing County) and it is a justly world famous red (in English black) tea. It is very floral for an oxidized tea, yet it is clearly a red tea. It has all the dark undertones that you'd find in an Assam or the various favourite blends like "English Breakfast" and so on.

But here is where it gets a little weird. Did you see how I called it "Golden Snail" above? That's a bit weird. Mostly when you buy a Dianhong you get "Golden Needle". So what's the snail about?

Well, see, golden needle tea is processed into straight, long, rolled leaves. Needle-shaped, as the name would suggest. Golden snail tea is instead rolled into the little curls you see above. Which is surely just cosmetic, right?

Wrong.

This is the weird thing about tea. Varietal, terroir, oxidation, processing, *and even shaping*, all have a part to play in the flavour. And more. The golden needle tea is sweet, floral, bright and cheery. The golden snail tea, despite being picked from the same trees (by the same people), and processed in the same factories (by the same people), has that same floral bouquet, but also has a far darker undertone, almost chocolate-like in its deep, round, nutty bitters, making it an entirely different experience.

This is what I'm sharing today. Details, as usual, in the alt text. As usual Mastodon users will have to click through to see all the pictures.

#茶 #中国茶 #滇红 #金螺 #红茶

#Tea #ChineseTea #DianHong #GoldenSnail #BlackTea

This tea is an interesting one, and if that sounds like "damning with faint praise" well, congratulations on reading between the lines. What we have here is a white tea from 松阳 (Sōngyáng) and people who have a bit of knowledge of Chinese tea culture are already nodding along sagely and saying "nice!".

See, Songyang is a tea growing region in 丽水 (Lìshuǐ) prefecture in 浙江 (Zhèjiāng) province that has provenance dating back to the Tang Dynasty. Songyang tea is justly famous for its high quality, noted for its lasting sweet aftertaste.

Except that's Songyang green tea. This is Songyang white. And Songyang is not noted for being a producer of white tea at all.

Welcome to the wild, woolly world of "experimental tea". See all these bewildering varieties and subdivisions of tea in China didn't just happen by accident. China has literally *thousands* of years of tradition in cultivation, transplantation, and processing experimentation where plantation owners try new ways to distinguish themselves from their neighbours by swapping varietals or processing techniques or growth techniques. This white tea is essentially a Songyang green varietal processed like a Fuding white.

I'm sorry to say that the result is ... mixed. It is by no means a bad tea (especially at the price; this was priced at an introductory level) but it lacks the Songyang trademark sweetness in the aftertaste (something that usually requires pan firing to seal in), but is a heavier, more vegetal flavour than the traditionally light and dainty white teas.

I don't regret the purchase, but I won't be repeating it either. I'll stick with 松阳银猴 (Sōngyáng Yínhóu), the tea Songyang is (justly!) more famous for.

Mastodon users will have to click to see all pictures.

#茶 #中国茶 #松阳茶 #白茶 #实验茶

#Tea #ChineseTea #SongyangTea #WhiteTea #ExperimentalTea

I have already described this tea's experience as part of a blog entry about milk and sugar in tea which I reproduce here in lightly edited and elided form:¹

> 南京雨花茶 (Nánjīng Yǔhuā chá, Nanjing Yuhua tea) is a famously subtle tea that needs patience to fully appreciate. On the first sip it's almost a disappointment: thin, almost watery. A hint of sweetness, some nuttiness like chestnut, a ghost of toasted pine. It's clean, cool, vegetal, and vanishes almost immediately. You take a second sip and things change: the flavour is now clear; fattened up. The chestnut now has a foundation; a tingly basis on your tongue's middle. The pine has sharpened, showing ghosts of dill: brightly resinous. A strong umami note builds. As you sip, the sweetness transforms into a cool finish at the back of the throat. The nuttiness develops into something stronger like raw almonds. The umami strengthens into something like a delicate vegetable soup's broth. Every sip layers over the previous, changing the flavour with each exposure. It shows off the molecules it arranges on your palate sequentially, one after another. The finish stretches for an eternity: a faint, astringent dryness that makes you reach for more. It begins as nothing, but slowly, patiently, becomes everything. It is a true world-class green.

This is a tea with roots in antiquity, but the modern form dates to 1959. It is a tea that is highly dependent on skillful tea artisans. The technique is inscribed in the national list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. It's part of the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. There are well-known masters who are celebrated nationally for their work, like Chen Shengfeng.

This is a special tea.

Mastodon users will have to click to see all pictures.

#茶 #中国茶 #南京茶 #雨花茶 #绿茶 #清明茶

#Tea #ChineseTea #NanjingTea #YuhuaTea #GreenTea #QingmingTea

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¹ https://wordsmith.social/zhang-dianli/tea-snobbery-101-milk-and-sugar-are-evil

Today's tea is 鸭屎香茶 (Yāshǐ Xiāng Chá, Duck Shit Fragrance Tea). And yes, the original name is exactly that crass. The term is "duck shit" not something clinical and "polite" as, say "duck fæces" or the like. There are a lot of stories¹ behind the name, but there's really no way to find the truth. It's just a name that took hold, caught the public fancy, and now despite several attempts to rename it (its official name is something like "Silver Orchid" or "Golden Duck" or something else I forget because I don't care), it remains "duck shit fragrance tea" or, shorter, "duck shit tea".

And I'm here for it.

Duck shit tea is a toasted wulong that, like many wulongs, is an extreme marathon runner in flavour. Even this mid-grade variety of it—emphatically *not* a 单丛 (dān cóng, single bush)—shares that trait. Indeed it shares most of the traits this tea style is famous for, to wit:

- a complex, sweet aroma with notes of ripe fruit (to my nose ... I want to say longans? – it has that diesel-like overtone) and honey, growing to orchid-like scents and even mineral notes as the brews mount;
- a forgiving nature, with only a hint of astringency, even if overbrewed, with a buttery mouthfeel and a clean, sweet, lasting aftertaste;
- an ever-changing palate as you drink and brew starting to develop nutty notes and even hints of spice.

It is the first wulong that I'm thinking of inserting into my daily-drinker rotation. Most other wulongs, as much as I love the taste, are way too finicky for a daily-drinker; the are better instead for special treat days.

As usual more information can be found in the alt text, and as usual users on Mastodon will have to click through to see all photos.

#茶 #中国茶 #凤凰山茶 #鸭屎香茶 #乌龙茶
#Tea #ChineseTea #PhoenixMountainTea #DuckShitTea #WulongTea

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¹ https://www.teaformeplease.com/ya-shi-xiang-duck-shit-oolong/

This tea is a relatively new addition to my daily-drinker rotation. It has a bit of a story behind it; a mixture of craftsmanship, government targeted growth, and corporate philanthropy.

This tea is 雷山红梅茶 (Léishān Hóngméi Chá, Leishan Red Plum Tea). Leishan is in a very economically depressed area of China and is a target for economic development. For this, it works with the philanthropic division of the Alibaba Group. That group tends to go into areas, identify possibilities for enhancing the economics, then helps set up the infrastructure needed to capitalize on it. In Guizhou the obvious economic choice in the mountains is tea; Guizhou tea plantations are in high-quality terroir, but for a variety of reasons is not often consumed outside of Guizhou (part of it being transportation).

This tea is a Leishan clone of a famous tea: 九曲红梅茶 (Jiǔqū Hóngméi Chá, Jiuqu Red Plum tea) which itself has a fascinating story I will someday explore. It is currently the only "red" (we'd say "black") tea of the 28 famous teas of Zhejiang. It has a famous processing of withering, rolling, oxidization, and drying. And masters from Zhejiang were hired to teach the tea producers of Leishan how to do the same with their own tea. The result is an intriguing tea that has the floral notes you'd expect from a high-mountain Chinese red like a Dianhong, but with a walnut-astringent overlay that tastes, of all things, like a high-grade Assam.

Because it's part of a development program, it is sold at subsidized prices (with the Alibaba Group making up the difference as part of their philanthropy) under new production and distribution infrastructure, all as part of establishing the tea in the broader tea culture of China; I'm evidence of the process working.

#茶 #中国茶 #贵州茶 #雷山茶 #红茶
#Tea #ChineseTea #GuizhouTea #LeishanTea #BlackTea

As usual the alt text contains more information. Also, Mastodon users will probably have to click through to see all six photographs.

It's been a long time since I've posted here. And a very long time since I posted about tea.

This tea is my long-term favourite. It's the first genuinely premium Chinese tea I had coming to China, a 庐山云雾茶 (Lúshān Yúnwù Chá, Lushan Cloud & Mist Tea). A mid-range version of this is on my permanent rotation (in place now for over 25 years), but once a year, in the spring, I get a premium first flush.

This is a premium first flush. Specifically it was picked *and processed* on 2026-04-12, so a week after Qingming. This makes it almost, but not quite, a pre-Qingming tea (the absolute peak in local tea culture).

This is much more expensive than my usual daily drinker. I splurge on it, though, because it is really good.

#茶 #中国茶 #江西茶 #庐山茶 #绿茶 #清明茶
#Tea #ChineseTea #JiangxiTea #LushanTea #GreenTea #QingmingTea

As usual the alt text contains more information. Also, Mastodon users will probably have to click through to see all six photographs.