Category: Oolong Tea
Shape: Streak/Cord-like, firmingly curved
Color: Brown-green
Color of the soup: Orange, clear
Smell: Spicy cinnamon
Flavor: A very rich and mellow flavor with bittersweetness
Color of leftover: Yellow leaf with red trim
Wuyi Mountain is a very famous mountain in Northern part of Fujian province. The crust movement (due to volcano) developed into its unique "three pits, two gullies(三坑两涧)" landform long time ago. This kind of complicated and diverse landform, which is called "micro climate" by tea connoisseurs is a perfect environment for tea tree's growth. Also, it is believed that Wuyi Mountain has "36 peaks, 99 rocks" and under each rock there're different kinds of tea trees. The peak prevents the tea trees from overly-sundry in summer or the extreme coldness in winter. Besides, soil is another important factor in tea trees' growth. Iron in the volcanic rock has been weathered away into Wuyi rock and soil, and that's what the Wuyi rock tea's name comes from.
A is WuYi Mountain, in northern part of FuJian province.
All the red points are the famous peaks in the Wuyi Mountain.
The quality of the tea is determined by the area of the rock. The top Wuyi rock tea comes from "three pits, two gullies". When choosing the Wuyi rock tea, connoisseurs usually ask whether it is from the core producing areas(Zhengyan, 正岩), literally means the core rock area in Chinese. The best Wuyi rock tea is called "Big Four"(四大名枞), which is: the red rob (da hong pao, 大红袍), iron arhat (tie luo han,铁罗汉), White cockscomb (bay ji guan,白鸡冠) and water cockchafer (shui jin gui, 水金龟).
The cinnamon flavor of WuYi Cinnamon is not cinnamon additive, it is the tea tree's special character. It is believed that there are two most magic plants in the world, one is grape and the other is the tea tree, because they have many magic talents inside. As long as you apply the right technique (fermentation/bake,etc), it will help them to let it out. For example, the orchid-flavor narcissus tea, the cinnamon tea. For wine, there's even a metal flavor. There's also an artificial way to add flavor and that is flower tea, such as the jasmine tea. But it can also be beautiful. In the old times, they separate tea with jasmine until the timing for the blossom instant of jasmine. But nowadays, they usually choose low-quality tea to do so since the flower will help to cover the shortcoming of the tea.
The cinnamon tea on the left is from a famous brand called "Lang Yun" (郎韵）
Dried tea in a cool tea holder
The first pour of the tea, the soup color is much darker than ZhangPing narcissus
When drinking Wiiyi Cinnamon tea, don't forget to smell the cinnamon flavor before you drink it. There are "two smells" during the tea ceremony: hot smell after you pour the water inside, and cold smell for the warm cup after you drink up the soup. You can hardly get the cinnamon smell by the dry leaves, but during the "teacup warmup" step (the step before the first pour), put the dry tea in the warmed cup and shake it, then you will smell the strong cinnamon right after you open the cup.
Tea meditation:
Some tea connoisseurs call themselves "tea server", instead of "tea drinker". Before you drink the tea, there are several procedures during the whole process, from the original leave-pickup to sunburn, several rounds of fermentation and finally tea making. All these persons need to work together to extract the best flavor of the tea. Sometimes I feel this kind of relationship is like you and your "mentors", or I should say, all the people that help you find the special talents inside you. It could be your teacher, a friend takes you into a specific field, or just a random person. If we look at tea in this perspective, you will feel it's amazing how tea could turn from an ordinary tree leaf to a popular drink all over the world. So I really like to be called a "tea server" at this point.
So interesting about the rock. One edit, you want "additive" not "addictive" here "is not cinnamon addictive". Perhaps you might post this on your blog within Quora to get more readers?
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