Light Roasted Qi Lan Wuyi Yancha
Tasting notes: Soft creamy almond and orchid notes over honey mineral sweetness; emerging stone fruit and light baked grains. Cool and lingering finish.
A lightly roasted rock oolong in order to preserve the cultivar’s natural almond-tinged aroma. It has a naturally sweet rounded texture with almost no astringency.
Price range: $16.50 through $124.00
Yancha or “rock tea” is a premium, heavily oxidised and roasted oolong originating from the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian, China. It is known for its mineral-rich “yan yun” (rock rhyme) taste or more poetically “essence of the rocks”, which comes from the terroir and is a marker for quality. The concept of yan yun is a little abstract as it is something felt rather than an actual taste. It could be described as the lingering feeling of coolness in the back of your throat after sipping, almost like you get from sipping strong, high-quality mineral water.
The leaves are processed as strips as opposed to balls in contrast to Taiwanese and Anxi oolongs, and it is often roasted over charcoal.