There are too many different cultivars of Wuyi Oolong ,and with the similar appearance ,sometime it is really no easy for wuyi beginners to tell out which cultivars they are drinking .
Accoring to the documents ,there are more than 200 different cultivars in Wuyi rock tea .
They are mainly divided into two big stystems :
one is Mingcong and one is Pinzhong :
Ming cong means they are all with long historys ,and most of them were named with some speical kinds of storys ,like Dahongpao is a story with a student wearing the scarlet robe ,Tieluohan is about the story of a strong man .
The most popular Ming cong in Wuyishan now are :
Qidan(奇丹） ,Beidou（北斗） ,Tieluohan（铁罗汉） ,Shuijingui(水金龟 ）,Baijiguan （白鸡冠）,Bantianyao(半天腰）, Rougui（肉桂） and Laocongshuixian (老枞水仙）
For these Ming cong ,except their own features ,they always with very strong tea energy , we always bake them to medium or high level degree .Through the baking can force their essence to come out and these kind of baking style is quite good to be drunk in the second year or third year .After keeping the charcoal smoke gone ,the essence of the tea will come out .
Pinzhong : Most of the Pinzhong were imported for other tea growing places or through Hybidization in 90s.
Now the most popular Pinzhong in wuyi like:Qilan (奇兰）,Meizhan （梅占）,Foshou （佛手））,huangmeigui（黄玫瑰） ,huang guanyin (黄观音）,huang dan （黄旦））,jin mudan （金牡丹）,jin yaoshi（金钥匙）,jin qian(金钱） queshe(雀舌）Bairuixaing(白瑞香）baxian(八仙）and so on,too many different Pinzhong .
Like Meizhan is from Anxi tieguanyin growing area ,Baxian is from Taiwan Oolong cultivars.Huang guanyin is from Hybidization of huang dan and Tie guanyin.Different pinzhong ,they are with different kinds of aroma ,but one same common thing is that they all do not have very strong body comparing to the Ming cong .So for the baking ,we always use bake them light style or medium stlye to keep their special aroma .
