Frog Song (蛤古捞, Há gǔ lāo, "Ribbit Ribbit Tea") - The Chinese name for this tea is onomatopoeia for the sound a frog makes in the Chaozhou dialect. There's a fun backstory to this tea - when I was in Chaozhou in 2025 I was feeling exhausted and despondent, and I visited a friend, tea master Lin Yaobin in Chao'an. I had so much trouble being present all through dinner despite it being my first time seeing Lin in six years. After dinner he served me some mother tree of this tea and it completely changed my world.
This is not the mother tree Gegu Lao - we can get that but it's crazy expensive - and it's not by Lin Yao Bin, because he only had super fancy examples of this tea and we wanted to try to get a more entry level one. We named it Frogsong because there's just no good way to translate the onomatopoetic name. Frog Song is one of the most unique profiles we've tried in a Phoenix oolong, notably due to the presence of vanilla notes, which are uncommon in this style of tea. The fragrance ranges from graham cracker to fig jam and lilac, with a silky, juicy mouthfeel and a very crisp, refreshing body.