What our customers say

Good humble smell

Very comfortable good smell. Not too much like fragrant flower. Humble like good Confucius teaching. Long lasting and good class taste. This tea make me happy.

Complex and intriguing… this is definitely the type of tea you want to drink a few times before you feel like you’ve had it even once. The flavor profile is sophisticated, especially considering how easy and straightforward it is to brew up.

This Zhu Ye has a crisp and clean mouthfeel, like mineral-rich mountain spring water, with a pleasant lingering sweetness that gradually builds up and slowly fades away. It has just the right amount of bitterness to keep the flavor profile on the slightly-dry side, but without sacrificing the delicacies of its otherwise sweet layers of flavor.

There’s a vibrant and apparent note of nettle; to me it’s the focal point of this tea, and it really ties the whole flavor profile together. I get overtones of pine needles with hints of green peppercorn & juniper berries, a mossy and slightly starchy body that has notes reminiscent of fresh peas and corn kernels, and undertones of truffles with cornflowers. This tea has a pungent earthiness, yet also a distinct silkiness, that makes for a really intriguing contrast of flavors and sensations.

Notes of nettle weave their way seamlessly in and out of the whole flavor profile, adding a subtle herbaceous spiciness that is quite powerful yet so gentle at the same time.

The aroma coming off the bottom of an empty cup, as it cools, reminds me of clover honey. It’s got a clear and focused sweetness, with subtle hints of nettle creeping back up and becoming stronger as the cup cools down completely to room temperature.

The color of the soup is bright and clear, with tiny hairs suspended in the cup. In later steeps, the broth turns a bit hazy but the mouthfeel remains light and resists turning excessively bitter, even after a long final steep.

The leaf quality is superb, it’s worth watching these leaves open up as they brew, and definitely worth looking closely after they’ve taken a nice long bath. It’s clear they were plucked well and processed uniformly.

This is a powerful tea, with all of the correct nuances in the right places.

There! Indeed you do know about Phoenix oolongs. In the “medicine” aroma group of Fenghuang Dancong, there are also Jiang Mu Xiang and Xing Ren Xiang. Another customer, N.N., who also commented on this tea has mentioned Jiang Mu Xiang, which I was incidentally enjoying a private batch this morning with my wife, but have not decided yet whether to carry it. The same dilemma as I have previously mentioned, whether to offer it at a quality level that I truly enjoy as a tea lover, or making more commercial sense to maintain a sustainable profit. As for Xing Ren Xiang, you have already given your fantastic comments in the Orchid Gratus page in a review last year. And I thank you again.

Thank you for sharing your feelings on drinking this tea. It truly is the transcendence of the state of mind that this rare dancong helps us to attain that is the most precious thing about tea.

When will this tea arrive this year

Hello, I have finished all my better dragon well now. When do you think your new tea will arrive this year

Much obliged for appreciating this tea. And a sincere thank you for such a wonderfully descriptive account of your experience. For me as a merchant, it was a difficult decision whether to offer this variety at the topmost quality or to offer a production that is ample enough to carry that “Fenghuang Cassia” cultivar traits but maintaining a lower price so that a stepping price range for different affordability can be maintained in the Phoenix line. There are already a few items in the collection that are top quality anyway. In the end I did both. For one, this batch really is exceptional, and the next quality down is simply far less mesmerising. It simply feels sinful not to share such a great harvest. So I made a not so wise decision. To carry this batch at a friendlier price, I simply lower the profit margin. If this silly effort can make this lesser known variety appreciated by more, it is still worthwhile. True quality should prevail. Just hope this world can be a bit nicer when less dragged by pretence, falsehoods and mediocracies.