Jiulongke Lao Cong Shui Xian ‘Terroir’
The following statement is true: In my entire life, with all the wine, whiskey, coffee, and tea that I’ve had, I’ve never felt such a strong sense of terroir as I did when I tasted this tea.
When I smelled the liquid, I literally ‘guffawed’ — it’s insane. It smells like vintage wine, in the direction of old, high quality chateauneuf du pape.
It smells like the welches juicefuls gummies they made to compete with gushers.
It smells like citrus marigold flowers.
I cannot breathe in long enough to smell the whole thing. It smells like melancholy, in the way that the best phoenix oolongs do. It smells like I-no from Guilty Gear.
It smells like Horse Head Rock (pictured below) — it’s such a perfect image.
The tea is made slightly north of where this image was taken, but it couldn’t be more apt in describing the teas flavor. This tea could only be created in an environment like what you see in this image. It smells like wise, old, distinguished rocks. Once you taste it, I’m certain you’ll agree.
Jiulongke translates to the 9 Dragon Nest, and is the birthplace of the Da Hong Pao mother bushes. The area isn’t big, and is very restricted by the Chinese government for quantity of production. The land was subdivided in the 80s and now has many owners who sell the leaves from this land to tea masters for production (like a cooperative in winemaking). Lao Cong means old bushes, and in different parts of China seems to refer to different ages. It seems that in the Wuyi mountains, Lao Cong applies to teas over 60 years old.
The 9 dragon nest, the 3 ravines and 2 streams, zhengyan and the peripheral areas, are all important terms to understand to get a good grasp on what this tea actually represents.
In relation to wine, this is Grand Cru Classe, first growth.
Shui Xian is one of the famous cultivars of the area, along with Rou Gui and Da Hong Pao. These Wuyi oolong teas are not usually a type that I care much about, because I had too great of one too early on and have been chasing the memory of it without luck since then. This year I feel so blessed to have found 3 that I’m proud to show people.
I’m going to get my act together and write a blog article about the wuyi mountains soon — I’ve been looking for some help to fact check some information, but no one is really coming forward to offer assistance. I’ll just have to do it myself. When it’s done I’ll update all these new wuyi teas with that article.
I want to leave this article by reiterating:
This is one of the best teas I’ve ever had, and certainly one of the best teas I’ve ever had the opportunity to sell.
