Anxi Chuantong Tie Guan Yin Oolong Tea - Light Roast

What's so special about this tea?

Tie Guan Yin is one of China’s best-known oolong teas, with its production dating back to the 18th century in Xiping Town, Anxi County, Fujian. This lot is made exclusively from Hongxin Waiweitao (红心歪尾桃), the original Tie Guan Yin cultivar, the name literally translates as “Red heart, crooked tail peach”, referring to the distinctive appearance of the tea leaves.

This is a cultivar we specifically look for when sourcing Tie Guan Yin. When made well, it produces a tea with remarkable depth, a distinctive sweet-sour character, and a lingering floral fragrance that returns through the throat.

This tea is hand-harvested from Nanshan in Xiping, one of Anxi’s twelve famous tea mountains, and grown with minimal intervention and without chemical inputs. It is made by a veteran Tie Guan Yin producer who has won numerous awards in tea competitions. This tea was crafted using the Chuantong method, the traditional style of Tie Guan Yin production that was widely practised before the rise of the greener Qing Xiang style in the 1990s. The process involves repeated cycles of shaking and resting, resulting in a higher degree of oxidation that brings out the tea's ripe-fruit character, along with a fuller, more textured liquor.

Traditionally, Chuantong-style Tie Guan Yin is finished with charcoal roasting. For this lot, however, the master chose a single round of electric roasting instead, allowing the tea's floral character to remain more expressive.

This gives a light-roast Tie Guan Yin that opens with a fresh, sweet floral aroma of orchid and lily, followed by warm and buttery notes like fresh pancake, alongside the scent of pear compote. The tea brews a brilliant yellow hue. On the palate, it enters smoothly with notes of white grape juice and a hint of loquat, giving a characteristic sweet-and-sour profile. The fruity profile leads in the first few infusions, alongside aromatic florals and a lightly toasted note of puffed rice. As the session progresses, a sweeter, creamier profile grows more present, with notes of pastry cream coating the palate. The aftertaste brings a cool, fresh mineral sensation, with floral fragrance returning and rising from the throat. The mouthfeel is soft and smooth, with a long, lingering sweetness.