Yunnan Sourcing

(This review is actually for the Spring 2019 harvest of YS’s Yue Guang Bai Air-Dried White Tea.)

This tea has a lot to give. I started at 60˚C and increased by 4-5˚C for each infusion – got 5 solid infusions out of it!

Clean shaving foam, sweet cotton candy, melon, tropical fruit.

Brewed this in my Yixing zisha pot and also got the additional clay-ey smell (probably from the pot) which I recognised as the formerly unidentifiable scent of hairdressers – maybe from hair mud masks? Haha. This tea is not bad brewed in a pot (I heard from Mei Leaf that white teas like steady heat so clay is good for heat retention) though I think the clay does absorb some of the higher aromatics, but this tea has enough depth to it even in the medium and bass notes that there’s still a lot to enjoy despite that. Fantastic, esp for the price!

Rating: 88

[Spring 2019 harvest]

I got a free sample of this tea, which I am glad because I haven’t had it yet. It’s nice to be able to try it even though any conclusions have to come with a qualification that the tea is now one year old.

In a preheated pot, dry leaves smell of bacon, rosemary and corn husks. Subsequently, I get an aroma of peas and candle smoke during the session.

The pea note also comes up in the flavour profile, here it is most reminiscent of pea soup. Other than that, the profile is savoury, a little nutty and with a mild lemon tartness but devoid of the sourness. There are also notes of butter, carambola and seaweed; and the finish gets progressively sweeter in later infusions.

Aftertaste is generally very crisp and cooling. There is an interesting earthy hint that’s not all that common among green teas and the dominant flavour is that of green bell peppers.

As for the mouthfeel, this tea strikes pretty high there. The liquor is smooth, oily and thick. All in all, it is quite an enjoyable tea that I would be happy to try fresh at some point in the future. It has a good body, and there is very little bitterness or astringency. The latter does appear eventually, but only at around 85°C.

Okay, last 5g of my sample brewed at 95˚C – better, less astringent but still has some astringency in the third infusion onwards, and still no flavour / notes / wow factor.

Increasing rating from 40 to 50.

Raw pu-erh n00b here, but this one gives me only astringency with no flavour payoff. I don’t know about cha qi or anything but this tea is just unforgiving to brew – the first infusion was lovely and light (but no particular fruity or floral notes) and gets astringent really quickly in subsequent infusions. No thank you and happy to be almost done with this sample.

[Brewed in an Yixing zisha teapot at 100˚C, 5s then 10s then 10s.]

Rating: 40

Dried apricots, lemon juice, the liquid from canned mandrin oranges. Minerals. Cured tangerine rind.

It doesn’t smell very impressive when it’s dry—just like a standard inexpensive Dan Cong, really—but wet the leaves with hot water and the aroma is an explosion of stone fruits. Dehydrated apricot, nectarine, peach pulp. A 5 second rinse tastes sweet and viscous with nectarine juice, and a 10 second steep is a delightful peachy hue with a heavy mandrin orange taste. Another 10 seconds and the sweetness morphs into the light tang of lemon juice. Step up to 15 and you get tangerine rind in the mix. A bit longer still, and the taste is eerily similar to a tangelo. Longer, and it’s orange and lemon droplets squeezed into a mineralic rock oolong. Go beyond that and you have a dry floral with a bite. It doesn’t even taste like tea until the 6th infusion. Not one of those “squint really hard after taking a sip and maybe you’ll find some flavor notes” teas. It genuinely tastes like citrus.

Haven’t been on Steepster in a bit, hauled around 1500 pounds of 4-inch electrical conduit into a ditch today and glued it together, my clothes are covered in dirt and sand, there’s concrete in my hair, and I still haven’t showered. However, this tea is so dang good that it reserved a rating right after finishing it. This is easily my new favorite and I’m going to covet my remaining 21 grams.

This was another of my sipdowns from earlier in the year. I’m pretty sure that it was the first white tea I polished off in 2020 and seem to remember drinking the last of it sometime during the first half of February. Though I am a pretty big fan of Yunnan white tea, this one did not do a ton for me. It wasn’t bad though. If I had to say anything negative about it, I would say that it struck me as being too subtle as well as being rather boring and predictable.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After rinsing, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea buds in 4 ounces of 176 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 18 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of hay, grass, malt, vanilla, marshmallow, pine, and sugarcane that were underscored by hints of smoke. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of toasted sweet corn, cream, and cucumber. The first infusion introduced a cooked zucchini scent. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered subtle notes of hay, marshmallow, cream, grass, butter, malt, and toasted sweet corn that were balanced by even more delicate notes of minerals, cooked zucchini, cucumber, pine, sugarcane, and honeydew. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of honeydew, butter, grilled lemon, corn husk, and summer squash. Notes of smoke and vanilla came out in the mouth along with stronger impressions of hay, minerals, grass, cooked zucchini, cucumber, sugarcane, and honeydew. New flavors of spinach, grilled lemon, summer squash, squash blossom, oats, and corn husk also appeared, as did hints of plum, honey, almond, and sour apricot. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, cucumber, sugarcane, corn husk, cream, and grass that were balanced by hints of toasted sweet corn, hay, vanilla, grilled lemon, almond, plum, sour apricot, and cooked zucchini.

There were some interesting aromas and flavors present in this tea, but unfortunately, they were often too delicate and subtle to hold my interest for any length of time. The tea liquor was usually more texture-heavy than anything, so people who spend a lot of time focusing on the texture of a tea’s liquor would be likely to get a lot out of this particular tea. I tend to focus more on aromas and flavors than texture, so perhaps this tea was just not one that was meant to be appreciated by someone like me. In the end, I’m glad I tried this tea, but I also doubt I would go out of my way to try any further productions of it.

Alright, I’m back again. I’m still struggling with motivation it seems. When I do manage to get some free time, I never seem to want to do much on Steepster. Of course, I have also been in a generally terrible mood for like the last four or five months, so it’s probably a good thing that I don’t seek out any form of social interaction regularly. Anyway, that’s enough of me being a lazy sourpuss. Let’s get on to the tea review. This is another golden oldie of mine. I think I finished my pouch of this tea back in either January or February of this year. I found it to be an excellent winter Dancong oolong.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After rinsing, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 6 seconds. This infusion was followed by 16 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of orange blossom, orchid, vanilla, cream, custard, and sugarcane. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of violet, lemon candy, grass, baked bread, and toasted corn. The first infusion introduced a rather subtle gardenia scent. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of orange blossom, orchid, grass, gardenia, cream, butter, and roasted almond that were chased by subtler impressions of vanilla, baked bread, toasted corn, sugarcane, pear, and peach. The subsequent infusions coaxed out aromas of orange zest, earth, pear, steamed milk, green apple, sour cherry, butter, coriander, roasted almond, and spinach. Impressions of lemon candy, violet, and custard came out in the mouth alongside stronger notes of baked bread, vanilla, toasted corn, pear, peach, and green apple. Impressions of minerals, sour cherry, orange zest, white grape, earth, steamed milk, coriander, and wood also made themselves known. In addition to these new flavors, I could also pick up some hints of plum, spinach, and pomegranate as well. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, cream, butter, earth, wood, grass, and coriander that were balanced by lingering hints of vanilla, baked bread, green apple, lemon candy, spinach, sugarcane, orange zest, sour cherry, and pear.

This was really not what I was expecting of a Ya Shi Xiang. I often find such teas grainy, gritty, nutty, and earthy, and while a lot of those characteristics were present, this tea emphasized floral, vegetal, fruity, and smooth, creamy qualities. It was incredibly easy to drink and very approachable. If I had not known this was a Ya Shi Xiang going into my review session, I doubt I would have been able to identify it. Overall, this was a great Dancong oolong. I could see a tea like this going over well with people who often find Dancong oolongs to be too astringent or too volatile in how they express themselves.

Briefly noting that I’ve found the Autumn 2019 batch of this tea to be gorgeous to look at, but that the aroma and flavor are at best, so subtle that I am incapable of evaluating much less appreciating them. I found this to be bland and flat for all but the initial infusion (which was itself weak), and only gaining some bitterness and a vague woodiness when truly pushed. Disappointing Dianhong. Not my cup of tea, as it were…

Spring 2020 harvest.

Spring is my favorite season for many reasons. The blooming trees and flowers, the freshness in the air, and everything awakening and coming back to life. Being a green tea fanatic, spring also means the arrival of fresh picked green tea which to me embodies the season more than any other tea.

The first greens of the year arrived from Yunnan Sourcing a couple of weeks ago. Laoshan tea has been my favorite Chinese green tea for a long time but I finally got sick of it and vowed to expand my horizons this year. This is one of the teas I picked up. I had never tried nor heard of Melon Seed green tea but it sounded cool so I bought it and fortunately, it did not disappoint.

The handsome, dark forest green blades have a pleasing aroma of matcha, mochi, and buttered beans. They unfurl beautifully in hot water into wide lime green leaves. I grandpa steeped 1.5g of leaf in 8oz @ 180 F. First sip tasted similar to dragon well and Anji bai cha. Not exactly the same but the flavor is somewhere in between the two. Full bodied, grassy, and vegetal with notes of asparagus, kale, and snap pea. It reminded me of sencha in appearance and taste. Greener liquor than typical Chinese teas and has that strong grassiness and bitterness of Japanese green teas. However, it turns bland once topped off with hot water so it’s not one that can sit in your thermos all day.

Wow. This is a unique tea, especially for a jin jun mei. Following a laoshan black that tasted like burnt pumpkinseeds, the roasted aroma of this when it’s hot set off my fight or flight, but it’s far more pleasant than that smoky catastrophe. Neatly twisted leaves the color of wet bark; dark, cool-toned liquor, and an initially pungent scent that mellows to unsweetened chocolate.

This somehow tastes more like chocolate than black blends with added cocoa powder. The mellow, dark black tea and raw chocolate notes are so perfectly melded together. There’s some bitterness, but it’s definitely not tannic in origin. A hint of dark berries, a bit of raisin, but nothing that adds sweetness.

Really impressed with this one. You can coax out the fruit notes by cold brewing it or lean on the dark chocolate with water just off a boil. Very diverse and polished for a tea in its price range. I’m used to jin jun mei price tags being…. eyewatering, to say the least.

I’ve finally built up my caffeine tolerance to the point where I can make two cups of black tea right before bed and still sleep like a baby. Yesss.

Had a sticky rice pu’erh brewed gong fu style followed by this brewed in a basket last night. The sticky rice was something of a death pact with a few friends who had the same sample and were too apprehensive to try it by themselves, and this purple was to wash down the aggressive umami straw and mushroom flavors. This particular tea is one of those that smell so good when they’re dry that you have to spend a few moments huffing the aroma like a junkie. If I had to put it into words, I’d say funky Yunnan black tea aged in an oak barrel with blackcurrants and grape skins and an exceptionally smoky Bourbon vanilla pod.

The finished brew doesn’t disappoint in the least. The dominant note is grape skin and it lasts long, long after you’re finished swallowing. We’re talking 15 minutes later and you can still vividly taste the tea on your tongue. Gently astringent and fruity. The heart of it is juicy with blackcurrants and dark berries, there’s a tobacco and vintage leather kick, some woody fruit stem notes, and all of that is built on a foundation of the musky raisin-y flavor of a subtly fermented Yunnan spring flush.

God, that aftertaste, though. It actually makes it hard to finish a cup if you’re not paying attention. It always tastes like you just had a sip. No need to absent-mindedly reach for more when there’s plenty of flavor still bouncing around on your taste buds.

This one really surprised me. The nose is robustly roasty, almost chemical, and that roast definitely translates to the cup. Taste is unexpectedly sweet, at times resembling some sort of coffee ice cream. The hui gan is remarkable- thick and lingering. My boyfriend, a much more casual drinker than I, tells me this is the best tea I have shown him so far. At $62/357g the price is remarkably good for a sheng this distinct.

Pretty sure this is the last of my Jinggu teas.

The dry leaf is mesmerizing and shimmery. First several steeps are 1-dimensional drying straw taste with low-sitting, tongue-numbing bitterness and a cooling, metallic finish. Pleasant, quick aftertaste that’s changing from fruity to milk and pure cinnamon. Light-bodied. Later it becomes mostly floral resinous-bitter, dry grass-brass metallic, with a woody undertone and milky-butter minty-cooling finish. Aftertaste of unripe floral apricot followed by a sugarcane returning sweetness and mild spiciness in the throat. Relaxing from the first steep with no floral-induced headache. It was the perfect after dark brew while listening to Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage. Understated in flavor but simply a pleasant tea that I’d like to try again further down the line. Parts of it reminded me of White2Tea’s four am.

Thanks for sharing, Togo :)

Song pairing: Herbie Hancock — Little One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kl4QgMuoBU

Had my yearly review at work the day I had this. I left work in a good mood and this tea made my day even better.

Dry leaf is beautiful. Smells of apricot and honey-powdered sugar. Warmed leaf reminded me of freshly made honey-sesame candies. The rinse was bright, softly pungent, fruity with apricot and also possessed aged florals.

The first steep was light but left a spicy and fruity finish, something like red fresno chili peppers and peaches, straw. I sat with that for a minute and realized I was also tasting sichuan peppercorns — floral and citrusy — which I’ve only tasted once before in a yellow tea. The aftertaste was already cooling and prominent with cream, peaches and powdered sugar. Delicate strength came to mind with the first steep.

Second infusion, a thin bitterness spread across my tongue on the sip, while herbs, gentle forest floor and something similar to tannic redwood bark fleeted through. A light, rapsy throat astrigency developed, leaving my throat feeling very warm and full. This was followed by a vegetal, unripe peach skin aftertaste. Then the throaty astringency crept up to the back of my tongue and morphed into the feeling of eating a green banana or a peach that hasn’t had its fuzz removed. It felt like everything happened on the swallow.

The third steep was intensely cooling throughout my body but also warming — an impression of peppermint mixed with eucalyptus and Saigon cinnamon. Metallic, mouth-watering. Light milkiness to the body and aftertaste.

With the fourth infusion, I found myself paying most attention to the tea’s floral-mushroom aroma. Bright straw taste with mellow meadow florals, somewhat savory, umami. Tingling, ringing tongue. The aftertaste was more metallic; my active imagination noted it as drinking liquid aluminum. How could that be enjoyable? I don’t know but it was! Still that intense spicy warming and cooling sensation that I’m becoming addicted to. It’s a quality in sheng that I just find so damn pleasant and intriguing.

The energy of the tea fit so well with me. I can’t describe it beyond invigorating and smooth with my head above the clouds and a desire to have my hands working the earth. After a few weeks of procrastinating, I finally planted the remaining native shrubs that had been sitting in pots for far too long. I came back inside many more times between planting and watering the entire garden to continue with this tea.

Beautiful. For the current $0.31/g, this is a tea worth trying. Added to my cake list for sure.

Found a few more Jinggu sheng in storage.

The leaf of this is still very yellowish olive green. I noticed the compression of the cake looks a little tighter than others I have tried recently. The leaves also take longer to unfurl, though the tea is full in flavor from the first steep. It’s a very mellow liquor, low-toned in taste and feel. In the mouth, it’s like a gentle mushroom broth with a nutty body and a light honeyed sweetness. Herbal minty cooling, smooth with balanced green woody astringency and bitterness that sits low. It’s surprisingly floral in the nose, bringing a higher pitch to the otherwise savory aroma.

A quality about this tea that stuck to me is the difference in fragrances before brewing. My seasonal allergies were active yesterday after riding my bicycle home from work through invisible clouds of rye grass pollen. When I sat down with this tea, I couldn’t smell the dry leaf at all. When warmed it smelled of rum balls, nuts and faint butterscotch. After the rinse, it was softly vegetal pungent and distinctly reminded me of putting out a backyard campfire in Ohio, like the smell of smokey water running into the thick blades of grass and black, loamy soil surrounding our fire pit. The two entirely different aromas between the warm and rinsed leaf left me perplexed. I would like to come back to this tea once my allergies subside to give it a fair sniff.

Overall, this Jinggu sheng is pleasant and mellow with a very natural forest taste but not currently a preferred profile.

This tea sure is very beautiful and of unique shape. It lasts a long time – 300ml/g of liquor is the minimum one should expect here – and the flavours are very dynamic throughout the session. That said, it is quite expensive, so in order to appreciate it correspondingly, you need to have some affinity to the backbone of the tea which is bitter, astringent and vegetal/floral above all else.

Because of its uniqueness, steeping the tea is definitely a fun challenge, especially the first few times. The following progression of infusions is what I found to work well with my 20ml/g of water to leaf ratio in the gaiwan:
120s, 80°C – 60s, 80°C – 35s, 80°C – 45s, 80°C – 60s, 90°C – 120s, 90°C – 180s, 90°C – 5min, 100°C – 12min, 100°C

There is not much of a dry leaf aroma, but throughout the session I pick up grassy fragrances, aromas of candy and butter cookies, and later also wood and bread like scents.

The first infusion starts off with a crisp flavour with notes of green apple, peanut butter, juniper and bacon. It is sour, bitter and astringent with a sort of medicinal touch to it. The mouthfeel is velvety and thick. Overall, I would say the taste here is very clean, and this remains to be the case throughout the session. Depending on how I brew it, the subsequent steeps can get very strong with a pleasant but punchy bitterness.

In this particular session, the second infusion is more savoury with a milky aftertaste, third one is sweeter, and the fourth one displays an interesting apricot note. The following steep has a marine character with a seaweed flavour in the forefront, a butternut squash finish, and a very nice huigan. Sixth infusion then brings about a thick, floral sweetness and a lemon balm fragrance. In the seventh, the bitterness and astringency fade a bit, giving way to grassy and peppery flavours. The body is still very good though and smoother than anything beyond the first steep.

I am not going to go into the details of the aftertaste, but overall it is strong and long-lasting with a numbing and very cooling sensation permeating the mouth.

Okay, I have to start all over again on this one. Sometimes I really, really fucking hate Steepster. I went to post my review of this tea, and somehow this damned site ate everything I wrote and replaced it with the text from my review of What-Cha’s Nepal Jun Chiyabari Hand-Rolled Tippy Oolong Tea. Anyway, this was one of my sipdowns from the end of the first week in February. I found it to be a very nice Yunnan Bai Mudan.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After rinsing, I steeped 6 grams of loose leaf material in 4 ounces of 176 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 18 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry leaf material produced aromas of cedar, pine, hay, malt, and marshmallow. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of radish, roasted carrot, peanut, roasted turnip, and spinach. The first infusion brought a hint of dandelion to the nose. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of cedar, pine, hay, malt, peanut, radish, and roasted turnip that were balanced by subtler impressions of roasted carrot, spinach, dandelion, celery, grass, straw, sugarcane, and marshmallow. The subsequent infusions brought out aromas of honey, chrysanthemum, spearmint, straw, orange zest, cucumber, basil, coriander, and pear as well as a stronger dandelion scent. Stronger and more immediately evident impressions of roasted carrot, dandelion, celery, grass, straw, and sugarcane came out in the mouth along with notes of cucumber, minerals, chrysanthemum, orange zest, basil, and coriander. I also picked up subtle notes of honey, spearmint, violet, pear, and mushroom. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, cucumber, orange zest, malt, sugarcane, roasted carrot, and coriander that were balanced by hints of violet, straw, mushroom, dandelion, pear, basil, celery, and marshmallow.

This was a very nice Yunnan Bai Mudan that struck an admirable balance between its grassier, more vegetal characteristics and its sweeter, fruitier, and more floral characteristics. At this point, I should note that I tend to associate Jingmai teas with sweet, floral, and/or fruity aromas and flavors, so it also did a good job of representing its terroir to me. My only real knocks were that it was a bit rough at first, and it struck me as being something for which I would have to be in the mood.

Sipdown! #213/399

I love Fujian black teas, and this is one I would definitely consider purchasing from a newer harvest to compare. Now I know how I like it steeped best, it’s rich malty cocoa every time, with just a hint of smoke. Paired today with the Thai lemongrass chicken soup I’m having for lunch. Yummy.

Much better! I changed up my steeping parameters for this tea today and now it’s what I was expecting the first time around. The malt and dark chocolate I was detecting in the scent is translating through to the sip, I knew it was in there somewhere! It’s more complex than that though, and the sourdough notes I was picking up so strongly last time are still present, but this time they’re playing backup to the rich malt and chocolate, not the star of the show. There’s a hint of something floral, almost rose-like, right at the end of the sip, along with wildflower honey notes. As the cup cools some mineral notes are creeping into the body of the sip. It’s gorgeously light and smooth, no astringency or bitterness whatsoever, even though I steeped it almost at boiling this time around. Upping my rating from 61 – the change is steeping parameters made all the difference.

This smells sooooo good while it’s steeping! Malt, honey and cocoa mmmm. I might have to tweak my parameters next time I drink this, though, because mostly what I get in the sip is rye bread or sourdough, with a hint of cocoa which is dark and powdery, almost savoury. It’s nice, but I want it to taste how it smells! Experimentation to come, I think. Thank you Sil for sending this my way!