Zi Mu Dan

Dry leaf aroma would mislead you into thinking this tea is one note, flat, and grassy. However, the experience of this tea is so different.

Wet leaf aroma reveals the complexity of this one. Notes of grass, cocoa cream, maybe some subtle nutmeg or something. The leaves lose their complex scent after several steeps, and begin to smell very grassy and somewhat bitter.

Actual flavor was beautifully floral with rose, jasmine, peony, and honeysuckle. Slight sweetness of flower nectar balanced with a semi-nutty vegetal barley scent as well. Complex, beautiful. Will spend more time with this one and update my tasting note as I discover more.

Thank you to Crow Kettle for a sample of this. Despite the low reviews, I think this is a very solid oolong.

The floral notes are less typical (a more rounded floral and orchid instead of roasted and heavily orchid). The roast is very light. Some sweetness and creaminess. The vegetal notes are typical of a jade oolong. Overall, this is more balanced in its floral flavour, which makes me prefer it over most ben shan or similar oolongs.

Oh my gosh, yes to this sipdown! I feel bad about not resteeping oolong but I am done with this flower candle tea. Goodbye! Maybe I’ll give it another attempt in another harvest- but only as the tiniest of tiny samples.

(2016 harvest)

This oolong is crafted from a fairly new tea cultivar. Noted for its floral aromatics and hints of grass and cream in the mouth, Zi Mu Dan (Purple Peony) has only been around about 20 years and is currently used solely for crafting oolongs. Some have compared it favorably to classic oolong cultivars like Tieguanyin. Let’s see how it compared in my eyes.

For the purposes of this review, I brewed this tea gongfu style in a small gaiwan. I used approximately 7-8 grams of loose leaves and set the water temperature at 208 F. I once again followed the gongfu brewing guidelines suggested on Verdant’s website. The initial steeping was 10 seconds, followed by steepings of 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, and 26 seconds for 9 total infusions.

Initially, I was impressed by the aroma of the wet tea leaves. The scent reminded me of a combination of chrysanthemum, peony, jasmine, and rose. In the mouth, the initial infusions presented delicate notes of rose, jasmine, peony, and chrysanthemum balanced by subtle flavors of cream, custard, and grass. Later infusions saw traces of the floral aroma remain, though vegetal, cream, and mineral scents began to emerge. The delicate, subtle floral flavors also faded, though I could detect hints of rose and chrysanthemum lingering in the background. They were replaced by somewhat more robust flavors of sweet cream, custard, minerals, grass, and leaf vegetables (lettuce and watercress).

This is another newer style oolong that sort of perplexes me. I kind of think I either may have gotten to this one a little too late or built this one up a little too much in my head. I was expecting an incredibly sweet, creamy, floral tea, but this is more subtle and airy with delicately integrated flavors. I also found the grassy, vegetal notes to be a little more prominent than they were described as being. Perhaps the flavors were starting to fade (which could be possible as this was from a November 2015 harvest and has been sitting in my tea cabinet for just over two months) or they just don’t stand out as much as I was lead to believe-it’s certainly possible, as the Mao Xie, Huang Jin Gui, and Autumn Tieguanyin I received from Verdant were from the same harvest and consumed alongside this tea, and all of them were still fresh and vibrant in the mouth. Whatever the case, this tea doesn’t do much for me, but I will give it a second chance once the next harvest is in stock.