Yunnan Sourcing

I was reading through last year’s harvest reviews and I can say this year’s tea is much different.

Prepared this western because assamica black. 3.5g (roughly 1T), 8oz, 212F, 2 steeps at 3 and 5 minutes. I tried a third steep and while it sill had plenty of flavor, I don’t recommend it because of a strong wet leaf funk.

Dry leaf smelled very peppery, with some malt, cedar wood, leather and faint chocolate if I went searching, lightly cookie-ish. Wet leaf smelled like moss, chocolate and light ginger?

In terms of taste, there was a black pepper spiciness on the sip and in the nose with some malt, leather, wood and earth and a sour orange background note holding it all together. In the second steep, I noticed a slight cooling ginger spicy after effect. The liquor was light-bodied but produced a heavy feeling. No sweetness or bitterness. A very light astringency showed up in the throat in the second steep.

Overall, it’s a solid tea, nothing to complain about for the price – it’s certainly affordable. I think I’ll try one long steep western, too. I’ve already had a go at grandpa but I didn’t take any mental notes, so I’ll try that again.

(sipdown of an older sample from Mackie)

I think this has long some of its flavor because it was the 2015 harvest. The first cup I added some soy milk hoping to bring out the rich cocoa notes. It didn’t give a lot of flavor, so my second steep I went with half of the water and only water, also I used boiling water instead of the moderate temperature I normally use. The second cup was much better and it steeped a rich amber-brown and had a distinctly cocoa flavour. It also gets a bit tannic if you let it steep too long, so be careful. I get an acidity but also smooth malty notes.

This tea has one of the strongest dry leaf aromas I have encountered in a sheng – mostly smells of honey and cookies. After the rinse, the aromas change dramatically to smoky & earthy ones, and strangely enough the wet leaves don’t actually have such a pungent smell anymore. They give off aromas like egg shells, bbq sauce and celery root.

The taste is very strong and bitter right up front in the first few infusions (make sure you keep your initial steeps short). The quinine like bitterness quickly transforms into sweetness though. Other than that, it is a mineral tea with some notes of moss, dry grass and cranberry. The aftertaste starts off sweet but becomes slightly salty afterwards. In late infusions (above 10) I also get the standard tobacco and mushroom flavours, the former actually really strong in the aftertaste.

The liquor has medium thickness and is mouth-watering, oily and a touch powdery. It is also quite warming in the throat. The most memorable aspect of the tea is definitely the cha qi though. It hits really hard, this is not a tea to drink while working. I had to lie down after 3 infusions already.

The leaves are young (small) and still very green, attesting to the dry storage of the tea. It still has quite a way to go in terms of aging. I wish the mouthfeel was thicker overall. Because of the pungent taste, steeping more aggressively doesn’t seem to be a viable option to improve that. But ok, I can accept that this tea is not about the mouthfeel, rather the ‘mindfeel’ and, to a lesser extent, the strong taste. The longetivity is quite good too. Right now I am on steep 14 or so (each one of which was 90-100ml and the first few I should have done shorter tbh), and it seems like it will last for a few more at least.

My black tea samplers are usually 50 gram packs, that way even if I don’t favorite a tea I will use it up.

This High Mountain “Tu Cha” Black Tea from Wu Yi Mountains is a nice surprise, it is inexpensive but delivers a sweet viscous tea soup that hits the spot.

The description is of a slight coffee roasted taste but for me it has a rummy note. Either way I will be ordering more.

Home – 10:00 AM

Happy Sunday, everyone!

So this is the second of three black teas I ordered from Yunnan Sourcing. I was too intrigued by the description to pass it up. Apparently at some point in its processing, this tea is fried in muscovado sugar water. Too interesting to not buy! ;)

The leaves are quite small and slender, and they have a dark cool brown color. They have an unusual amount of sheen that isn’t portrayed in the photograph.

Yummy, this is definitely a very satisfying tea! At the forefront are the lovely malt and sweet potato notes that are quintessentially Yunnan. They have more strength or heft here than in the golden needle variety. I would almost call it a bit of a “chew” – in the most pleasant and satisfying way, like eating warm freshly-made wheat bread.

There is a bit of dark caramel or brown sugar here as well – though not necessarily the sweetness as much as the rich flavor. I’m also finding a bit of a savory note, perhaps reminiscent of lightly smoked meat. That sounds weird, but it’s not, I promise! XD

Overall, it’s a satisfying balance of malty, sweet, and a touch of savory. Definitely a great tea for getting going in the morning, but also complex enough to savor in the afternoon.

P.S. – I would love to hear recommendations for your favorite hong cha from Yunnan Sourcing!

Enjoyed some “2016 Menghai “7752” Ripe Pu-erh Tea Cake sold by yunnan sourcing” on a cold fall day. Energetic and clean as well :)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpyNAprFnk1/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpyNC47FG0U/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpyNFJ_FTff/

2016 Menghai “7752” Ripe Pu-erh Tea Cake sold by yunnan sourcing.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BonGLoSFl-J/?taken-by=kirkoneill1988

Dry leaf: musty, sweet, earthy.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BonGRzClXKq/?taken-by=kirkoneill1988
https://www.instagram.com/p/BonGOchlC4o/?taken-by=kirkoneill1988

Wet leaf: earthy, very sweet, rainforest/forest floor.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BonGZsBl9lq/?taken-by=kirkoneill1988

Light steep; I smell/taste:
Smell; earthy, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate, camphor(?), mushrooms(?).
Taste; medium —→ earth, metallic(copper/iron), rainforest/forest, fermentation, sweet, Mushrooms, chocolate, cookies. Strong camphor. Special note: brewed tea has a thick tasty mouth feel.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BonGXNblCVC/?taken-by=kirkoneill1988

Medium steep; I smell/taste:
Smell; Same as above however a bit stronger.
Taste; medium —→ cookies, mushroom. strong —→ earth, camphor, metallic (iron/copper)

Note: I won’t be doing a heavy steep a I figure from above notes, it would possibly be too strong. Maybe I’m a few years if I buy it again, then I can try. I suggest light steeps.

Aside from a lack of a heavy steep, I rate a 100/100. Just so clean, crisp, and tasty!

Where to buy: https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2016-menghai-7752-ripe-pu-erh-tea-cake

Another special note, it may be hard to pry good sized chunks off. This is not a big deal. Still a great tea.

Bonus Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/BonGUokl171/?taken-by=kirkoneill1988

This is unlike any other tea I have ever had. I am not quite sure why is that the case though. Dry leaves give off an interesting and deep aroma that has a little bit of a leather quality. After the rinse, I get a fairly subtle, sweet and complex smell. There are hints of fish, nettle, swamp vegetation – I just can’t stop sniffing it. The liquor smell like dry bamboo and the empty cup more like rapeseed flowers to me.

The first two infusions after rinse are still just a warm-up. They are quite vegetal, salty and a touch bitter with an interesting aftertaste that’s a mix of fish and thistles. I know it sounds strange, but that’s the closest approximation I could come up with. This is a strange tea.

The third infusion is where the session properly starts. From then on, the tea is thick and incredibly smooth with a buttery and numbing mouthfeel. It is a Lincang tea, so naturally there is a decent amount of astringency, but it’s manageable and it only occurs in the mouth, there’s no drying sensation in the throat. Interestingly, the colour of the liquor is quite dark and with a brownish hue.

I enjoy the taste too, although it’s hard to place it. I would say it’s a mix of sweet, floral and alcohol flavours. I think I will need more time with this tea to be able to pinpoint it. The aftertaste is slightly acidic and floral at first and becomes nutty (think sunflower seeds) and sweet over time. It also lasts so long. As I am writing this, it’s been about half an hour since I last drunk the tea and I can feel it in the throat as if I just swallowed it! One quality of the aftertaste that just emerged now is a kind of vegetal (grape leaf) flavour.

Because of the protracted aftertaste, strong cha qi and a very good longetivity of the leaves, this turned out to be a really long session in the end. It’s not the kind of sheng I would drink casually or with little time to spare.

I think I like it a lot, but I will wait with the rating until further sessions. It’s hard to compare the tea with others because of how different it is. It’s a bummer that the cakes are sold out though, I would have loved to have this one in the collection. At least there are versions of this tea from previous years that I could pick up, but now I wonder which one should it be?

I normally don’t like rose-scented teas. I don’t even know why I bought these dragon balls but I’ll be damned, the mood for rose struck today. Maybe it seemed like a natural progression from my wake-up cup of some underwhelming gui fei I’m trying to finish off.

Anyway, whew boy is this a sweet tea!

Gone gaiwan. 1 beautiful dragon ball, 150mL, 200F. Gave it a 30s soak and lost track of the number of steeps because I was so caffeinated. 10+ that’s for sure.

The dry ball smells so good, much like cherry and not that old lady perfumey rose scent. The aroma of the liquor matches the scent of the dry leaf and rose petals, never once making me regret choosing rose today. Once the ball opened up about halfway, the liquor became very thick with down and had a wonderful viscous texture. There was some astringency that could probably be somewhat mitigated by keeping steep times at 10-15s (I was doing several rounds of 20 before knocking the time down).

In terms of tastes, I wasn’t aiming for depth of notes today, rather just enjoying the session. Most notable was the cherry-rose, some spiciness and some minerality. Several steeps had a pronounced note of frankincense. Where this tea really got me was the intense! date sweetness that lasted long in the back of the mouth and seemed to also sit in my chest. I’m not normally a fan of super sweet teas but in this one, it just worked so well.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable, incredibly sweet tea, one that would be great to share a session with somebody. The rose petals are beautiful and vibrant in smell and taste, never perfumey but quite fruity. I do wonder if the fruitiness could be attributed to the base tea. I know YS sells it alone but I haven’t tried it. Regardless, the two ingredients work really well together. Another thing to note is these balls are pressed not nearly as compact as the Silver Needles or Moonlight White dragon balls, giving this tea less of a learning curve than those other two. I’m glad I picked up several of these dragon balls and won’t be in a rush to finish the last one just to get it out of my cupboard, saving it for when the mood strikes again.

This was my most recent sipdown. I finished the last of a 50g pouch of these flowers earlier in the day. I absolutely loved the snow chrysanthemum buds offered by Yunnan Sourcing, and fortunately, the flowers did not disappoint either. Naturally, they were very similar to the buds in terms of aroma and flavor, though I found them to be a bit gentler and smoother overall.

I prepared my snow chrysanthemum flowers gongfu style. After a rinse, I steeped 6 grams of dried flowers in 4 ounces of 212 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 20 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, 9 minutes, 12 minutes, 16 minutes, and 20 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dried blossoms produced intense aromas of chrysanthemum, dill, pickle brine, and bitter orange. After the rinse, I noted hints of black pepper on the nose. The first infusion introduced a subtle ginger scent. In the mouth, I found pungent chrysanthemum notes on the entry that gave way to notes of pickle brine and dill before vegetal notes reminiscent of green bell pepper and hints of bitter orange took over on the swallow. The subsequent infusions introduced a tangerine aroma. Notes of black pepper and ginger emerged in the mouth, and new impressions of minerals, caramel, tangerine, and grass also made themselves known. The later infusions offered soft mineral and snow chrysanthemum notes that were balanced by subtler impressions of citrus, ginger, dill, pickle brine, and green bell pepper.

Much like the aforementioned snow chrysanthemum buds, these little flowers were seemingly inexhaustible. I just reached a point where I could not go on with the review session and stopped there. As mentioned above, these flowers were smoother and gentler than the buds, so if the snow chrysanthemum buds were a little too pungent and herbal for you, I could see these snow chrysanthemum blossoms being more up your alley.

5g leaf with hottish but not boiling water
10 second rinse with cold water

Steep 1: 7s
Light vegetal flavour, and I think it reminds me of chamomile but with more medicinal flavour. Much less flavour than I anticipated for the first steep.

Steep 2: 7s
This steep came out very strong, but it wasn’t bitter which I appreciated. The vegetal notes remind be of cauliflower and dill, citrus in the finish, quite medicinal

Steep 3: 5s
[dill intensifies]

Steep 4: Less medicinal, more vegetal and herbal, maybe a touch of fruity sweetness?

Steep 5: This just tastes like a dill pickle. I’m not too sure I like this

Sipdown! (31 | 308)

I don’t have any black tea samples around at the moment, so this was the tin I selected to be my morning cuppa until I finished it off. And now it’s finished, yay!

This is a lovely golden Yunnan tea. Light yet flavorful with plenty of sweet potato, fluffy baked bread, honey, and rich malt notes. It ends up reminding me a bit of a thick slice of brioche toast with a bit of butter and apricot jam. There’s also a light, clear sweetness at the end of the sip with a slight floral tinge, making me think of honeysuckle nectar. And underneath everything else is a gentle, mellow earthiness that adds a nice foundation.

Tasty, very tasty. I’m not sure I find it more honey-ish than other similar teas, despite the name. But I’ll definitely have to get some Yunnan teas back in my cupboard after I’ve sipped down some of my other options!

Home – 10:00 AM

So once upon a time (actually, a few years ago, when I was first on Steepster), I really loved Chinese black teas, and especially Yunnan black teas. So now that I’m drinking tea again, I had to order a few to try from Yunnan Sourcing, just to see if I still feel the same way. I chose Fu Shou Mei Feng Qing, High Mountain Red Ai Lao, and this tea. Because come on, anything with “Honey Aroma” in the name needs to be tried! ;) Plus I wanted some variety.

Some of my favorite teas that I remember were the lovely golden varieties. This is no exception, the leaves are long and slender and covered with golden hairs. Lovely! I followed the Western parameters from a similar tea on Teavivre (because YS only has Gongfu parameters). I sort of eyeballed the amount of tea instead of weighing it for some reason… (shrugs)

The resulting brew is light, and it smells and tastes just as I remember. The predominant note is malty sweet potato, alongside lightly toasted bread and honey. Perhaps a touch of apricot adding a bit of fruitiness (okay, now I want buttered toast with apricot jam…). At the end, there is a light floral finish, making me think of honeysuckle.

I’m happy to find that I still love this type of black tea, despite drinking mostly flavored teas these days! Will definitely be trying more once I’ve worked my way through these selections.

I’m going to hold off on a rating, since I don’t really have anything to compare this with. But I highly recommend it!

A nice ripe puerh for sure. I’ve had a sample for a couple of years I believe, but I just got to it. Has a strong, slightly sour note in the first couple steeps that I don’t usually encounter in shou. It wasn’t bad, but certainly unexpected for the first session. After that, I got a lot of earthy notes, some dry chocolate, like a very dark chocolate, and some very mild spice notes. Good body. A solid shou for sure. I might check out one of the newer versions of this one, considering it’s sold out now.

The dry leaf has the appearance of kibble or rabbit droppings.

Arylide liquor turning muddy if over-steeped. Ginseng aroma with hints of licorice, orchid, and a faintly medicinal note. The lightly oxidized base tea disappears on the palate with the ginseng dominating. Soft, almost powdery mouth-feel. Finishes sweet with a long lingering aftertaste. Moderately energizing.

I’ll be sticking with the subtle balance of Ten Ren’s king’s tea as their dark oolongs stand up well to a touch of ginseng – by contrast, this tea has an insipid base overwhelmed by the full frontal assault of the flavoring.

I made it through another week at work. It was stressful and exhausting. I said
a lot of things I probably shouldn’t have. All in all, it really was an ok week given the circumstances. Today is a day of continued spring cleaning. I’m melting my brain with Spongebob in the background because I do what I want.

In the process of sipdowns, this has been my daily driver for the work week. This Yunnan yellow tea basically has little life left with 3 years of age. It’s now very mildly fruity and sweet with subdued umami. Is it oxidation that has brought out more of the mellow malty and chocolate tones? A butter-cream flavor and thickness has developed on the swallow. Other than the swallow, the body is much lighter than it used to be and the astringency has nearly disappeared. The minty cooling effect is still prominent and felt throughout my whole body, especially the underboob :) Sustained caffeination. The dry and wet leaf and bud sets are a beautiful sight.

Do yourself a favor and consume quickly your yellow teas. I can’t emphasize how mild this is compared to when I first opened the bag.

I was searching through my cupboard this morning looking for a tea to complement the weather. It’s cool, overcast and humid today, making it feel a little warmer than it really is. I figured I’d dip into this yellow tea for the first time.

I prepared this gongfu, using 3g, 60mL gaiwan, 195F. Flash rinse followed by 10 steeps, though you could probably get more with attentive brewing.

The dry leaf smell was very rounded with sweet potato, sweet mango, malt and a deep umami that reminded me of soy sauce. The wet leaf scent remained surprisingly strong throughout with notes of tropical fruits like mango, passionfruit and guava, some malt, light cocoa and a faint mint which disappeared early on. The mint made its presence known as a cooling effect more than a taste. Despite the warm notes in scent and taste, this was a very cooling tea. The flavors remained unchanging and reflected the scent of the wet leaf: tropical fruit, umami, malt, sweet potato, mineral and a kind of lightly bitter alkaline taste with a building but not unpleasant astringency.

The amber-gold liquor remained thick throughout and sat heavily in my stomach, making food a requirement. I ended up finishing the session while eating some leftover Ethiopian food which overwhelmed the experience so I was sitting and wondering what kind of food would go well with this tea. Maybe a guava or pineapple cake or a red bean moon cake? Something to bring the fruity notes forward and tame the growing astringency.

I really enjoyed this tea and found it to be a great pick for today’s weather. It’s definitely Yunnan in taste and very different from the yellow tea I’ve tried from Anhui province. I’m glad my curiosity brought me to this tea.

Brick sample. Low aroma, but heavily-compressed, early steeps are incredibly sweet. As the compression lets go, the floral bitterness, pleasant, intensifies. Brewing carefully, it stays in check and is balanced in a show of strength that’s quite enjoyable. Late steeps pick up some of the youthful fruitiness of sheng. Good tea, with great endurance, a revealing story, and both strength and grace.

It is too late now for anyhting caffeinated, so this seems like a good option. I just received a box of samples from derk, so I am excited to try them out, this will be the first one of them.

The first thing I notice is how pretty these look. Obviously, they are not leaves, so the look is always going to be unusual, but very few flower buds are this cute I reckon.

The smell is mostly what I would expect from Chrysantemum, although a little more citrusy and vegetal than the properly grown flower scent I am used to. It also doesn’t really have any of the thick pollen smell. I get reminded of my grandma’s house :)

I really like the mouthfeel of this tea. It is farily thick and at the same time somehow feels as if the tea just disappeared in my mouth – so light. In terms of taste, there is surprisingly a lot of balance. It is sweet, sour, a little medicinal and herbal (reminds me of Almdudler/Rivella and cough sirup). The particular notes I get are not so pronounced, apart from the obvious flowery taste, I also found this leafy taste that derk identified as curry leaf. I am a bit ashamed to admit it, being passionate about cooking and into curries, but I actually never came accross curry leaves. To me, that note is reminiscent of fenugreek leaves.

Another satisfying aspect of the tea is the long cooling and sticky aftertaste. It is sweet and peppery overall and doesn’t seem to change a whole lot initially. Quite a bit later on however, once the pungent sweetness disappears, I get a strong floral sensation coupled with the spicy feeling in the throat that still persists some 10 minutes after drinking. I wonder how many infusions I can get out of this. It has been mentioned that it lasts long, but I need to go to bed soon. Maybe I will cold brew it overnight, or just leave it for a morning continuation of the session.

As far as tisanes go, these Chrysanthemum buds are absolutely awesome, I will be looking to get more. I also have to thank derk for sending me this (among all the other lovely teas), because it is surely a hit!

Completely delicious!
Fantastic tea! It is enjoyable from the very first sip. Though it is hard to tell from the picture, these cubes are really cubes, not flat. They are shaped like a baby’s wooden letter block. I used less than half of one cube, about 5g of tea to 8oz water in a small clay pot. The taste was great immediately (whereas other teas kind of sneak up on you), and it has a nice long finish too. Tea soup is a pretty reddish brown. Lots of nice mineral notes and slight bitterness. Coats your mouth and has a long, earthy aftertaste. Second steep was just as delicious. It has a metallic/mineral taste that I just love in a good ripe puerh. It coats your tongue and mouth and just keeps on giving. If you buy 100g, it’s only 7 cents/gram, which is great for such a good tea, but if you get a whole Kg, it will be only 4 cents/gram! That makes it one of the best bargain puerhs I’ve ever seen, amazing for the quality of tea you get.

This was the last of the white teas I consumed this month. I think I finished my 25g pouch Friday afternoon. Sadly, this tea was the least impressive of the bunch. It was not a bad tea, but it was not as memorable or as unique as the other white teas I have tried recently.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of rolled tea buds in 4 ounces of 185 F water for 8 seconds. This infusion was followed by 16 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 10 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 buds produced aromas of hay, corn husk, sugarcane, smoke, and honey. After the rinse, I detected a stronger corn husk scent as well as new aromas of butter and cream. The first infusion introduced scents of lettuce, grass, and fennel. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of cream, butter, hay, and corn husk backed by hints of grass, sugarcane, smoke, and honey. I also caught some vague herbal touches that I could not identify. Subsequent infusions saw stronger aromas of fennel and smoke appear on the nose along with scents of straw and cooked green beans. Stronger honey, sugarcane, and grass notes were present in the mouth along with belatedly emerging hints of lettuce and fennel. New impressions of minerals, straw, spinach, cooked green beans, and sour plum were also on display. The final few infusions offered mineral, butter, lettuce, hay, and corn husk impressions that were backed by subtle fennel, grass, spinach, and sugarcane notes.

Despite a nice, thick mouthfeel, this struck me as being a pretty standard Yunnan white tea. Aside from the initially distracting smokiness it displayed, there was nothing about it that stood out to me for any length of time. More than anything, it would probably be a suitable Yunnan white tea for beginners, but if you are someone who is used to much more depth and complexity and goes looking for highly unique and challenging teas, it will probably not be of much interest.

From Sheng TTB #3, steeped at ~5.5g per 90 ml
Up front aroma is indeed very citrus sourness, I had braced myself for bitterness I’ve found in other purple shengs…
Steep 1: Leads up to the bitterness but it stops just short of actually being bitter. How very odd. There’s a lasting mandarin taste, not quite orange—there’s that sloppy juiciness from mandarins that I don’t quite get out of oranges, and it is much sweeter than an orange.
2. The texture is just short of being thick but it isn’t watery. Its like slightly unset jello (with that jello sweetness…again how very odd for a purple tea)
4. The tea woke up—there’s some mild bitterness to keep things interesting, now its like orange juice a little more than mandarins.
6. What I noted here was that I had some head fuzziness, and nice and relaxing
8. Doesn’t die out suddenly, this is a gradual steep out and has some more honeyed notes on the way out.

All in all…actually pretty great! A nice easy drinker, and is (was?) priced well—its sold out now. Not at all what I was expecting and those of you looking for “tea with balls” should look elsewhere. There seems to be a 2014 pressing that I’ll be looking into…
I do wish I had leafed this harder. As matu notes, even at his high leaf:water ratio it wasn’t overwhelming. I think the taste would be so much better if I had more leaf to play with…I’d punch this tea pretty hard (1:12 even? idk I’d certainly play around with it)

Now this is my kind of black tea – malty, robust, and naturally sweet. The dry leaf has an intense brown sugar aroma, notes of toast and sweet potato, and a hint of tobacco. Wet leaf had an even sweeter aroma evoking molasses and balsamic vinegar. The first steep was rich and full-bodied with notes of malt, brown sugar, and cocoa. The brown sugar sweetness became more prominent in the second steep and was accompanied by a touch of earthiness. By the third steep, the tea mellowed a bit and took on a pleasant dark chocolate and malt profile. I western steeped this for 3 minutes followed by two additional infusions of 5 and 7 minutes.

I’ve written about my preference of 2nd flush greens and am beginning to wonder if I have a similar affinity for black tea. My favorite black teas by far have been flavor-forward low cost teas from Fujian and Yunnan. Taiwanese blacks and the “Imperial” grade versions OTOH just don’t do much for me. They are a little too delicate for my taste. This one is an outstanding tea that feels like a steal at $5 and some change for a 50g bag.