Seven Day Tea — Wuyi Rock Tea Tasting Set - 59.5g

The honest problem with Wuyi rock tea is that nobody can tell you which one you'll like. Yancha isn't one tea,  it's a family of cultivars, each grown in the same cliffs, each finished over the same charcoal, and each tasting completely unlike the others. Buying 100g of the wrong one is how most people give up on the category.

This set solves that. Seven sealed sessions, seven different teas, one week.

What's inside:

水仙 Shui Xian — the mellow pillar. Orchid, aged wood, dark honey, creamy weight. Thick rather than loud. Cultivar originally from Jianyang, the same county that makes Jianzhan.

肉桂 Rou Gui — the fragrant pillar. Cinnamon bark, hot spice, stone fruit, a sharp aromatic bite. Wuyi's saying pairs these two: 香不过肉桂，醇不过水仙.

大红袍 Da Hong Pao — the famous one. A house blend of Wuyi cultivars finished over charcoal, built for balance: roasted fruit, cocoa, caramelised sugar.

奇丹 Qi Dan — the single cultivar propagated from the original Jiulong Ke mother trees. Where Da Hong Pao is a recipe, this is the plant itself. Tighter, more mineral, more austere.

雪梨 Xue Li — "snow pear." A rarer Wuyi cultivar named for its fruit note: clean pear sweetness over the roast, lighter and brighter than the pillars.

名丛 Ming Cong — "famous bush." Wuyi's historic named cultivars — 铁罗汉, 白鸡冠, 水金龟, 半天妖 and others. The old catalogue of the mountain.

Origin:

Wuyishan, Fujian. Bushes rooted in weathered volcanic cliff, the source of 岩韵, yan yun, rock rhyme. Semi-oxidised, then charcoal-roasted in bamboo baskets. Everything in the box is the same mountain and the same fire. The only variable is the plant.

Suggested order:

Lightest to heaviest, so nothing gets buried: Xue Li → Ming Cong → Shui Xian → Rou Gui → Qi Dan → Da Hong Pao. Same water, same gaiwan, same timings all week, that's what makes the comparison mean anything.

Brewing:

One sachet per session, full rolling boil, 110ml gaiwan. The sachets are portioned for this.

Quick rinse to wake the leaf, then flash / 6s / 10s / 15s, extending. 8–10 infusions.

Boiling water, no exceptions. Cool water makes every yancha taste flat and hollow, and you'll conclude the tea is bad when the water was.

The mineral finish arrives around the third infusion, after the roast settles. Middle cups are the best cups.

Specs: 7 sealed sachets · Wuyishan, Fujian · Charcoal-roasted oolong (乌龙茶) · Store sealed, cool, dark.