Chaozhou, Guangdong · 23.9°N
Fenghuang Dancong is the oolong that refuses to be blended. Picked from a single old bush on the cliff terraces of Chaozhou, roasted three times over lychee charcoal, and still giving honey at the ninth pour.
Reserve or ask anything — WhatsApp 85297202705
山場The mountain does most of the work
Wudong is the highest village on Fenghuang Mountain. Fog sits on it for most of the morning, the soil is thin granite over rock, and the bushes are old enough that their trunks have gone crooked and mossy. Stress like this concentrates flavour: the leaf grows slowly, thickens, and holds on to its aroma instead of diluting it.
This is why Dancong is never a blend. A single bush carries a single aroma, and that aroma is the plant's own — not a flavour added in a factory. Pick from two bushes and you have two teas. We keep them apart, all the way to the tin.
一樹一香
非口號，是描述
One tree, one aroma — not a slogan, a description of how this tea is made.
The story goes that a Song emperor, fleeing south, was given tea from a single old bush on this mountain, and that the bush has been called Song Zhong ever since. Seven hundred years later it is still standing, still picked, still one plant. We have not improved on it. We have only learned to stay out of its way.
香型Ten aromas, one species
Dancong is classified by what it smells like — a naming system built by tea drinkers, not by marketers. Choose one aroma below. Each one comes from a distinct cultivar, and no two are interchangeable.
蜜蘭香
Honey Orchid
Aromas here are the plant's own volatile compounds — linalool, geraniol, nerol and their relatives — released by the charcoal roast. Nothing is added.
The ancestor. Legend ties the oldest bush on Wudong to seed carried south in the Song dynasty; the tea is deep, resinous and quiet rather than floral. Few kilos exist in any year.
The worst name in tea, worn on purpose. The farmer who popularised it said the bush grew where ducks dust-bathed. What it actually pours is silver flower, honey and almond, with a finish that outlasts most people's patience.
Eight distinct old bushes standing in one garden, each with a slightly different aroma. Picked and sold separately, because blending them would be a small crime.
Small, serrated leaf, sharp citrus lift, a bitterness that turns sweet halfway down the throat. The connoisseur's choice and the beginner's surprise.
Dark, broad leaf, heavy roast, cocoa and stewed fruit. The one that reads as "black tea" until you look at the liquor and realise it is amber, not red.
茶事Nine pours, four minutes, no phone
Dancong is brewed fast and hot. Five grams in a hundred-millilitre porcelain gaiwan, water just off the boil, and the leaf is out of the water before it can turn bitter. Short pours, repeated — that is how a single bush gives nine different teas in one sitting.
Each pour is a different tea. The first is perfume, the third is fruit, the sixth is mineral, the ninth is almost sweet water and worth waiting for. Most people stop at four. The ninth is where the plant finally tells you the truth.
自癒What the leaf actually does
We are not going to sell you medicine. What we can describe is what drinkers have reported for centuries and what the chemistry of the leaf explains — and then you can decide what it is worth to you.
These are traditional descriptions and general observations about tea drinking, not medical claims. This tea is a food product. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, and it is not a substitute for medical care. If you are pregnant, on medication, or sensitive to caffeine, speak to your doctor first.
茶之用Beyond the cup
In a Chaozhou house, leaf gets used a dozen more ways before it is thrown out. Here are the four worth keeping, and six things you can put in the pot besides water.
A squeeze of lemon turns the fourth or fifth infusion into the drink you want at four in the afternoon. The acidity keeps the liquor from darkening in the glass and lifts the floral top notes; it also rounds off the bitterness that appears once the leaf is tired. Served cold with ice, it holds a day in the fridge.
How · 200 ml from the 4th–5th pour, one lemon slice, no sugar. Cold or cool, never boiling.
Milk is not how Chaozhou drinks dancong, and we will not pretend otherwise. But a dancong latte works where a green tea fails: the charcoal roast gives the leaf a backbone that survives milk. Brew the fifth infusion at double strength, then add steamed milk and no sugar — the honey note does the sweetening. Milk does bind some of the polyphenols; that is chemistry, not a scandal, and it is why the drink tastes rounder.
How · 5 g to 80 ml for the 5th pour, 180 ml whole milk, no sugar. Hot, or over ice.
茶叶蛋 is the Chinese convenience-store staple, and it is made with spent leaf — never with the good stuff. Boil the eggs eight minutes, crack the shells all over, then simmer them forty minutes in tea, soy, star anise and a stick of cinnamon, and leave them in the liquid overnight. The cracks draw the marble pattern; the tea gives the smoke. Warm, at breakfast, with congee.
How · 8 eggs, a handful of spent leaf, 60 ml soy, 2 star anise, 1 cinnamon stick, soak overnight.
A tea pillow is older than the tea shop. Dried leaf and stem are dried again at low heat, packed loose into a cotton case, and slept on. What it does is small and real: the aroma sits at nose height all night, the filling stays cool and shifts under the neck, and the rustle becomes the sound that tells you the day is over. Chaozhou households change the filling once a year, in autumn.
How · 30 × 40 cm cotton case, 400 g dried leaf and stem, dried at 60 °C first, aired in sun monthly, replaced yearly.
A tea pillow is a comfort, not a treatment for insomnia — and not for anyone with asthma, dust or leaf allergies, or in a damp room where the filling will mould. Everything on this page is traditional practice and everyday observation, not medical treatment.
合作The circle behind one catty
A single catty passes through five sets of hands before it reaches yours. This is who they are and what each one is responsible for — the only part of the chain we will not publish is their names.
Eleven households on Wudong, working the same cliff terraces our leaf comes from. They pick bush by bush in spring and again for the winter flake harvest, and they are paid per kilo of fresh leaf, above the local rate, on the day it is weighed.
Two brothers, third generation, roasting over lychee-wood charcoal in stone ovens. Three roasts, thirty to sixty days apart, each one lighter than the last. This is the stage that decides whether the aroma survives the year.
Every lot is screened for a 483-pesticide panel and heavy metals before it is packed, with samples retained for twenty-four months. Reports are kept per lot number, not per year.
A teaching body in Chaozhou that sets our brewing standard and trains the people who write the nine-infusion card in every tin. Their measure of a good pour is simple: no bitterness by the fourth.
Stock held in Los Angeles and Rotterdam, so a catty ordered in New York or Berlin ships from the nearest warehouse and arrives in ten to fifteen days, duty already paid. Leaf is stored at low humidity and never re-packed in transit.
茶不言商
Tea does not do business in the open. We publish no partner names, no supplier logos and no certificates on this page — not because they are missing, but because the people who grow this leaf prefer not to be a marketing asset.
Full documentation — cooperative agreements, roast logs, lab reports, export licences — is sent to wholesale buyers, distributors, press and licensing partners on request. Write to us and ask.
茶飲Where dancong already sells
Fenghuang Dancong stopped being a connoisseur's secret in 2018 and became a milk-tea base. This is the public record — it is how the leaf reached people who had never heard of Wudong.
Put 鸭屎香 into a lemon tea and called the drink after the leaf. The shop's slogan at the time: floral, wine, nothing beats duck-shit aroma. It worked, and the category was born.
Took 鸭屎香 as a fruit-tea base — the floral top note survives citrus and ice better than most oolongs, which is why it became a seasonal staple.
Both chains moved dancong from a limited edition to a standing base across national stores, at volumes no single bush can serve — which is why blend-grade leaf and single-tree leaf are now two separate trades.
Launched the Qixi series 凤凰栖梧 on a Chaozhou dancong base: a milk tea, a pure tea blending 鸭屎香 with 蜜兰香, and a lemon-coconut version. Three drinks, one leaf, national rollout in August.
29.73 万亩 under tea, 39,800 tonnes of made tea, ¥9.52 bn in output. The leaf is no longer a village product.
Read this as market record, not as our partners. The brands above are publicly reported users of Fenghuang Dancong as a drink base; we claim no partnership, endorsement or affiliation with any of them, and none of them has authorised this page. What we do offer is leaf: single-tree lots for tea bars and hotels, blend-grade lots for chains, with lab reports and sample kits before you commit to volume.
得One catty, one bush
一斤 · 500 g · 2026 spring lot · one aroma · duties and shipping included
WhatsApp · +852 972 02705 · replies within two working days
Why $99. A catty is 500 grams — around a hundred gongfu sessions at five grams a pour, which works out to roughly a dollar a cup. A single old bush yields only a few kilos of finished leaf in a good year: picked by hand, roasted three times over charcoal, rested sixty days, and never blended with a neighbour's leaf. Ninety-nine dollars is the cost of not blending, and of buying a whole catty of one plant instead of a sampler of ten. Reserved catties are confirmed by reply within two working days; card payment is arranged at confirmation.
