Yunnan Sourcing

Opening the bag, a pleasant light roasted cookie like aroma emerges. After the first rinse, it becomes surprisingly fruity with some floral undertones. I can smell apricots, nectarines and orchid. The floral aspect gets stronger later on, with noticeable lavender and jasmine notes.

The liquor is very smooth, soft and velvety with medium body. It’s a very nice mouthfeel, as I would expect from a Dan Cong tea. The taste is not dominated by any particular flavor. There is some herbal bitterness, vegetal notes and some more robust roast flavors, which are unidentifiable for me. Aftertaste is VERY long (20 minutes or so), slightly sour, drying and extremely fragrant. I have never experienced something like this. An association that comes to mind is a high quality gin, but even that is quite far off.

The effect of the tea has been to make me very dreamy and defocused, already after 3 steeps or so. I definitely wouldn’t drink this tea while working.

The price point for this tea is great. Sure, maybe the aroma is not as pungent as the higher priced ones, but it delivers a good body, great aftertaste and has some nice cha qi as well. If you are a fan of bitter, herbal and floral flavors, I would recommend trying this one out.

I am going to stop writing now though, because I feel like I cannot write coherent sentences anymore :D

Very nice semi-aged raw. Delicious. Very smooth, warming tea. Complex flavor with some tobacco aroma (hardly smoky though), but mainly a deep, satisfying sweetness. Nice lasting sensation. Clearly aged, though it has no wet-storage basement aromas whatsoever. When they sold out at YS, I was happy to buy one more on TaoBao, which tastes very similar to the one I got from YS.

This tea is aging very well for now in my opinion. It will take much more time until the two teas in the blend integrate, but I like the protracted aftertaste with what seems to be a stronger huigan than in the past sessions. It still keeps the bitter bite that separates it from other ripe pu’er teas in my collection. It’s a great tea to have around because its profile is quite unique.

Today I revisit this tea, about one year after my first session with it and three years after being produced. The smell is similar as I remember it from the past, but I notice some smokiness, similar to that of the 2014 Dehong Ye Sheng Cha I drank recently. In fact, even in the taste I can see a lot of similarity. I found the taste to be somewhat more savoury today and not as bitter as a year ago. Another new aspect is a camphor like quality of the aftertaste, which seems to be generally more pungent and herbaceous/medicinal.

I am generally happy about how the tea is developing, although I had to fight some mould recently after being away from home and this one was one of the more affected teas. Still, I only had to throw out a few grams.

I drank this tea cold brewed (for almost 48 hours, since I didn’t come to work yesterday) today and it works really well. I might like the taste profile more than either sheng or shou cold brewed on their own. It is quite nutty and peaty with a strong spicy and sour aftertaste. There is a very good balance of flavours overall and good body too with a slick mouthfeel.

What an interesting tea! The smell reminds me of a very clean barn with some sweet, hay and peat notes. Later I can smell some sea air and spicy notes of cloves and black pepper. It is not a pungent aroma, but it has some nice subtleties. When smelling the empty cup, the sheng qualities tend to pop up more, with beeswax being the main association.

The liquor is super smooth and coating with no astringency. The taste I found to have a very nice bitter base, sweetness in the aftertaste and a lot of other tones like blackberry, honey, coffee etc, which were quite hard to pinpoint sometimes as the tea changed its more nuanced qualities a lot throughout the session.

Bought this on TaoBao but I am pretty sure it is the same one as is sold on YS. Nice wet-stored raw, very dark for its age. Nice basement aromas with some spicy character, dark color and satisfying body. Wet leaves smell have that woody smell of antique shops. Rich taste, full and mellow mouthfeel, slight amount of pleasing astringency. Nicely lasting (in the throat and in the brewing vessel). I hope it will still be sold when I do my next TaoBao order, I will definitely buy a couple more!

This is a nice hong cha for those who like them fruity and sweet. This guy has very prominent notes of dark caramel and blackberry syrup from nose to aftertaste. It also has a very solid body, with woodiness, minerality, and nuttiness to balance the overt overall sweetness to the tea. There is a hint of smokiness, which manifests itself through the dark (maybe slightly burnt – but not bitter) caramel and roasted nut flavors. Very tasty.

Dry leaf – dry chocolate and cocoa powder, red currant, waxy fruitiness, blackberry syrup, notes of roasted peanut. In preheated vessel – dark caramel and blackberry syrup.

Smell – dark caramel, blackberry syrup, roasted pecans, woodiness, sweet smokiness, hint of toasted coconut

Taste – caramel, blackberry syrup, roasted pecans, woodiness, minerality, sweet smokiness, hint of toasted coconut.

Interesting to note that jian shui clay cup brings out more smokiness and English breakfast tea tannins. Porcelain cup has fruitiness on palate, continuing through aftertaste; clay cup cuts through it and adds woodiness and minerality.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BldDrm5nLv2/?taken-by=cincinna.tea

Wow! Right off the bat, this is a great tea. The rinse smells very good, with a sort of roasty/stonefruit aroma, which also comes in the flavor of the first steep. The strongest flavors I notice are similar to slightly overripe grapes or white wine. Probably thanks to the dryness, those flavors last in the mouth long after sipping. It brews strong for many steeps and doesn’t change a lot, which is fine because it’s very good. The dry cup aroma is dominated by a honey/honeysuckle or sugarcane aroma, which also sometimes creeps into the flavor. There is a slight cooling effect in the mouth. A very good tea at a great value, so I highly recommend it.

Hey teaheads!

Ahhh I decided to pull this tea out for the first session in a while, and boy did this tea not disappoint. I blindly picked out this tea and made sure not to see the label until the third steep, and I could have never guessed that this was factory tea. It just tastes so good, just everything that I love in a raw puerh all in a really good daily drinker. This is one of the teas that I would actually consider purchasing a whole cake, as the price to enjoyment is hard to beat, and a tea that I can see myself enjoying long into the future.

Fresh from the sample package, the dry leaves had a slight earthy/woody and very mild fruity aroma, which also came through the first few steeps. The flavor of these steeps had a slight honey sweetness, very mild fruit and floral character, and was a bit sour and astringent. The mouthfeel was clean, a little viscous, and dry after swallowing.

Middle steeps were more astringent, with mellow sourness (mostly on the sides of the tongue), light honey sweetness, moderately viscous, and had a slight cooling affect, mostly in the throat.

Later steeps had pretty mild flavors, with moderate astringency and bitterness, more dry, and left an acidic sensation on the top of the tongue.

Overall, I would describe this tea as bright. Not really sweet, but bright and dry. It was pleasant to drink, and a good tea, with a decent balance of the noted flavors. Nothing was too forward, and even the acidic and astringent characters were enjoyable. The cha qi, for me, was very relaxing and meditative. I don’t think I could drink this tea daily, because of the lasting acidic character, but I do like it.

The wet leaves were light red/brown and had some dull green left in them. Brewed gongfu style from 15-60 seconds.

This tea excels in its balanced taste and the protracted aftertaste. The mouthfeel is also nice – thick and velvety. It is surely a powerful tea as others have pointed out, but it doesn’t give me much of a rushy feeling, which is great. The leaves don’t really have a strong smell, but the aroma of the empty cup and the infusion is quite a nice mix of floral and vegetal notes, similar to the long-lasting lingering notes I get in the aftertaste, which is also somewhat peppery and refreshing.

One other noteworthy thing is the infusability. I am currently 1.4 litres into the session and still getting thick, flavourful infusions diplaying nice bitterness without much astringency. In fact the high point was probably somewhere around steep #8 or so, which is crazy. Originally, I wanted to give a slightly lower rating, but I had to increase it in the end.

Slightly bitter taste. Warming. Very savoury. Perhaps that is why I am the only one to dislike this tea. I prefer sweeter teas (like early grey and vanila black) and certainly don’t need a warning tea where I live. Not for me.

Those who are familiar with some of my other reviews may be aware that I tend to seek out teas that are either exceptional or incredibly unique. At least on paper this one is certainly the latter. Though my experience with purple varietal teas is still quite limited, the ones that I’ve tried I’ve all enjoyed. The concept of blending ye sheng and shu pu’er was adventurous enough to entice me to buy a cake of this blind. While I’ve had it for a number of months, this was my first session with it.

I broke off twelve grams for my new silver-lined gaiwan, which Yunnan Sourcing began selling recently. Filled up to where the water just touches the lid, mine is about 165ml. For those who may have been eyeballing it, wondering if it’s worth the money, I would personally recommend it. While not the absolute highest level of quality with the same aura as a totally one-of-a-kind fully handmade piece of teaware, the craftsmanship is several steps above the cheapest standard level gaiwans and I find it great to use. This level of craftsmanship combined with the silver lining actually makes it a great deal in my opinion, like most products Yunnan Sourcing sells. Either of these things alone, this level of craftsmanship without the silver lining or the silver set in a cheap basic level gaiwan, would make you feel you were overpaying, but together they offer great value for the price. I’m not going to comment on the effects of the silver on the brewing as I’ve not done any sort of proper side-by-side comparisons, but I will say that for me the gaiwan has brewed great tea, and I don’t feel like I can say that about every vessel.

Anyway, back to the tea. I rinsed the leaves for good ten seconds, giving them a full ten minutes to get primed. The scent of the rinsed leaves was absolutely wonderful. To my nose it was that of sweet licorice. Really wonderful. I proceeded to do a total of ten infusions, the timing for these being 7s, 7s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 75s, 2 min. and 3 min. “Purple Mark” started out strong. I could taste bitter coffee mixed with brighter notes from the ye sheng. The soup was quite lubricating and hydrating and it coated your mouth with its flavor, not showing any signs of going anywhere anytime soon. I liked the tea already.

The second infusion was incredibly refreshing, exhibiting the taste of red berries with a ripe base. The body was good, but nothing crazy. More importantly, the texture was really smooth. This is a really flavorful and flavor-forward tea. The following third brew was nice and bitter. Very robust. It was accompanied in the finish by a sheen from the purple tea. The tea stimulated the tongue in a nice way, constantly triggering the sweetness receptors and making you salivate. This is a really engaging tea. I could feel the tea at the back of my tongue, near the entrance to my throat, as well as a cooling sensation in my throat itself.

Steep number four was bitter, REALLY cooling, and quite refreshing. I’d say the taste accompanying the cooling sensation was camphor, although it was a bit hard to pick out amid the other flavors. I’d definitely say camphor, though, with a bit of a medicinal edge. The tea continued to shine, displaying some woody and chocolaty notes in the fifth steep, now with a slightly grainy texture. A berry sweetness from the purple tea was present as well. I’m not sure if I’d go as far as to call it qi, but this is a really grounding tea. The aftertaste of this infusion was so sweet.

The texture of the next brew was smooth yet grainy. The taste was a mixture of cooling camphor and bitter coffee. A wonderful combo. I could also taste hints of caramel, which in all likelihood were notes from the ye sheng morphed by the ripe pu’er. The tea was still as strong as ever, which is to say strong. The seventh steep brewed probably the thickest yet, still very bold. The taste was… maybe a good kind of sour, if I had to describe it. The aroma left in the empty cup was that of intense caramel. Just wow.

Steep number eight brewed up a mixture of bitter and sweet. It was coating and lubricating, still possessing incredible strength. I could taste caramel, berries, as well as a ripu pu’er base of course. The body was quite big. Steep nine is where the flavors finally started to taper off. Now I was getting mostly just generic ye sheng and ripe pu’er flavors. The final infusion I did was the same deal. While there was still plenty of strength left and the tea could have conceivably been stretched on for several more infusions, it was staring to become quite singular and repetitive, so I decided to call it there.

This was a bomb of a tea, betraying its price point and any expectations I may have had for it. Fans of bitter tea and ye sheng rejoice! I believe I was expecting one of the teas, possibly the heavy base notes in the ripe pu’er, to drown out the other, but that ended up not being the case. While it’s quite obvious that this is a blend of two and exactly two teas, most of the time they are surprisingly harmonious together, making something you would not expect to work work. I don’t know if it’s the inclusion of raw pu’er, but this is also a very flavorful tea compared to most ripe pu’ers. The longevity is also quite good.

I went in expecting this to be mainly a ripe pu’er with some added layers from the raw material. In practice it’s not as clear-cut as that. I’d say this tea exhibits enough of both characteristics to not fall just in one category. This makes it interesting, because I’d both recommend this tea to people who love ripe pu’er, but struggle with getting into sheng, as well as those who love raw but just can’t understand the appeal of shu. The only downside is that one might have to be a bit adventurous to give this one a shot. But it’s cheap, so why not? I know I called this tea bitter, but I feel people have very varying sensitivities to bitterness. Some might find this way more bitter than I did, while others might not find it bitter at all.

While my expectations were not high going in, I came out a big fan of this tea. It will be interesting to see it age. Despite how weird it may sound, I definitely recommend trying out a sample of this tea, because it might really surprise you. I found it perfectly drinkable now, but in a few years it will have mellowed out a lot.

Laoshan tea is hands down my favorite Chinese green tea. It has every element that I love in green tea – grass, florals, umami, sweetness, and fruity flavors – in perfect harmony. Verdant tea, which specializes in teas from Laoshan, has been my source for ages, but with their spring harvest being delayed this year, I decided to give Yunnan Sourcing a try. I’ve been curious about their Laoshan teas for a while now and got both the Imperial Grade and Classic Laoshan green teas.

This tea has the signature Laoshan soybean aroma. When the leaves are placed in a warmed pot, more aromas of warm grass, soymilk, green bean, and edamame emerge. Wet leaf smells like roasted vegetables. The first steep is a luscious mix of cream, soybean, fennel, and floral hints. Really smooth and refreshing. The second steeping brings out more vegetation and some toasted grains. The last two infusions are less nuanced but still smooth without any bitterness.

I use a 2.5g of leaf to 120ml water ratio to brew this tea and steep times of 25s/30s/40s/55s. Temperature control is a key factor in getting the most out of it. I used to be afraid to push green teas past 175 F, but I’ve learned that most quality teas have good heat tolerance. This tea went from good to divine when I raised the temperature just 5 degrees to 180 F.

Today I threw a pinch of leaves in the tumbler to take to work and the resulting brew was amazing. Super floral and fruity with an almost honey like sweetness. Even after steeping the leaves for a long time, it did not turn bitter.

I don’t know if it’s this particular harvest or the farm, but this Laoshan green was fantastic and still reigns supreme among Chinese greens for me. Looking forward to doing a head-to-head tasting of this with Verdant once my pre-order arrives.

Like many other teas with chrysanthemum, these dragon balls have a honey-like sweetness accompanying the delicate white tea flavour. An additional peppery flavour makes for an interesting brew that altogether reminds me of a spicy chamomile, perhaps with light notes of mint. Definitely an interesting tea. The liquor is a beautiful golden orange colour and coats the entire mouth and throat leaving me salivating.

Since I just finished reviewing What-Cha’s China Yunnan Silver Needle White Tea, I figured I may as well go ahead and review the tea to which I directly compared it. Even though both teas were presumably identical, I ended up liking this one slightly more. As noted in my review of the other tea, I think that was a result of me naturally preferring Yunnan white teas that are brewed at a lower water temperature.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose leaf buds in 4 ounces of 176 F water for 10 seconds. I chose a slightly different starting point for this session because of the lower water temperature. The initial infusion was followed by 18 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 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, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and 30 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry leaf buds emitted aromas of hay, straw, and eucalyptus. After the rinse, I noted new aromas of marshmallow, wood, lemon, malt, and sugarcane. The first infusion saw the nose turn a little woodier and something of an indistinct nuttiness emerge. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of cream, wood, hay, straw, malt, eucalyptus, and marshmallow backed by a hint of sugarcane. Subsequent infusions saw the nose turn creamy, buttery, and a little spicier. Interestingly, the nose became noticeably fruitier too, as I detected pronounced aromas of honeydew and lychee. The aroma of vanilla that I noted so early in my review session of What-Cha’s Yunnan Silver Needle also appeared around this time. New notes of minerals, butter, cinnamon, honeydew, oats, peanut, cantaloupe, apricot, lychee, and lemon appeared in the mouth. A soft, subtle maple candy note was just barely detectable on the finish of several of the middle infusions. The final few infusions presented lingering notes of minerals, sugarcane, oats, cream, and eucalyptus backed by nigh ghostly hints of lychee, wood, straw, and honeydew, though bitterness and astringency took over on the finish.

Okay, the lower water temperature that I employed during this session clearly brought out different notes compared to the higher temperature I used for the What-Cha tea. I also noted that several shared components came out at different points, also likely due to the difference in water temperature. Compared to my treatment of the What-Cha tea, the preparation method I used here generated a softer, sweeter, fruitier tea liquor with less woodiness, nuttiness, and herbal character, and while I was able to stretch this session out more, there was a bitterness and astringency present in the final couple of infusions that I found somewhat distracting. Again, if I had to pick between the two, I would go with this tea as well as the preparation I used for it, though I do not know how the What-Cha tea would have reacted to the same temperature and an identical brewing method. It was clear to me that these were more or less identical teas, so I’m guessing that the results would have been pretty much the same for me.

Dry leaf has a very complex smell with notes of fennel, celery, roasted nuts and peach, at least as far as I could tell.

After the rinse, the fruity aromas seem to be amplified, although not totally dominating. It’s a beautiful smell in any case. Another note that I picked up is that of fried plantain. Later on also some more green and floral notes of rose and cactus.

The first thing I noticed when I started drinking the tea is the incredible softness of the liquor. I would say this is a full bodied tea without a dominant flavour. There are some vegetal notes, it has some fruit sweetness and sourness in the finish. A lot of complexity and a lot of associations are brought, but few persist or are strong enough to be of note. The taste profile is somewhat reminiscent of a Baozhong Oolong with a tiny bit of background roastiness adding some more depth to it. Not much astringency is present and virtually no bitterness unless pushed a lot. At least in early steeps that is. Later, there is a light celery bitterness present.

The cha qi is warming and makes me quite relaxed and easy to enter a dream-like state.

Woah, what a complex and pleasant tea. I feel like the 25g I have will not be nearly enough for me to figure this tea out, but I will surely enjoy drinking it whenever I feel like exploring and/or relaxing. It’s the kind of tea that’s really not suitable for doing something else while drinking, because it just takes all my attention.

Dry leaves are a bit smaller than I expect, but give a fruity, herbal scent. When wet, aged smoke reveals itself, with a bit of meatiness. Quickly then, pine sap and lots of herbal notes. Overall round, married, and richly flavorful. Paler than I expected for 16 years, but still having great aged qualities, with tobacco and leather playing strong in the finish. A high note of astringency rides in the middle and late steeps and it empties out by steep 6 or 7. Great value overall and a tea with a flavor profile and aging history that is right up my alley.

The best jasmine tea I ever drank. Very natural jasmine aroma.

This is a subtle and mellow tea, not too strong in either aroma or taste. Smell is thick, heavy and damp with notes of pickle, grilled corn and (roast) vegetables. The taste is medicinal, grassy and floral. There is a bit of honey, but the dominant flavour is the one of dry grass/hay. Bitterness and astringency ares mild initially, but the astringency picks up steam considerable throughout the session. The mouthfeel is buttery, numbing and quite dry in the finish.

Overall, I found this sheng to be quite pleasant and easy to drink. However, it didn’t seem very complex. The cha qi is very strong though, especially considering it’s an autumn tea.

I have delayed posting this review for so long now. I finally decided to get it over with simply because I knew I had to get it out of the way at some point and wanted to be done with it. I dreaded posting this one so much mostly because I found this to be a really unexceptional tea. Normally, I like the Wuyi oolongs offered by Yunnan Sourcing, but this one did not do it for me in the least. For a Zhengyan tea, this was bland and poorly balanced with an unappealing texture in the mouth.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 205 F water for 6 seconds. This infusion was chased by 15 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, and 7 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of cinnamon, char, pine smoke, and cedar. After the rinse, I noted new aromas of roasted peanut, cannabis, and mushroom. The first infusion did not seem to offer anything new on the nose. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of cinnamon, char, and roasted peanut backed by a subtle creaminess. Subsequent infusions saw aromas of black cherry, black pepper, rock sugar, ginger, and hibiscus emerge. Flavors of mushroom, cannabis, and pine smoke belatedly appeared in the mouth accompanied by stronger cream notes and faint hints of cedar. New impressions of malt, black cherry, rock sugar, ginger, black pepper, hibiscus, caramel, and minerals emerged along with some subtle candied orange peel notes. As I worked my way deeper into the session, I also noted some faint grass, roasted green bean, and tobacco notes that came out toward the finish on several infusions. The last few infusions mostly offered notes of minerals, cream, malt, roasted peanut, and mushroom backed by very faint rock sugar, tobacco, and candied orange peel notes.

Generally, Wuyi Shui Xian is strong on the nose and on the palate, but this one was oddly timid in a number of places. The mouthfeel was much thinner and slicker than expected, and several of the aroma and flavor components did not always work well together. This was an awkward and often somewhat unappealing tea overall; indeed, it was definitely one of the least likable teas of this type I have tried. If you are looking for a quality Zhengyan Shui Xian, I’ll be honest and just tell you that this one is likely not going to be the tea for which you are looking. There are much better teas of this type out there.

Many of the reviews for the 2017 version of this tea at YunnanSourcing.com mentioned that it is pretty heavily roasted. That jives with my own experience with YS dan congs. So it was quite a surprise when this year’s crop turned out to be very green.

I steeped 4g of leaf in a 4oz gaiwan. The dry leaf had a delicious aroma of honey, apricot, flowers and baked bread. After a quick rinse, I got notes of sandalwood, wet rocks, and roasted peaches on the nose. The first steep tasted sublime. Juicy fruit nectar with TGY like florals. No char or roasting could be detected at all. Full mouthfeel with notes of honey and grape. I resteeped for 5 more infusions which brought out peachy notes but also a little bitterness. Nothing too heavy but probably an indication that I need to keep my steep times short.

This is the greenest Mi Lan Xiang I’ve ever had. Normally this type of dan cong has a roasted edge to it, but it’s barely detectable here. The taste and aroma of this tea resembles a TGY or duck shit oolong more than your typical Mi Lan Xiang. Recommended for fans of lighter oolongs.