Old Tree Baiye Red

Lingtou Baiye is a highly regarded and well known varietal of Phoenix oolong. "Lingtou" is the name of the village where the varietal originated from, and "Baiye" translates to "white leaf." Lingtou Village on Shuangbinniang Mountain has been cultivating the Baiye varietal since the 1960's.

The earliest classification of Phoenix oolongs only distinguished between 白叶 Baiye (white leaf) or 乌叶 Wuye (dark leaf), depending on what color of the fresh leaves were when they sprouted from the tree. Further classification of Phoenix oolongs, by their aroma, came later. After land reforms in the 1950's, tea trees in this region were assigned to individual tea farmers, and many of them gave unusual and secret names to the trees they had been assigned.

This Old Tree Baiye Red is a Phoenix "Dancong" oolong from the mountains of Raoping County in the city of Chaozhou. It comes from a small biodynamic tea farm in Lingtou village, within Raoping County. This is a well known place in these mountains: particularly charming, with a wealth of lychee, longan and pineapple trees.

To craft this tea freshly picked leaves are first withered indoors on woven bamboo mats for around 10 hours. The leaves are then tossed and bruised to ensure even oxidation. This process lasts about 2 days, allowing the slowly oxidizing leaves to develop complex flavour. Finally, the tea is roasted at low temperatures over lychee charcoal, evoking its innate fruitiness.

This is a delicious tea, and its sweetness is complex, like transformed fruit. In the first several infusions it has notes of lychee, roasted sweet potato and molasses. In later infusions it tastes like sakura, with lingering notes of ripe mangoes and dried longan. These discrete flavours are dynamic and ever-changing, adding to how enchanting this Old Tree Baiye is.