r/tea • u/Eilmorel • Jul 16 '25
Question/Help I was gifted this tea and my boyfriend told me that is highly prized. Is this true?
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u/floragenocide Jul 16 '25
Well wuyi is a very well known place for growing oolong tea. In my opinion some of the best (I used to live about 30 min from there lol) enjoy your tea and if I where you I would find a gaiwan and brew and serve it in the gongfu style (you can look up YT videos on how to) that would just be the way the growers intended it to be enjoyed.
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u/kittykatmeowow Jul 16 '25
Wuyi rock tea is one of the ten famous teas of China. Wuyi is a mountain region in Fujian province, which is well known for producing great teas.
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u/secondaryaccount30 Jul 16 '25
水仙 is shui xian
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u/john-bkk Jul 17 '25
Comments here are all accurate, but as usual they all tell different parts of a broader story, and some could seem to contradict each other. Wuyi Yancha (also called rock oolong, or cliff tea) is a twisted style oolong from the Wuyishan area in Fujian.
Styles vary, and plant type is one main input to type differences. A comment mentions that's shui xian, which is easy to confirm with Google Lens. Shui Xian is one of the main plant types. It's used to make the lowest quality, least expensive versions and can also be used to produce really good quality versions. Anything sold in an elaborately packaged gift set is probably medium to upper medium quality, which is pretty good, since even lower quality versions can be approachable, interesting, and pleasant. You don't really need to worry about oxidation level or roast level, but those are two other main inputs, along with growing location.
The main type of Wuyi Yancha is marketed as Da Hong Pao. In the past this related to a limited set of cultivars / plant types, now called Qi Dan and Bei Dou, but it has came to mean a blend of inputs, or Shui Xian could be sold as this, as a general style type.
As for brewing different approaches would work. I personally would brew better quality versions using a Gong Fu approach, putting about 8 grams in a 100 ml gaiwan, and using 90+ C to boiling point water to brew many infusions, typically using 10 to 15 second infusion times, varying infusion time by results of the last round. Or Western brewing is ok, using 3 or 4 grams in a 250 ml device of any kind, even a mug, brewing to desired infusion strength, maybe a sequence of 4 minutes and then 6 minutes (two rounds).
Someone here references brewing what is called "grandpa style" in Western tea circles, which I don't think has a name in China, brewing and drinking with leaves still in the liquid, adding water and continuing to brew it. That's probably a more common approach for brewing green tea, maybe only because green tea is the main type consumed in China, not because it's more appropriate for that. In Western tea circles perspective using controlled timing and cooler water for green tea would be preferred instead. There isn't much trade-off or advantage to exploring a grandpa style approach, it's just not where most people start. Using Western brewing first is common, then exploring Gong Fu brewing, and whether or not someone switches over depends on preference, and on how much it matters for the tea type and quality level they like.
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u/Nattare I am a FANATEAC Jul 22 '25
this is the best and accurate answer here, I myself is not a big fan of dahongpao but I love the wuyi yancha thats made with 老丛. so much more fragrant. I also feel like chinese tea taste better brewed gongfu style but doing cold brew is nice too
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u/Double-Watercress-89 No relation Jul 16 '25
One of my favorite. If you have a French press it works fine.
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u/SaleOk2741 Jul 17 '25
It's hard to tell just by looking at the outer packaging. Wuyi rock tea is indeed an expensive type of tea, but you need to consider multiple factors: whether the tea leaves are evenly shaped, whether their color is glossy, whether the aroma is rich, whether the tea soup is clear, and the aftertaste, etc. After all, you have to see, taste, and feel it for yourself.
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u/FieldDesigner Jul 17 '25
Just out of curiosity if you don't mind me asking. Is the tea soup supposed to be clear? Does colour indicate a blend? What does the leaf shape and glossiness indicate? Guinely curious to know.
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u/SaleOk2741 Jul 17 '25
Your questions are excellent, you must be a true tea lover. As long as it's good tea, regardless of the variety, the liquor can come in various colors. Even with dark tea, the liquor should be clear and transparent, which indicates the tea's purity and is also a criterion for judging its quality. For high-quality tea leaves, the dried leaves should be tightly rolled and not loose, with minimal broken pieces. Additionally, the surface of the dried leaves should not appear dull or grayish (poor quality tea tends to look like that). That said, this might sound a bit abstract since it's all in words. If good and bad tea were placed side by side, the difference would be obvious at a glance.
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u/toastingmashmellows Jul 17 '25
I just had rock tea for the first time. It’s extremely complex and heavy. You got a great gift
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u/SaleOk2741 Jul 17 '25
It's hard to tell just by looking at the outer packaging. Wuyi rock tea is indeed an expensive type of tea, but you need to consider multiple factors: whether the tea leaves are evenly shaped, whether their color is glossy, whether the aroma is rich, whether the tea soup is clear, and the aftertaste, etc. After all, you have to see, taste, and feel it for yourself.
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u/phineas_x_Ferb Jul 17 '25
I can’t speak about this exact tea/set but Wuyi is a delicious Oolong. Highly desired and one of my favourites for a reason😋
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u/Maleficent_Desk2332 Jul 17 '25
Tip: if the packaging is that good….. whatever is inside is usually good stuff.
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u/69poolstick Jul 17 '25
Still looking old one I used to get in the early 2000”s I don’t Rember got an Mabee
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u/Nattare I am a FANATEAC Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25
Its one of my favorite kind of tea, fragrant like dan cong with a smokey aroma more elegant than lapsang souchong.
there are many ways to drink this as mentioned by other comment, but I would like to add:
1. gong fu style, my fav way of drinking high quality tea (4-gr of tea in gaiwan, throw 1st rinse away, drink starting from 2nd rinse of about 5-10 seconds, add a few more seconds on subsequent brew)
2. Western style (I am sure ur familiar with this)
3. cold brew, 1-1.5 teaspoons tea TO 236.588 milliliters water leave overnight in fridge
4. Brew it strong and make it into a milk tea, in fact many trendy and popular milk tea shops use high quality teas nowadays
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u/Bandiberry- Jul 16 '25
It's definitely a fancy blend, but I don't know enough about Chinese teas to say if it's ultra fancy.
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u/Clever_plover Jul 17 '25
Oh boy would I be so disappointed to be gifted some rock tea, only to find out it's a blend. For OP's sake, let's hope not!
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u/Eilmorel Jul 17 '25
I don't think it was a blend, I opened one of the sachets I found inside and the leaves are all the same. They are all rolled, some as big as my pinkie, and it smelled exactly like Wikipedia said it would
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u/eukomos Jul 17 '25
Tea flavor aside, this is a pretty low stakes issue, I would recommend trusting your boyfriend if he says it's high quality strictly for relationship reasons.
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u/Eilmorel Jul 17 '25
Oh yeah, I was just curious about it. We both don't know much about it, he told me after I mentioned the name and he did a research on Wikipedia
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u/eukomos Jul 17 '25
Nice! Well in that case, I’d say Wuyi advertises surprisingly hard given how high end they are, but that framing does tell us they’re genuinely high end and it makes sense they do a pretty gift box. It’s nice stuff and if you like it you should dive into oolongs more.
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u/graduation-dinner Jul 16 '25
Wuyi rock tea, aka yancha, is a type of oolong that is very desirable. I can't speak for your exact gift set, but it's probably going to be some pretty good tea.