We have released a very special tea, Phoenix Oolong Lao Cong Mi Lan Xiang 2022. What makes it special is that this Mi Lan Xiang is made from seed-grown old trees, which is normally unheard of. As a result, it has a lingering finish of a length you would not expect, and the taste is very moving. In Phoenix Town, old tea trees are generally called Lao Cong.
This is a Mi Lan Xiang harvested from seed-grown Lao Cong trees. It is a lot of raw leaf from a different group of mother trees within the same tea garden, located at an altitude of about 1200m.
How Phoenix Oolong names are classified by aroma type
There are several different ways of naming Phoenix Oolong.
First, some names use the cultivar name (more precisely, the name of a line or base cultivar), such as Song Zhong and Ba Xian. These were sorted out from the Phoenix Shui Xian population as lines with relatively stable traits, and have been propagated by cuttings or grafting.
On the other hand, most Phoenix Oolong on the market is named by a classification called aroma type. In this case, the name does not point directly to a specific cultivar or mother tree. It is based on the type of aroma that appears after processing. For example, the well-known Mi Lan Xiang is not a cultivar name. There is no cultivar called Mi Lan Xiang; any Dan Cong that shows the aroma characteristics of the Mi Lan Xiang type is grouped together as Mi Lan Xiang.
It is true that many of the tea trees used for Mi Lan Xiang belong to the Bai Ye (white leaf) line, but it is not limited to them. Even trees from other lines or seed-grown trees are treated as Mi Lan Xiang if the aroma after processing is judged to be the Mi Lan Xiang type. In this way, for Phoenix Oolong names decided by aroma type, several kinds of tea leaf are used as raw material, with the aroma type after processing as the criterion.
Why it was first produced as Lao Cong Shui Xian
The Phoenix Oolong Lao Cong Mi Lan Xiang 2022 introduced here was originally produced as Lao Cong Shui Xian. 2022 was the year our producer acquired a new tea garden in Gui Zhu Hu Village on Wu Dong Shan, at an altitude of about 1200m, and harvested it for the first time.
This tea garden is located near the summit of Tian Chi, one of several peaks on Wu Dong Shan. Because of its high altitude and favorable environment, it has long been known as a place where good tea is produced. However, when the garden was acquired, many old seed-grown trees remained there, and the trees had not yet been sorted or named by aroma type.
In Phoenix Town, tea trees whose aroma type has not been clearly determined are not treated as Dan Cong and are grouped under the name Shui Xian. Among them, those with especially high tree age are called Lao Cong Shui Xian. For this reason, in 2022, the first harvest year, the trees were divided by tree age and section and produced as Lao Cong Shui Xian in several lots.
Later, when we evaluated the 2022 Lao Cong Shui Xian, we found that one of the lots clearly showed the characteristics of the Mi Lan Xiang type. The tendency could be seen right after processing, but the characteristics became clearer over time, and now the tea can be clearly recognized as the Mi Lan Xiang type.
The old Lao Cong trees used as raw material, and the price structure
The reason this tea is of excellent quality is that all of its raw material comes from old seed-grown trees growing in a high-altitude tea garden. Unlike trees grown from cuttings, a seed-grown tea tree has one thick taproot that reaches deep into the soil and into cracks in the bedrock. Therefore, it is strongly affected not only by the surface layer but also by the deeper layers. On the other hand, tea trees propagated by cuttings have shallow roots that spread sideways, so their absorption tends to be limited to the topsoil.
Because of this difference in root structure, tea made from old seed-grown trees tends to reflect the conditions of the land directly. As a result, this tea shows a lingering finish far longer than you would expect from ordinary Mi Lan Xiang, and a dense flavor. I have handled many Phoenix Oolong Mi Lan Xiang teas over the years, but this is a level of Mi Lan Xiang I had never experienced, and it is a very impressive lot.
Tea trees of the same age: grown from a cutting on the left, seed-grown on the right.
Normally, a Mi Lan Xiang from old seed-grown trees is very expensive when it is sold as a Dan Cong with a confirmed aroma type. However, this tea was produced and sold as Lao Cong Shui Xian before its aroma type had been sorted out, so we were able to buy it at a much lower price. In the Phoenix Town market, the price is not set by tree age or altitude as such. It depends on whether the aroma type has been clearly identified and the tea is valued as a Dan Cong. For this reason, Shui Xian without a clear aroma type is generally traded at about half the price of a Dan Cong made from trees of the same age and at the same altitude.
Our producer is now steadily sorting these Lao Cong Shui Xian trees by aroma type. For this reason, we think there will be almost no further chances to buy a Mi Lan Xiang like this one, which came about through a chance combination of conditions.
We frequently visit Fenghuang Town in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, to source high-quality Phoenix Dan Cong Oolong tea directly.
An old Phoenix Dan Cong tree on Wu Dong Shan and me, Akira Hojo
Tea trees growing on the steep, rocky slopes of Wu Dong Shan
Among Dan Cong teas, tea harvested from especially old trees is called "Lao Cong."
