Fengxi Old Ginger, classic Fenghuang dancong oolong
$ 30.80
鳳西 老欉薑母香
Tea Hong’s Fengxi Old Ginger offers a floral, fruity profile with a ginger tone, and even a tiny hint of that spicy bite. Its elegant bouquet is luxuriously rich and complex, yet intricate and delicate. This distinctive olfactory presence and its intriguing gingery zest make the tea a unique choice in the classic style Phoenix oolong line up.
Jiangmu Xiang, as the tea is called in the romanisation of the original name, has a slightly different origin too: about 10min on the motorbike to the east of Wudong — the Mecca of Fenghuang dancong — in the area of Fengxi, where the original 200+year-old tree has been propagated to the hundreds of production ones. Newer ones are now found elsewhere but we stay with the older clones which yields can give deeper and fuller characteristics of the tea.
Like all our classic style Phoenixes, the tea has been rested a few months after harvest before the finishing rebake, and then matured amply before release, as in the proper old tradition.
Net weight: 40 g (1.4 oz) in Kraft-alu pack
In stock
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Taste profile
Nose: Vibrant, floral, round aroma with herbal notes in an overtone of freshly peeled well-grown ginger root. Tinkling and complex fruity accents including those of aged dried mandarin orange peel and Xinjiang white raisin. Palate: Full, lively body with dynamically floral, herbal, and fruity tones. Distinct ginger notes and slight spicy tinkles of that fresh root. Undertone of citrus zest and muscovado with astringent bites. Finish: Invigorating, herbal and dry, yet mouth-watering.
In addition to the classic 2g tealeaves to 100ml water 5 min infusion approach, do try using a higher leaf to water ratio but with shorter duration and repeated brews to experience the many facades of this wonderful tea
Infusion suggestion
As with other classic style Phoenix oolongs, Tea Hong’s Fengxi Old Ginger reveals a full spectrum of its taste profile when infused using a 2g tealeaves to 100 ml water ratio for 5 min at 85~90°C.
However, for a brightly fragrant tea as this, using a high leaf to water ratio and short infusion duration for repeated brewing sessions can bring about another angle for enjoying this unique tea.
Try using 5g of leaves to 80ml of water at 90°C for 45 sec in the first brew and increase the infusion duration by 15% in the subsequent one. Play with increasing the incremental percentage of time. Have fun.
The young buds on an Old Ginger tea plant. When the leaf size is about 3cm, picking begins.
The original name Jiangmu Xiang
The original name, Jiangmu Xiang 薑母香, the fragrance of ginger, is sometimes replaced with a misleading name, Jianghua Xiang 薑花香, the fragrance of ginger flower, or even with a rather exaggerative marketing name, Tongtian Xiang 通天香, a fragrance so high that it reaches the sky. While the aroma is refreshingly flowery and vibrantly so, it is different from that of the ginger blossom. It is complexly floral with the tone of fresh cut ginger root being a prominent element. In case you have read contradictory information from other sources, please use your own judgement or, better yet, compare the real thing.
This small tea farm in the foreground is a traditional style Fenghuang tea farm. Notice how different it is from those newly created ones on the hillside on the opposite. In the foreground farm, a small patch of land is created for some newly developed tea bushes, with vegetable growing around them. It is its surrounding that are the production tea trees, mixed with some other local trees. They are not trimmed down like those in modern tea farms. They look like a forest from afar. This is the authentic way of the Fenghuang style.
The origin: Fengxi 鳳西
Fengxi is an area in Fenghuang immediately east of Wudong 烏崠, and above another major dancong production area, Daping 大坪, where you will find a lot of farms producing this variety as well. Further east, about 20 min away, is one of the most important water source for the whole region: Fengxi Reservoir 鳳溪水庫.
After exploring all sources for this tea, including some from our favourite area, Wudong, we have concluded that the original source gives the most unique and satisfying experience. I hope you will enjoy this as much as we do.
Two huge walls of firewood piled up neatly in a front yard overlooking the Fengxi valley. This is the fuel for producing the Fenguang dancong oolongs here, including this Fengxi Old Ginger.
Additional information
| Weight | 90 g |
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| Dimensions | 18 × 9 × 5 cm |
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Reviews(1)
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Tea Hong never disappoints. Seriously, the world could be on fire and I would still be able to count on Tea Hong to deliver something profound … and that’s exactly what I’m finding here with this Fengxi Old Ginger.
Some context for my review: 2022 was the year of Jiang Mu for me, I sourced 11 different examples from 10 different vendors and drank Jiang Mu every single day. 365 days, 365 sessions with Jiang Mu. Most of what I sourced was daily-drinker material, meant to be target practice for me as I went through the motions and learned about the way this cultivar behaves and expresses itself.
A select few were serious deep-dives. I was able to procure some single-tree batches including 28 grams of what was allegedly the mother bush from Fengxi. I don’t know for sure if it was the real mother bush or not, but I can say for sure that it was very good, and very expensive … as authentic Mu Shu dancong always is.
Fengxi Old Ginger reminds me strongly of the mother tree, minus the price tag. There are some differences but the core nexus of flavors have strong overlap.
This one is thick and jammy, with a whole bakery full of apricot-glazed shortbread cookies coming out in the first few steeps. It’s really doughy and soft, but it also sits heavily on the palate and sinks deeply into the throat, where the huigan stubbornly emanates for a very long time.
The mouthfeel is thicker than cold motor oil yet it retains a perfumy, soft floral quality that reminds me strongly of galangal root and white grape juice. The contrast is lovely, like watching steam rising off the surface of a frozen arctic lake in the dead of winter … with a cup of Fengxi Old Ginger in hand, of course.
There’s a very gentle nibble of bitterness in these leaves which comes out towards the end of the session. I think this bitterness is a characteristic of the cultivar, and not the result of poor processing techniques, because I find a similar and distinct bitterness with other high-end examples of Jiang Mu. It reminds me a bit of turmeric root, especially in the final steep.
The evolution of the huigan is perhaps the most profound aspect of this dancong, and that’s where I find most of the ginger-like notes to be concentrated. It’s warming, mildly sweet, and has some hints of sage that I haven’t found in other Jiang Mu.
This is clearly not plantation material, the complexity of the flavor profile from initial sip to the final lingering sensations of the aftertaste makes it apparent that Fengxi Old Ginger comes from a biodiverse farm, with good diversity and ecology. I love the depth of the flavors, how many subtleties there are, how cohesive all of this feels in the body and mind.
This is top-shelf Jiang Mu.