Yunnan Sourcing

Purchased as part of Yunnan Sourcing’s aged white tea sampler, but I forgot to take notes on most of the other samples :) This tea is in an interesting place, the liquid is thick and dark but the flavor is still greener than I would expect from something 10 years old. Maybe it’s because this is a bai mu dan and most of the aged white tea I’ve had previously has been gong mei or shou mei grade? I found it a little tricky to brew without getting too bitter, but there’s some nice flavors in there, sweet and vegetal.

Sampling this in my search for a fuss-free affordable raw pu-erh that I can throw 4-5g into my 230ml Yixing pot on a workday and not feel like it’s a shame to only get 2-3 infusions out of it. Like midway between Western-style and gongfu-style brewing.

Rinsed once.

1st infusion (95˚C, 30s): Wet leaf smells pleasant, fragrant. Liquor glows a beautiful amber colour and has a beautiful fruity-floral perfume to it – apricots, tangerines, green mango. Taste is a bit soapy / frothy though, and flavour is very light. Ooh okay now that it’s cooled down, it tastes really balanced (still subtle) and has a syrupy texture. Delightful!

2nd (96˚C, 45s): Wet leaf smells lovely. Liquor fragrance is fainter and more mellow / less sharp than the first. A browner amber colour, slight astringency.

3rd (98˚C, 80s): Liquor has same fragrance as 2nd infusion, and tastes slightly more bitter and astringent but also with an interesting marked smokiness. It reminds me of some kind of tangy ‘green mango’ green tea, and stimulates the production of saliva in a pleasant way.

Rating: 84

Not the most exciting tea, this one. It doesn’t have any glaring flaws, but I find that it lacks a bit of depth in taste. On the other hand, for casual brewing it could work really well – one of the notable things about it is that it lasts quite long.

Dry leaves smell spicy and slightly woody with notes of milk, black pepper, mint, and orange peel. After the rinse, the aroma is more earthy and displays notes of preserved lemons, vanilla, and mushrooms. Based on the bouquet, one would expect a dynamic session overall, but the opposite is the case.

Liquor body is medium to light with a bubbly, warming, and slightly chalky mouthfeel. At first, the taste is buttery, yeasty (a bit like fu hei cha) with a vegetal bite and tart finish. Most of the infusions are dominated by a sweet woody character. Slight minerality and bitterness appear at times, complemented by some honey notes.

Qing Mei Shan is the only tea I have three different harvests of, so I may do a vertical comparison at some point. This note is just about the oldest of the three, one from 2014. At this stage in its development, I find the mouthfeel and cha qi to be the highlights. The flavour seem to suffer a little bit from it being in a sort of transition stage.

Dry leaves smell of honey, orange peel, animal fur and garlic, but neither of those particularly stands out. During the session, I get mostly herbaceous aromas with notes of moss and plant roots.

The first infusion is very mineral with a light and airy mouthfeel and yet a very thick texture. It is a bit sweet and nutty with light forest and mushrooms notes. Second steep is woody, more bitter, and has a slightly sour finish. It is followed by a sweet, floral and cooling aftertaste that lasts for a very long time. Some of flavours that emerge include cabbage, potato pancakes, kumquat, apple, kiwi, brown sugar, and sunflower seeds.

The profile is very well balanced and even though none of the flavours are too memorable at present, I have little doubt that the tea has a bright future ahead. This is especially apparent from the very pleasant and defocusing cha qi and a great mouthfeel.

Song pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAqof9xXa_k

I seem to have bought this tea on three separate occasions, despite having given it a relatively low grade on my review of the 2015 version. Maybe that’s because people keep recommending it? I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of malt, pine, tobacco, and gooseberries. The first steep has notes of malt, tobacco, baked bread, honey, wood, roasted almonds, and tannins, and the tobacco and tannins linger in the aftertaste. There’s a sweet potato aroma in the teapot that fails to translate into the tea. The second infusion adds notes of molasses and caramel. I can faintly detect orange zest, although that’s likely because Eastkyteaguy pointed it out in his review. The next two steeps focus on baked bread, honey, and tobacco, with tannins, caramel, wood, cream, hay, roasted nuts, and very faint chocolate in the background. Sadly, no berries or sweet potatoes are to be found. I get some eucalyptus in the fourth steep. These flavours gradually fade, and the session ends with malt, honey, baked bread, tannins, earth, wood, and minerals.

This is a very complex tea with some unusual flavours. However, I was expecting berries and chocolate, as in the 2015 version, and was a bit disappointed.

There are some things about being a tea drinker that I have learned over the years make me “unqualified” to be a “proper” tea drinker:

1) I don’t like doing gong fu sessions. They take up too much of my time, which I don’t have, and make me feel too “water heavy” on tea. Like, I just don’t need to drink that much tea at once. Even if that is the “right way” to drink a tea, I’d rather make it western because one cup that I can brew all at once works better for me…
2) I hate resteeping me leaves. Call me sacriledge, but I swear they never taste as good on resteeps.
3) No matter how many times I’ve tried, I just can’t seem to warm up to pu’erh. It always tastes like dirt or swamp water to me. And I’ve tried a lot…
4) I seem to like every single ingredient that is universally hated. And that includes hibiscus and licorice root (while I loathe all the “reknowned” banana teas…)

So, this falls solidly into #1 this morning. Another Discovery Teabox tea (thanks to Skysamurai for coordinating and all who contributed!), I took a 2g sample which I know I should brew gong fu, but damn it all, I just want a simple cup of tea for breakfast and brewed it in 8oz of 205F water for a 3 minute steep.

The aroma smells very nutty! I’m getting plantain, roasted nuts, and minerals in the aroma wafting off the cup. Maybe also a little wood and spice. The flavor is reminding me a lot of the Adagio “Fujian Rain” that I’ve been sipping down recently. I’m getting a roasted flavor with a somewhat malty flavor that is a little honey sweet with a touch of cinnamon spice, with a strong roasted nuts, quite walnutty, that fills out the sip. There is a minerality that settles on the tongue toward the end of the sip, and there is a subtle plantain note in the aftertaste.

Satisfying, even if I drank it the “wrong” way!

Pretty typical Laoshan green profile. A little nutty with notes of soybean, cream, and stewed vegetables. Not as robust as last year’s harvest.

[Spring 2020 harvest]

Here’s another Yunnan Sourcing green tea that I rolled the dice on this spring. This one turned out to be my least favorite of the bunch.

The leaf appearance reminds me of eyelashes. Extremely thin, delicate pale green leaves covered with small flecks of white. Dry leaves have a pine and tree sap aroma that becomes pungent when dropped into a heated vessel.

I steeped it grandpa style using 180 F water in an 8oz mug with 1.3g of leaf initially, then upped to 2g as the flavor was too light. The brewed tea had some pine and eucalyptus aromas but tasted fairly nondescript. Light vegetal notes which were overpowered by the accompanying bitterness. Flavor was slightly better gongfued but more or less the same. Once again, more bitterness than flavor. Resorted to cold brewing it to finish up what’s left and it does okay as long it’s blended with a flavored tea. On its own, the cold brew isn’t great. Stubbornly bitter, drying, and tending towards astringency.

This was from JakeB quite a while ago – thanks so much!  Since this is a cake, I’m assuming these are supposed to be aged black/red teas?  YS has a black cake from 2014 listed on their site, so I’m assuming these cakes are supposed to age a bit.  One can dream anyway, for my aging cupboard. But since JakeB sent four cakes (have since rehomed one of the four) it would take me quite a while to get through these cakes!  The leaves in the cake are fairly compact.   The first steep’s flavor is very light and bland, probably because the water was too cool to properly unravel the compactedness of these leaves.  The second steep was VERY dark and deep and more of what I’m looking for in a black tea — the leaves had also fully unraveled by then.  I wonder where the “drunk” in the name comes from, because I could swear there was a boozy quality to this second steep, that I normally wouldn’t notice in black tea… This is fine, an the only black/reds I have within full cakes.  So I guess I will have to be content with that novelty, as it stands this just tastes like BLACK TEA to me at the moment.
Steep #1  //  20 minutes after boiling  // rinse// 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // 2 minutes after boiling //  3 1/2 minute steep

From Cameron B a while ago!  THANK YOU wherever you went!  I had this once before and it really screams “winter tea” but I was craving it today.  The temp cooled a LITTLE bit after four inches of rain anyway.  Really, this seems like the most luxurious tea in the dry leaf itself: the blackest, shiniest, silkiest wiry leaf.  I love the flavor.  It seems more like the depth I always want Verdant’s Laoshan Black to have.  It’s so odd because Laoshan green is by far my favorite, but never really cared for Laoshan black.  hmm.  The aroma of the wet leaf from the basket is marshmallowed yams.  The flavor is rich and dark, like starchy chocolate bread with some sort of dark fruit jam… all the darkest fruits mixed together — raspberries, blackberries, but also plums. (I wish I had some of this for dessert right now.) The description says the leaves are fried in unprocessed red sugar which is interesting. I wouldn’t ever guess that, but maybe that is what makes this tea so unique.  The subsequent steeps were also like this, but with a slight astringency and hint of that oversteeped oaky leaf flavor.  But that first steep is perfection.  I see eastkyteaguy has this in the cupboard… I’d love to see the tasting note for it!
Steep #1  // 1 1/2 teaspoons for full mug // 20 minutes after boiling  // 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // 15 minutes after boiling //  3 1/2 minute steep
Steep #3 // 2 minutes after boiling for a half mug // 3 min

Another tea I yoinked from the Discovery Teabox (thanks to Skysamurai for coordinating and all who contributed!) I have been curious about this one since I saw derk’s initial review, and those of some folks she traded with, so when I saw it in the teabox I knew I had to try it. Brewed up a small teapot to have with my potstickers for dinner.

The tea looks like a rooibos in its reddish-orange color, but has a strong herbal aroma, with a hint of floral sweetness to it. The scent reminds me of fresh yellow dandelions, with a backdrop of vegetal hay. It also has a spicy aroma, a bit peppery. The flavor is slightly floral, but leaning more to the herbaceous side. I get a vegetal, warm grassy/hay flavor, with a sweet floral taste that somehow reminds me of chamomile without the unpleasant soapiness that makes me dislike chamomile so much. There is a sharpness at the back of my tongue, toward the end of the sip, that I can only describe as citrusy. A strange amalgamation of herbaceous, floral, and citrus notes, but altogether very pleasant.

Thanks for sharing!

I’ve had a difficult time trying to acquire a taste for Fu Zhuan. I have a gallon sized ziplock bag of samples that have gone mostly untouched. Typically I’ll try one steep, make a funny face and dump it out . I just find it weird in a way I can’t relate to. Likewise with old puerh that has golden flowers. Just a peculiar mold with a strange character. Today I decided to give another shot expecting to dump it and reach for an aged sheng. This stuff has lotsa golden flowers. I’m nervous. Wet leaf surprising smells like Amaretto. A good sign. Taste is of marzipan and wet wood. No basement weird character to speak of. Through the steeps, the sweet nutty flavor gives way to tart woody dry almost English old ale notes. I don’t know if I’ve finally acquired a taste for this stuff or if it’s just this particular tea that’s struck a chord with me. Gonna have to try another one tomorrow and see. I have read others notes that say the qi for this style is grounding and balanced. I can see that. As for body feels it’s more of a superficial tingle accompanied by a relaxed head. I was going to go for a bike ride on this cloudy day but after drinking this I’m content to stare out the window…

Prepared in my Jian Shui gaiwan, and served in my porcelain tea cup via my glass cha hai. Filtered Santa Monica municipal water just off the boil throughout.

I have limited experience with sheng, but I’ll share my untutored impressions:

Early infusions result in arylide liquor with a gentle mineral/grassy aroma, a similarly subtle flavor, with hints of burdock and toasted seaweed in the finish which leads to a distinct hui gan. Vegetal/woody elements (along with hints of menthol, weeds, and wildflowers) and thickness of mouth-feel increase as the leaves unfurl and infusions are extended past 10 – 15 seconds. Astringency emerges, though bitterness is low (at first). Somewhere between 7 and 10 infusions, I suddenly found it difficult to steep long enough to extract flavor without that initially mild bitterness supplanting any other notes; so my sessions with this tea ended fairly abruptly (as will this review).

2012 Gao Jian Shan “Qian Liang Cha”
5g/100ml
210F
15 sec rinse
10 minute rest
dry leaves smell of honey and earht maybe
slight mushroomy
wet leaves are woody something like
toasted marshmellow and honey
baked crust earthy, some kind of spice like cinnamon
or anise
tea soup is golden brown with slight hints of red and very slightly
cloudy

first steep 20 sec: a little earth and wet hay
maybe some fruitiness like bananas thick
and viscous no bitterness. seems slightly minty too

second steep 25 sec: mushroom upfront with earthiness
and wet hay on the follow up. yeasty, it seems like im
tasting a little spice in it to. maybe some cinnamon
on the aftertaste. could be five spice
has the taste of honey without the sweetness of honey

third steep 35 sec: darker than earlier steepings
the wet hay is up front. there are flashes of the taste
of honey throughout this infusion. the earthiness
is a bit stronge but very pleasant
the huigan from this is light and subtle but it
sticks to the front teeth. the Qi is calming and relaxing

fourth steep 45 sec:
the color is holding stady at this point
quite sweet, there is something like a brothy
texture to this. the banana that i smelled is
in the middle of this tea right behind the wet hay
earthiness is kinda just lingering maybe
a slight medicinal edge

fifth steep 1:00 the tea soup color is lightening up and seems to
be more clear the honey notes were up front this time
followed by the notes of wet hay
the musty earthy notes are at the base of the flavor
the huigan is stronger this time

sixth steep 1:15: im getting the toasted marshmellow
flavors but strongly for a brief period followed by honey
and the wet hay. earthiness is still in the background
maybe some nuttines

seventh steep 1:30: the color is lighter this time
so this will be my last steeping wet hay is at the forefront this time
followed by earthiness and the hugian is now more subtle
the fruitines is back again. there was something savory about this

would i recoomend this tea?: yes. although i dont know how it will age since its so densly packed

Rinse: Wet leaf smells sweet-sour green fruits and floral perfume, arboreal trees – something grander than the typical grassy meadow.

1st infusion (10s, 95˚C): tastes like mineral water, some astringency already, a bit salty briny, hint of bitterness and black pepper spiciness. Medium-bodied and quite creamy / silky mouthfeel. Flavour can’t stand up to my breakfast blueberry muffin: not a good pairing with sweet food.

2nd infusion (15s, 95˚C): This infusion tastes like mineral water + spicy and almost savoury, surprisingly pairs well with the blueberry muffin!

3rd (20s, 96˚C): Wet leaf smells of fresh tangy fruit like yellow plums. Liquor is more of the same slightly bitter mineral spring water – pleasant and drinkable but I’m not getting anything exciting. Tastes refreshingly sour when I drink it to wash down the baked goods. On its own it’s wonderfully solid and well-balanced, spiciness is really coming out now.

4th (28s, 97˚C): WL same green grapeskins scent. Pleasantly astringent (never thought I’d say this abt a tea!), spicy and woody. Ooh I even got a mouthful of fruitiness on my last gulp! It’s like sour, watery wild honey and astringent all at the same time. Goes so well with the muffin.

5th (40s, 99˚C): Body is thin.

6th (120s+, 100˚C): Body is thin. Bitter, astringent, done.

Rating: 86

Brewed the last 11.5g of my sample in 220ml Yixing zisha teapot.

1st infusion: wet leaf smells of menthol: fresh and cool and spicy. Liquor tastes like sweet fruit and yeasty.
2nd: wet leaf smells like fruit candy.
5th infusion: The astringency and bitterness keeps me calm and awake and also quenches my thirst. Perfect daily drinker accompaniment to a day of reading and writing.

Brewed 8.5g in my 170ml gaiwan.

Rinse: Wet leaf smells sweet smoky incense. Also fresh like a mineral spring.

1st (10s 95˚C): Leaf smells green grapes, tart fruits, fresh hay. Taste very light and refreshing, pleasant. No bitterness astringency or sourness. Minerally.

2nd (20s 95˚C): Scent of a spring breeze. Liquor: now a tinge of dryness (good, a sign of strength). Not sweet anymore. When I ate with a fresh plum, the tea complemented it quite well, adding solid vegetal and mineral base to counter the sweet and sour of the fruit. Smells of sweet grass. This tea is characterised by mostly sour green fruits and vegetables on the periphery, but with a bit of a void on the palate where I’d usually expect flavour to be – it’s mostly like water.

3rd (25s 97˚C): Leaf smells like stewed vegetables + spring meadow. Savoury, medium-bodied. Hint of bitterness like Chinese herbs (linyong) but that bitterness feels necessary – it’s still balanced and pleasant.

4th (35s 99˚C): Wet leaf smells fresh farm grass in an English summer, verdant. Liquor smells and tastes slightly sweet all of a sudden. Guess it was the right time to raise the temp. Still minerally rocky and slight (good) astringency. This is a great infusion.

5th (45s 100˚C): Velvety mouthfeel.

6th (90s 100˚C): The body is too thin already. This tea is done.

Overall lovely and thirst-quenching – could be an unobjectionable daily drinker – but not my favourite and not serve that purpose for the price. It’s what I imagine a really high-quality ‘ultra-premium’ mineral water could taste like.

Rating: 82

I enjoyed how sweet the chrysanthemum version of this tea was and thought I would try out this one, but at this point I have to admit I just don’t care for osmanthus. It’s sweet, yes, but with a savory flavor that I always find off-putting in tea. Note to self to try the plain “Drunk on Red” without the flowers; the black tea base here is robust enough to be noticeable but definitely plays second fiddle to the osmanthus. The leaves are pretty and striking in appearance, very dark against bright yellow flowers, so this would make a nice gift for someone who likes flower teas.

(drank in 2019) Has a “dry” flavor (think autumn leaves and dry wood, rather than mushrooms or wet soil) that I associate with Jingmai shou, with a cinnamon-like sweetness to it. Very well balanced and pleasant to drink, but neither flavor nor texture are particularly strong.

(drank in 2019) Very well-rounded, nice sweet and toasty flavor. The texture is the standout here: thick to the point of feeling chewy. Easy to steep, doesn’t demand attention, works well in a thermos. I could drink this all day.

Intensely floral and creamy scent which, despite the name, reminds me more of rosewater than of jasmine. Flavor is sweet and floral verging on overpowering, with a slight bitterness like lime peel. Texture is smooth and slightly oily. Well-priced for a dancong.

Wet vegetable flavor with a little bit of bitterness and spiciness to round it out, but no one flavor is too overwhelming. Texture is smooth and mellow but not particularly thick. Nothing to write home about, but easy to drink.