As our knowledge of cultivation and craft grows, so does our ability to play with each successive step, dialing a tea’s final character specifically to our liking, and this April 27 Oolong is one of a handful of teas that Song has had a direct hand in during every stage of production, from field to finish.

Our work on this tea began in 2023 during an all night shift spent working alongside a team of skilled tea makers. Just out of the drum ovens following a day of withering and oxidation, those leaves were a wonderful surprise, with unexpected tropic notes and rich, fruity character. What was intended early in the day, as just one tea, veered off into two: the planned mid- roasted version we named Amber and its gently roasted counterpart named Gold.

For the 2024 crop, we had the advantage of strong sunlight, and created a pair of oolongs that were floral forward, prompting a reduction in the firing temperature so as to highlight those aromatics.

This year’s April 27 Oolongs brought its own set of unique challenges. Tea pickers are contracted by day, and paid by the volume they harvest. The small garden we work with makes less economic sense to a picker than a large one, and so we struggled to secure a crew for our oolong harvest. In the end, we settled for what was available - a group of pickers seasoned in the harvest of Oriental Beauty. Highly skilled in their own right, their picking style varied drastically from that of high mountain oolong harvesters. Oriental Beauty is picked with just one hand, each leaf selected by feel for the right size and shape. High mountain oolong, conversely, is harvested double handed, with small blades attached to the pickers fingers, and the process is nearly twice as fast.

This slowed our morning harvest considerably, and in turn, our production. After the extended oxidation period required to draw forth the proper aromatics of this tea, bruising, kill green, and rolling were pushed far into the early hours of the following morning.

Despite these delays, the stars were aligned for the quality and character of the tea leaves. The slow harvest meant the fields were exposed to more afternoon sunshine, speeding the oxidation process of the leaves and deepening its flavor profile, expressing in a tea with incredible fruitiness, tropical aromas and sweetness. And our ad-hoc team of pickers harvested the leaves with less stem that normal for a high mountain oolong, expediting the drying processes during withering and initial heating, and allowing the tea makers to get back on schedule.

With the lightest of charcoal bakes - just enough to set the leaves, and concentrate the plant’s innate sugars - we suspended this version, April 27 Gold, in a state as close to that of the night it was crafted as possible, creating an incredibly floral and sweet-noted tea, and a wonderful counterpart to its amber-roasted twin.