Oolong Tea
Anxi Jin Guan Yin
Orchid · clean and lightly sweet · a fresh finish with no roast
Minnan oolong · light aroma · Anxi, Fujian
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100 g / 250 g / 500 g
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Minnan oolong · light aroma · Anxi, Fujian · 2024
Golden
Osmanthus.
Huang Jin Gui means golden osmanthus, and the name is about what you smell rather than what you see. Osmanthus, gardenia, a trace of pear.
Osmanthus → gardenia & a trace of pear → aroma that comes back after swallowing
LightOxidation
100 °CWater
7–8Infusions
Top, middle and finish are a way of organising time, not a standard term or a promise. Re-tasted against each lot; weight and brewing are below.
The Cup,
In Three Acts.
Aroma and palate, in the order they reach you.
Typical of the style · re-tasted against each lot
Why it is there
The bush is Huang Dan, and it carries its aroma loudly enough that the tea earned an older name, tou tian xiang — fragrance that reaches the sky. Light oxidation leaves those volatile compounds intact instead of roasting them into toasted notes.
Why it is there
Ball-rolling is what gives the pellet its shape: the leaf is wrapped in cloth and rolled, the southern Fujian way. Tight pellets open slowly, so the first steep is mostly aroma and the body arrives on the second.
Why it is there
What comes back after swallowing is aroma released from the back of the mouth, not taste from the tongue. A light-aroma leaf keeps enough of it to do that; a heavily roasted one spends it in the roast.
You Already Know This Smell.
Apricot. Honey. A gardenia hedge on a warm evening. Osmanthus is not a common flower in Europe, so the useful reference is the fruit-and-honey side of it, which is what most noses pick up first.
Named for the smell
Huang Jin Gui means golden osmanthus. The name is a description of the aroma the bush produces, not of the colour of the leaf or the liquor.
Picked early, sold early
Huang Dan buds about a fortnight ahead of most Anxi cultivars, which is how light-aroma lots from this county reach the market first each spring.
Pellets, not strips
These leaves are rolled into tight pellets. Older descriptions of this tea mention long twisted strips — the pellet is what the same leaf does when it is cloth-wrapped and rolled.
What you can see
Read the Leaf.
Read the Cup.
A light-aroma tea tells you almost everything in the first ten seconds. Three things to check.
- Read the leaf
Tight green-gold pellets, even in size, stems removed. Gold on the pellet is normal here and is not the roast.
- Read the cup
Clear golden yellow. Cloudiness means broken leaf or a steep that ran long, not a richer tea.
- Read the pack
Cultivar Huang Dan, the variety sold under this name. Standard DB35/T 943-2009, the Fujian oolong geographical indication standard.
OriginAnxi, Quanzhou, Fujian
StandardDB35/T 943-2009
TypeSouthern Fujian oolong · light aroma · ball-rolled
Two Ways, One Lot.
Hot and fast is the point with this leaf. Both panels below are the same tea, read at different speeds.
Parameters stated for this product · adjust to taste, then keep them
5 gLeaf
100 mlWater
100 °CBoiling
10 sFirst steep
Ten seconds, then five more.
Boiling water and a ten-second first steep, adding five seconds each round. Seven or eight infusions. The aroma is the point, and a long steep flattens it.
What to notice
If the cup tastes of nothing but hot water, the steep was too short rather than the leaf too weak. Add five seconds.
+5 sEach steep
7–8Infusions
100 °CThroughout
No lidThroughout
Where the body arrives.
The first two steeps are almost all aroma. From the third the body fills in, and by the fifth the cup is sweeter than it was at the start.
What to notice
Do not pour the last steep and judge the tea on it. This leaf finishes thin, and that is normal.
This Lot.
A number is an identity, not a stock code. Where a field is unknown, it is left out rather than guessed.
- Origin
- Anxi, Quanzhou, Fujian · China
- Harvest
- 2024
- Cultivar
- Huang Dan — the variety sold under this name
- Type
- Southern Fujian oolong · light aroma · ball-rolled
- Liquor
- Clear golden yellow
- Standard
- DB35/T 943-2009
- Net weight
- 100 g / 250 g / 500 g
- Storage
- Keep refrigerated — the aroma fades quickly at room temperature
Three more to try.
One leaf, six fates. Nothing here is blended across regions.
