2023 Yulan Maocha Brick

A first time release, our new Yulan Maocha brick. Maocha is a bit of a misnomer, how can a tea be both maocha [loose tea] and a brick? In this case, the term maocha refers to the Dancong oolong tea being left in its raw form before pressing. We commissioned this production to be left with stems and large leaves for this pressing.

Juicy florals and fruity sweetness permeate from the rinse. The traditional magnolia aroma and style present throughout the session, leaving a lingering sugar cookie sweetness behind. Strong when pushed, some might prefer a lighter session with very little leaf. We look forward to this tea as it ages in the coming years.

Our Dancong oolong tea bricks are a little tricky to brew. Very punchy when pushed, we recommend dropping your leaf down a couple of grams and doing flash steeps gongfu style. The tea can often be heavily fragmented when broken off of the brick, which means the surface area is multiplied and the tea steeps fast and strong. For example, we usually brew 6 grams of raw Puer in a 100ml gaiwan, but for this tea we drop down to around 4 grams for a more even session.

Each brick is 200 grams. Each brick will be shipped in an individual paper wrapper, or two bricks (or multiples of two) will be shipped in a bamboo leaf (there are two bricks wrapped in a bamboo leaf per “tong”). Some of the outer wrappers have some slight yellowing from the bamboo leaf, it’s nothing to worry about.