Lao Cong Shui Xian

Shui Xian is the workhorse of Wuyi. It's planted everywhere, it makes up most of the region's output, and a lot of it is unremarkable. What changes is age. Bushes past about fifty years put their roots deep enough into the rock that the tea starts tasting like where it grew, and the trade has a separate word for the result. Cong wei, old bush flavour. Ours come from bushes between forty and sixty years old in the zhengyan core.

Cong wei is hard to describe without sounding like an estate agent. It reads as wet moss, old timber, and the cool air inside a stone building in summer. The liquor is deep amber and very clear, and the body is thick without being heavy on the palate. Orchid sits over the top. What's unusual is the finish: sweet, long, and faintly cooling, so a tea this dense somehow doesn't sit on you. Spent leaves open thick and soft, green with red edges, which is what a properly roasted Shui Xian should look like.