Snow Flake "Duck Shit"

雪片鸭屎香

Harvest
November 2024

Origin
Chaozhou, Guangdong

For tea, an “Snow Flake” refers to oolongs that are harvested in the winter season. Winter harvest oolongs are gathered when temperatures are frosty on the mountains, and are the smallest and often most precious harvests of the year. Tea harvested and crafted during this time has a special "snow flavor," and the concentrated sweetness that belongs to most things that grow during the winter.

This Snow Flake “Duck Shit” comes from Mr. Fu’s family, who have been residents of Qipan Village on Dazhi Mountain of the Phoenix Mountains for generations, raising bees and growing tea. The tea garden is at 1600 ft elevation, and their tea trees are between 50-60 years old. 

This year's harvest is tasting better than it has in several years. Winter has summoned all of its unctuous sweetness, while imparting an icey freshness to this special varietal. Its dark, spindly leaves brew a tea that floods us with all of the concentrated qualities that have gathered in the tea plants as they endured their cold climate. 

Because of its potency, the key to brewing this year’s harvest is using boiling water with very quick infusions, being sure not to let the tea steep for long. The first infusion yields a softly opaque liquor that tastes like sweet grain and poached pear soup. The cooling quality of the winter harvest, combined with its mouth-coating sweetness and well integrated flavours, leaves us feeling like we’ve had cold cereal milk or melted ice cream on our tongues. Through infusions the liquor increases in body while bright top notes come forward, revealing this tea’s vibrant energetics, like light sparkling across a field of snow.

Drinking this oolong offers us a very good reminder of the enchantment and generosity of winter. 

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Brewing guide