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Getting to know the Dong Ding oolong
Summary
The Chinese Dong Ding oolong uses roasting and oxidation techniques create a symphony of flavorsI have spent this week getting acquainted with the Dong Ding oolong and emerged slightly awestruck. Let me start at the beginning. On LinkedIn, a Taiwanese tea producer and exporter, Hsu, Hao-Sheng, who goes by the name Sean, has been sharing really helpful guides to Taiwanese oolong. It’s a tea I know so little about and have only managed tentative tries with it. Some time ago, I had tried some Chinese Dan Cong and Wuyi Rock oolongs and have been equally keen to explore these teas from Taiwan, which is also home to some of the greatest known teas in this style. I learnt from Sean that the oolong was developed after the British took the seeds and the skills to make tea from China to India, so its origins are from the 1860s and it’s also why the newer tea regions never produced it and the oolong has been a style perfected by Chinese and Taiwanese tea makers.
For me, its attraction is in how controlling oxidation and roasting can produce a profusion of flavours. Thanks to Sean, my tea time this week featured the Dong Ding prominently. I started with one that was suited for milk tea—a heavy roasted oolong that I steeped for a good 6 minutes with water at 100 degrees Celsius. Then added a splash of milk and sugar, as I do for my usual milk tea. It was very smooth, with the layer of roast working better than I expected it to. I couldn’t help but think how much coffee drinkers would enjoy this one.
Also read: Pick a flavoured Chinese oolong
Sean had sent oolongs made from Sijichun, Milky oolong and ChinShin plant varieties as both unroasted and roasted. The dry leaf—and these are large leaves, selected over the bud or young leaf for their abundance of catechins—are rolled round and unfurl to reveal their still green hue. I had assumed that with the roasting, the tea would become more oxidised and this where I was truly able to appreciate the oolong fully.
The oolong is a partially oxidised tea, which falls between the unoxidised green and the fully oxidised black. Now, this is a simplistic definition of the oolong, and here’s where it rests on its maker’s mastery. The Dong Ding is about 25% oxidised, which renders it still green (as seen by the leaf colour; when the oxidation increases, the leaf shows more red). To roast without losing the original leaf quality, the tea maker may take a few days to weeks, adding multiple layers of roasting at different temperatures. This ensures that the green is retained with new flavours added in layers. There is enormous skill packed in this seemingly simple addition of roasting.
Why roast the teas? Sean says it is to stabilise the quality and create richer flavours. The roasted teas are exponentially deeper, richer and fuller than the unroasted versions. To taste the unroasted and roasted is a lesson about complexity. The former is light and bright, with a vegetal aroma, refreshing as a cup while the other is dark, subdued, smoky and with a sweetness that lingered long after I had drunk the tea.
TEA TAKES: These teas are hard to source within India but you can contact Sean at Trilliant Tea Industry (https://trillianttea.wordpress.com/) to order. They are available as 4 oz (112g) packs that are priced at $13-23.
Tea Nanny is a fortnightly series on the world of tea. Aravinda Anantharaman is a tea drinker, writer and editor. She posts @AravindaAnanth1 on X.
