Wu Dong Mi Lan Xiang (2025)

General

The Fenghuang Mountains in Guangdong Province produce unique Dancong tea varieties. The tea bushes are more like tea trees, and they grow from the ground in a way that is different from normal tea bushes, with a single trunk. The roots of the trees extend far and deep, gathering nutrients from an exceptionally large area. Their thick lower trunk divides into several branches at the top, forming an umbrella-like canopy of foliage about 3-10 meters high. Due to the location of the foliage, tea pickers need to use ladders.

The naming of Dancong tea varieties is a very complex system, based mainly on the tea plant variety. Tea plants were originally propagated sexually by seed, but later the best varieties were selected from the created varieties, which are now propagated asexually using cuttings, creating genetically identical tea plants. Tea varieties are most often named for their descriptive scent. Examples of these names include Zhi Lan Xiang, which means orchid scent, and Yu Lan Xiang, which means Yulan Magnolia scent. There are dozens of Dancong varieties in widespread production, and literally hundreds of tea varieties are known in the Fenghuang area!

This tea

Mi Lan Xiang, or Honey Orchid Fragrance, is one of the Dancong tea varieties from the Phoenix Mountains in Guangdong Province. The variety's flavor is considered honey-like and reminiscent of orchid aroma, which is where it got its name. The variety's mother tree, or the oldest known specimen of the variety, is currently about 200 years old and grows at an altitude of about 700 meters on the Phoenix Mountain. This Mi Lan Xiang is picked on Wu Dong, one of the highest peaks of the Phoenix Mountain and known for its particularly high-quality tea.

Taste

The smell of the dry leaf is delicate. It has a dry spiciness, fresh herbaceousness and a woody tone. When the dry leaf gets a little moisture, a wonderful deep fruity mineral aroma emerges. The infused tea is slightly pale in color but the tea has a wonderful deep fresh fruity aroma reminiscent of peach. This is combined with fine mineral woody tones that bring a slightly harsher tone to the nature of the tea. Great tea!

Infusion

Use boiling water to brew the tea. Dancong teas are traditionally infused using the gongfu method, i.e. by steeping the leaves in a small teapot (0-300ml) several times so that the brewing times are short. The amount of leaves used in this method is about 1/3 of the teapot. The steeping time is about 10-30 seconds. A shorter time for infusion can be good, but a much longer rarely is. The length of the steeping can be extended with subsequent infusions.

If you have a larger teapot and are making a maximum of 2-3 infusions, the amount of tea leaves is 4-6g, or about two tablespoons. The steeping time in a larger pot is 3-5 minutes. The leaves can normally be brewed more than once.