The longest tea leaf

Aug 27, 2008 Last reply: 17 years ago 4 Replies

Dan Cong Huang Zhi about an inch and half long. It is very stout twisted leaf almost like a twig ergo Zhi or Sprig. If you were measuring this tea for brewing you could use a pharmaceutical tray and count. The infused leaf is green, the taste astringent but a constant through several infusions. The leaf slowly gives up its geometry and taste. I would easily drink this tea in lieu of eating greens at a bbq. Generally I can pigeon hole most Chinese greens. This one I cant. I'll go back to the Chinese tea shoppe and get some more Dan Congs to see if they are in a class by themselves. I've never drank anything before that simply says I Am Tea.



Jim



PS I remember the store had Dan Congs to one side, and the Rock teas to another.


Dan Chongs are Wulong teas from the Chaoshan area in Guangdong. If you are looking for seriously long leaves, you should try to check out those long, twisted Kuding tea leaves from Hainan. What you describe is closer to that style of tea anyway.

Well, yes, but Kuding isn't tea: it's a member of the holly family. It isn't unusual to see Pu'er leaves longer than 1-1/2 inches, though; the name of the cultivar used for Pu'er, in fact, means "big leaf".

/Lew

What are you brewing with puer pieces longer than say 2 inches? Id have to brew a whole tuo or beeng in a barrel which I will call the SquarePeg method :-) to see the leaf size. Im also dont sweat anything. I have some sheets of wild puer pressed by some tribe on the forest floor (supposedly) which conveniently peels but I've never noticed large intact whole leaf which could be the grain problem. I have some other wild puer beeng but in practice the whole leaf wont make it to the pot. I think puer is a mangling process.

Jim

PS Okay make me get out a ruler and measure the l> Mydnight snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com writes:

...woo...

Most recently it was a bingcha a friend of mine got from Silk Road Teas several years ago: a loosely compressed bingcha of much bigger than normal size, wrapped in a bamboo basket, with very long stems and the occasional tea fruit mixed in.

/Lew

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