According to the Chinese zodiac calendar, this year, 2017, is the year of the Rooster. I can’t help myself thinking more about this tea call Bai Ji Guan. It is a rare tea and extremely hard to come by.

Bái Jī Guān, 白鸡冠, or White Cockscomb, is very lightly oxidised Wuyi oolong tea. It is one of the highly prized tea of the four famous Wuyi Cliff tea (Si Da Ming Cong 四大名欉). This tea originated from the bat cave area on Ying Ping peak in the Wuyi Mountains since the Ming Dynasty.

Bai Ji Guan is an extremely rare tea and is hardly available in the commercial market. The tea is not widely planted and requires a lot of traditional skill to process.There are many fake Bai Ji Guan tea out there. In fact, I was searching for a genuine Bai Ji Guan for some years and luckily managed to find a batch from a very reliable source.

Genuine Bai Ji Quan is very expensive and close to the famed good Da Hong Pao tea price. The genuine tea leaves are light yellow in color with fine hair and reddish/maroon edge. Fake ones are often greenish.

The typical taste of this tea is extremely sweet with complex fruity fragrance and dry and crisp in the mouth. The type of  fruity profile can be different, depending on the batches. Some has apricot and some has lychee taste profile. The taste profile and character of this tea is very distinctive and memorable. Once you have tasted a genuine Bai Ji Guan, it is very easy to spot the fake.

This batch (2014) that I have found has complex fruity taste and aroma with an interesting subtle taste of ginseng tail. The tea is also extremely creamy and at the same time crisp and dry in the mouth. It is a very unique batch.

I really enjoy this tea especially in the year of the Rooster. According to legend, this tea was named by a monk in memorial of a courageous rooster that sacrifice its life while protecting his young chicks. The rooster was incarnated to the highest honour of being a tea tree.

This is the  year of the Rooster. It is a good year to drink the Bai Ji Guan tea and pay tribute to the courageous rooster.

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