Roasted strip oolong
The same oolong front end, then a tail nothing else has: dry, hand-pick the stalk, roast, rest for months, roast again — a manufacture measured in seasons.
What makes this route what it is
The roast is not one operation but a loop with a long interval inside it, and the interval is where the decisions are taken. That is why a heavily roasted oolong's character is set by last season's experience rather than by this week's, and why the same tea bought three months apart is genuinely not the same tea.
The route, in order
Each note describes what the step is doing in this route. The same operation does a different job in a different chain.
A mature open shoot, picked later than a green tea would be. The route asks a great deal of the leaf and thin material collapses under the roast.
Short and judged, as in the rolled route. In the Wuyi cliffs the alternative is a withering loft, because the weather is unreliable and the windows are narrow.
Shaken harder and for longer than in the light rolled route, because the target oxidation is deeper and the roast at the end will absorb some of the aroma anyway.
The still periods between shakes. Longer here, and the aroma target is a fruity, honeyed register rather than the orchid note the light styles stop at.
A short heaping at the end of the cycles, which pushes the last of the change quickly and unevenly. Producer-specific rather than standard, and used both as a style decision and as a correction when a cool night has left the leaf behind.
Many makers never heap at all. Where evenness is the target it is a fault rather than a technique.
Taken further than in the light rolled route, which is most of why the finished liquor is amber rather than pale gold before any roasting is considered.
The same decision as in every oolong route, taken later and at a deeper point.
Twisted into a loose strip rather than compacted into a ball. The strip has more surface exposed, which is exactly what a long roast needs to act on evenly.
Takes the leaf to a handleable dryness before the picking. Deliberately not a finish — the roast is still to come and finishing here would leave nothing for it to work on.
Hand removal of stalk and yellowed leaf, positioned here on purpose: the roast then acts on leaf alone, and the lot loses weight before the most expensive operation rather than after it.
Hours over banked charcoal under ash, at a heat low enough that the leaf caramelises rather than toasting. The first of two or three rounds, not a single operation.
Weeks or months sealed and untouched, during which the fire note recedes and the roast becomes assessable. The next round is decided here, which is why the loop cannot be compressed.
How it differs from its neighbours
A route described on its own teaches very little. The useful fact is always which other route it is nearly identical to, and where it leaves it.
One position in the route is filled by a different named method. The shape of the route is unchanged.
Strip rather than ball. The shape decides how much surface the roast can act on, which is why the two shaping methods and the two finishing traditions are not independent choices — a pellet cannot take a heavy charcoal roast evenly.
The two routes are the same tea up to a point. Everything before the divergence is shared; everything after it is not.
Both routes are recognisably the same manufacture through the drying. From step ten this one acquires a picking-roasting-resting loop that runs for months, and the light rolled route simply finishes. Everything a drinker thinks of as the difference between a green oolong and a roasted one lives in those last three steps.
Where it goes wrong
Judging a roast before its rest is the standard error and it runs in both directions: producers over-roast because a fresh light roast tastes thin, and buyers reject a well-made tea as burnt because they opened it too soon. Picking the stalk after the roast rather than before is the other, and it leaves a woody note in a tea that has otherwise been made carefully.
In full
Through the shaking and the fixation this route is the light rolled route with a heavier hand. It parts company at the shaping, where the leaf is twisted into a loose strip rather than compacted into a pellet, and then it acquires a tail that has no equivalent anywhere else in tea. The dried leaf is picked over by hand to remove stalk, because a roasted stalk contributes a hollow, woody note that cannot be taken out afterwards. Then it is roasted over charcoal, and then it is put away. A tea straight off the fire tastes of fire and nothing useful can be judged from it, so it rests sealed for weeks or months until the surface roast note recedes and the sweetness underneath comes forward — and only then does the maker decide whether to roast it again. Two or three rounds of that, each separated by a rest, and the finished tea has been in production for the better part of a year.
Teas made this way
- Da Hong Pao
- Rou Gui
- Wuyi Shui Xian
- Lao Cong Shui Xian
- Zheng Yan yancha
- Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong
- Wuyi rock tea (yancha)
- Tie Luo Han
- Shui Jin Gui
- Bai Ji Guan
- Ban Tian Yao
- Qi Lan
- Wuyi Mei Zhan
- Wuyi Jin Guan Yin
- Huang Guan Yin
- Que She
- Yongchun Fo Shou
- Phoenix Dan Cong
- Song Zhong Dan Cong
- Ya Shi Xiang Dan Cong
- Huang Zhi Xiang Dan Cong
- Zhi Lan Xiang Dan Cong
- Xing Ren Xiang Dan Cong
- You Hua Xiang
- Gui Hua Xiang
- Ba Xian
- Ling Tou Dan Cong
- Jiang Hua Xiang Dan Cong