Yunnan Sourcing

I don’t know if I’ve just been unlucky and tried the wrong teas, but my track record with Yiwu teas so far has not been very good. I know a lot of people really like them and on paper they sound like something that might be up my alley, but after trying a handful of them so far, my hit rate has been rather poor. Granted, what is commonly referred to as the “greater Yiwu region” is a rather large area which encompasses not only the Yiwu mountain range but the six famous tea mountains and more. One would expect to find plenty of variation within such a large region even if many of the teas might share some similar base characteristics. The small sample size of teas I’ve had doesn’t even begin to cover all the various mountains, villages and price ranges.

With all that out of the way, let’s get to this tea. Like the YS 2016 Bing Dao Lao Zhai that I reviewed recently, I actually have a cake of this, but much like the Bing Dao, it’s at the bottom of my pumidor supporting a couple of stacks. As a smaller, more premium cake that I bought mainly to age and didn’t want to break into just for this session, I went ahead and ordered a 10g sample just for this session. This saves me a lot of hassle and leaves me with more tea. I used all ten grams in a 140ml gaiwan that is the largest one available to me. Smelling the small foil packet the sample came in, you get a wonderful sweet fruity scent that reminds me of pineapple. My sample was a single large piece from the cake along with some smaller loose bits to round out the weight. I decided to not break it up at all by hand, because in my experience Yunnan Sourcing pressing have typically been very loose and come apart on their own after the first couple of infusions, sometimes even just the rinse.

I gave the tea a brief five second rinse and it had about five minutes to soak up the moisture while I tasted the wash. Even these first drops that had graced the leaves carried a wow factor to them. The tea was soft, sweet and oily. The mouthfeel was wonderful and for just the rinse, the briefest of rinses, there was already a surprising amount of flavor. I followed the rinse with twelve more infusions, the timing for these being 6s, 6s, 6s, 6s, 8s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 2 min. and 4 min.

The first proper infusion was thick, creamy and sweet with plenty of flavor. I could already tell this was going to be an excellent tea. The second steeping was brighter and strong, really strong. I struggle to find the right word to describe the flavor. I think fruity is decent enough, but I’m not sure if it’s quite right. The mouthfeel remained wonderful and the flavor changed considerably once the tea cooled down. This holds true for most steeps in this session and the tea revealed very different facets of it when it was hot, warm and cool, always tasting great.

At this point I noticed that the large chunk I’d tossed in was still intact and decided to give it some encouragement. Following the different layers, I tried to separate it into a couple of much thinner pieces that should have a much easier time coming undone on their own, and while doing this I discovered that the chunk was still completely dry at the very center. I don’t know if this bing is just more compressed than some other Yunnan Sourcing productions, at least their 400g pressings, or if I received a more compressed part toward the center, but I think I actually lucked out, because I fear this tea would have been overwhelmingly strong had I received a less compressed bit or tried to pry it apart earlier. Thanks to how things turned out, my steepings ended up brewing out much more evenly.

Although I was dreading a much harder kick to the face after sorting out the compression issue, thankfully those fears were unfounded and the tea still retained its soft character in the third steep, albeit there was definitely some more edge, some more young raw pu’er backbone to it now. The tea was still quite wonderful, I would actually call it delicious. The raw pu’er edge was only amplified in the next steep, but there was none of the nastiness you can sometimes get in young sheng. The tea continued brewing strong. While there was less body now, the mouthfeel was still quite nice.

Steep five brewed sweet, really sweet. The sweetness was accompanied by a mineral nature and followed by some dry astringency in the finish. The tea was still brewing strong in the sixth steep. It was oily and aromatic with some minor astringency in the finish. Steep seven is the first time I extended the brewing time by full five seconds and the resulting soup was almost too strong. There was much more edge to the tea now, but still no nastiness, although there was now some fleeting bitterness. The tea was very clean, very bright. The texture was getting lighter, but we were entering a stage where the tea is quite easy to drink and similar to juice in a way.

Steep eight was delicious. Super strong. There was a pleasant bitterness to it that disappeared after a few seconds. A small wave of heat washed over me while drinking this steep. The tea continued simplifying and getting thinner in the ninth infusion, but in return it became REALLY easy to drink. It gained a refreshing, slightly mood lifting quality and brewed with really pleasant sweetness and strength that was still incredibly strong. I was really enjoying the tea.

The tenth infusion is where the tea began losing sweetness. The mouthfeel was still decent, but there was hardly that much taste. This was a sign for me to finally start pushing the tea much harder and the eleventh steep was in fact stronger again. The tea soup was nice and refreshing and there was a fleeting bitterness to it that was becoming more prominent. I really appreciated the fact that the bitterness wasn’t persistent as you would have expected with a lot of other teas. The bitterness was even more pronounced in the final infusion, but still nothing abrasive. I thought this was a good place to call it, however. The strength was still very good, and I happily drank all of the tea, but although there may have been more to see, I didn’t want to risk ending a good session with a steep that left a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall this tea was excellent. Really wonderful. This is exactly what I’ve expected from Yiwu teas based on people’s descriptions, but not really what I’ve experienced so far apart from maybe one or two exceptions. Although during the session the Man Lin didn’t seem to exhibit much noticeable qi, later during the day a couple hours later I suddenly noticed I was actually in a very good mood, feeling good and more aware and awake than I normally am. That could just be a coincidence and unrelated to the tea, but it would be a very rare coincidence and as such I’m attributing my state to the tea. I was actually really glad this tea wasn’t one of the teas that feels like you got your face pummeled by a sledgehammer, because the tea itself was already so strong in terms of taste that a potent cha qi that would have made you woozy and put you under the table would have been just too overwhelming. This tea was incredibly yummy with no bad steeps and I really appreciate the very subtle cha qi that makes it a real feel-good tea at least for me.

After a series of lukewarm encounters with Yiwu teas, I found myself wondering why’d I pick up a cake of this blind, but now after having tasted the tea I couldn’t be happier that I did. I actually wasn’t quite in time to pick it up before the price went up for the first time, but I got mine before it recently went up again. I paid $133 which puts it at $0.53/g. At the time of writing this, you pay exactly ten cents more per gram if you pick up a bing. Is the tea worth it? In my opinion, absolutely. This is a genuinely high-end tea, one that you can drink now and fully enjoy, or age and end up with what I have no doubt will be a bomb of a tea. It’s not the highest of the high-end, but in typical Yunnan Sourcing fashion, the quality of the tea is very indicative of the price, if not better. If you want to experience genuine high-quality Yiwu, but the price of a tea like this is simply not something you can justify, I highly recommend you to sample some autumn harvest teas. I know some people are not fans of autumn teas, but what little experience I have with them so far, I haven’t really been able to tell a huge difference between them and spring teas and the price is often half of the spring counterparts if not less.

If you are looking for something truly yummy, even if it’s just a sample, I definitely recommend giving this tea a go!

I didn’t pay a super close attention to this tea today. I found it to have a pleasant woody bitter and juicy sour character with a supple body and notes of spices in the aftertaste. There was also a funny savoury flavour of baked potatoes which is not very common.

This winter I am storing my pu’er warmer than in the past and it shows. The aroma is definitely more pungent and I consistently find the flavours more lively as well.

Among the best teas as far as such comparisons go is this cake, which I’ve had for more than two years now. It shows clear signs of aging now, such as the liquor colour moving into the orange territory. It still has a smooth, oily texture and a nice calming cha qi just as before.

The taste is a bit more nutty and displays a nice honey sweetness. Overall, it is very comforting and retains a lot of the qualities that I remember – vegetal bite, well-integrated bitterness, apricot note (a bit like an unripe one), and towards the end of the session also a marine, yeasty character. Among the new flavours I picked up today are thistles and apple, the latter especially in the aftertaste.

Today I am tasting one of the very first tea cakes I bought. I am quite happy that it doesn’t seem to lose pungency in terms of its fragrance. It is, however, entering a sort of transition period in its development. The flavours are not as bright, although still quite vegetal. There is definitely a strong pine note in the finish and a distinctive lactose sweetness that I can’t quite recall from sessions a year ago. Overall, it is a very flavourful tea with good bitterness, sour grass note and a marine and yeasty character. It is also super smooth with an extremely soft and oily mouthfeel.

I haven’t had a session with this tea in a while and I decided to revisit it to check on its progression. Let me add some more observations I had during today’s cupping.

The aroma of the wet leaf is somewhat marine like and woody. The liquor is mouth-watering and oily. In this session, the taste of the early infusions seems to have more of vegetal and umami flavours, verging on salty at times. I get some grass and alcohol notes too. Middle infusions see the rise of woody and pine flavours. Late infusions are still slightly vegetal, but not really that much savoury anymore. They display more sweetness to complement the sourness that persists. Flavours like taro, butter and mint emerge. Aftertaste is very long and evolves in various directions. At certain points it gets kind of sweet only to give way to the original sour/umami flavours of the liquor returning in brief bursts. After about 10 minutes, the aftertaste displays also some spices, most prominently black pepper I’d say. Cha qi is strong, especially if you let yourself get lost in it, because it is not so overwhelming by itself, like I also mentioned in my first review.

What a wonderful tea this is! I am a novice in the world of pu-erh, but I am already a big fan.

The smell of dry leaf is fairly floral, while in the wet leaf tobacco seems to be very present. The smell is very thick and sweet and induces somewhat cooling sensation in my nose.

As for the mouthfeel, the tea is medium to full bodied and oily. At the start of the session, it seems to be drying the throat only, but develops a more allround astringency later on.

Taste wise, I found it to be pleasantly sour with nice fruitiness along the lines of gooseberry and apricot. The aftertaste is very protracted with returning sweetness on the tongue and a bit more sour in the throat. It seems to have a balanced taste even when the steeping time is pushed longer, the bitterness is fairly mild generally.

The effects of the tea seem to appear very quickly, but the cha qi is not overwhelming. I found it to be slightly warming and with a numbing effect.

100C, 5g/100mL, gongfu.
I apparently deleted my note before uploading it to steepster, so here goes, from memory:
First of all, thanks to fidgetiest for the tea! It was very much appreciated
The smell of the dry leaves is just…roasted which was concerning as someone who doesn’t like 1 note roasted teas (like hojicha). However, upon placing the leaves into a pre-rinsed hot gaiwan, there were some nice aromas that started to wake up like cherries. I chose to not rinse the tea per Scott’s recommendation, and I’m glad I didn’t!
1- (10s): Now the wet leaves smell like pomegranite, the roastedness has taken a backseat, I’m glad this has more to it than just roast. In aroma, this reminds of a dancong. Upon tasting, I’m hit with a really thick, rich broth. It reminds me of the richness in hong/black tea but without having any malt or chocolate characteristics. Goes down super smooth. I wish that the fruitiness had made it to the actual liquor but it makes for a nice incense-like aroma in the air.
5-7 (20-30s): This tastes really mineral and nourishing, but not quite as thick as before. Still, goes down super smooth for how rich this is.
8: Well….something went down last night and I left the leaves in the gaiwan for like 20 minutes after pouring boiling water on them. I decided to take a sip and…not bitter or astringent at all. Still rich and dare I say a creamy texture. I decided to leave the leaves overnight and come back to them in the AM
9-12: I’m surprised I’m able to keep steeping this after the 20 minute long steep yesterday. Two things—1)these leaves have a lot to give, though I’m having a hard time picking out individual tastes beyond mineral and a rich texture. 2) I feel safe calling these leaves bomb proof—steep them aggressively if that’s your style, I think you’ll get a lot more out of these doing that!
All in all, bombproof tea, with qualities of a lot of other teas: creaminess like a taiwanese oolong, aroma like a dancong, minerality like a wuyi oolong, richness like a black tea. An interesting hybrid but unfortunately only excels in minerality which is not one of my favorite flavors but I can still appreciate it.

A very nice midpoint between Ye Sheng black teas and Wu Yi oolongs. The dry leaf smells of almond/marzipan, while in the wet leaf I can smell more of sauna, pine and light roast coffee. It is also slightly cooling in the nose. The taste is savoury, fragrant and spicy with a very sweet aftertaste. There is also some mild bitterness. A great aspect of the tea is definitely in the mouthfeel, which is fairly soft, heavy and a little bit effervescent. I feel like overall it is growing on me as I get more accustomed to its characteristics. At first, I couldn’t quite appreciate all of its nuances, because it is ultimately different from any other tea I have had, although the base layer is similar to other Ye Sheng varietal black teas from YS.

Even with me going through black teas like General Sherman through Georgia this week, I managed to make the time for a green tea and a couple oolongs. I finished the last of a pouch of this tea last night and was finally able to arrive at an opinion of it after going back and forth about it for several days. I ultimately decided that I greatly enjoying this tea, though I suppose that should not come as a surprise considering that I have professed my adoration of Yunnan green teas numerous times in the past.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in a 4 ounce gaiwan filled with 176 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 14 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, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of sorghum, hay, and corn husk. After the rinse, I noted fresh aromas of malt, straw, spinach, and seaweed. The first infusion brought out hints of damp grass and pine on the nose. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of corn husk, hay, straw, grass, malt, and pine underscored by hints of sorghum molasses. Subsequent infusions saw the nose take on grassier, fruitier, and more marine characteristics with a strongly brothy umami presence also apparent. In the mouth, seaweed and spinach emerged with new impressions of sour plum, lemon zest, chestnut, butter, minerals, umami, and lime zest hot on their heels as the tea turned more noticeably astringent. I could also note some hints of smoke on at least a couple of these infusions. The closing infusions offered lingering notes of minerals, malt, corn husk, and sour plum backed by subtle umami, seaweed, chestnut, and hay impressions.

A strong, lively, pungent, and rather astringent green tea, I could see this one being an acquired taste for a number of people. I, however, love Mengku teas and have been especially fond of the very few other pine needle green teas that I have tried in the past. With that in mind, it makes sense that I eventually came to the conclusion that I loved this tea. If you do not mind a sharper, more biting, more powerful green tea, consider giving this one a shot. I doubt it will disappoint.

This tea has strong chocolate notes in the smell, supplemented by malt and pumpkin spice. As for the taste, there I notice more of a cocoa bean flavour than chocolate. It is also quite floral for a black tea and somehow evokes the feeling of cold and dry winter days. Overall, it is a sweet affair with very little bitterness or astringency, I think this is a pretty inoffensive tea. All things considered, the closest comparison I could make with regards to taste would be lychee I think. Finally, another strong point of the tea is its full body and silky mouthfeel.

While this tea has preserved most of its character over the last three years, I find that it is a bit more smooth and creamy now, with a light medicinal note in the aftertaste. The empty cup aroma also gives off a cooling forest floor impression – something I didn’t notice before.

Very similar to the 2013 Yong De Blue, although maybe a little bit less aromatic. It has a balanced taste, slightly edging on the bitter and salty side, but there is some sweetness and umami too. The fishy tones are mostly gone by now. Mouthfeel is thick, creamy and a bit tingly, induces a sensation not unlike alcohol.

I think this is the first white tea I tried that I thoroughly enjoy. The aroma is very sweet floral, with some hay/dry grass notes too. It is strong and calming, I spent a lot of time just sniffing :D

As for the taste it is complex enough even at low temperatures, which is something I lack in other white teas I’ve had. As such, one can adjust the astringency levels up to their liking without compromising the flavour depth too much. Overall, the mix of floral and vegetal qualities makes for a very delicious drink. The mouthfeel is not particularly pronounced, although it can get quite drying at high temperatures.

I am going to try to cold brew this one soon too, I think it could yield good results.

This brew was better at the start than the last one. It was one large chunk of tea from the sample bag, so that may have helped. It started out sweet and cocoa. Not as good or strong as other factory shou, but this flavor I could do regularly. I set the tea aside after a few steeps and came back to it today. When I came back it was more woody and spicy, not flavors I like for shou. Didn’t have a ton of life left in it either. I guess I can see why some like this, but I think it may also be an inconsistent tea as well. Glad I only have enough tea left for one more small session.

Maybe I didn’t get a good example, but I’m glad it was just a sample. It is fairly mild all around, you can get some sweet cocoa notes, but there’s also some of that woody leafy taste hiding. All around very mild, so I don’t mind drinking it, but isn’t a sample I’m eager to finish.

Bought a sample of this. This tea is a gut buster. It is bitter and kicks like a mule. It hurts so good.

Wet and dry leaf smell like the wuyi shui xian I am used, but less floral. I brewed this sample heavy. There is not much astringency, a little more in later steeps but mostly just a cooling sensation throughout the mouth when you breath in. I noticed an apricot taste in the first steep. Gorgeous thin strips that brew out a dark olive green. I would say that over all the tastes are dominated by honey with a floral after taste.

This tea, which I’m finally finishing today, is from the 2016 harvest. It might not be the most refined dragonwell out there, but I really enjoyed it, especially when slurped from a mug while working. I brewed it Western style: about 4 g of leaf in a 355 ml mug for 1:20, 2:00, 3:00, 5:00, and 8:00 minutes.

The first steep has notes of chestnuts, beans, peas, Brussels sprouts, umami, and a hint of cherry. The chestnut sweetness is balanced nicely with the vegetal bite. I could have gone with a one-minute infusion, as the liquor was slightly astringent.

In the second steep, the cherry is more prominent, and, as another reviewer mentioned, has kind of a cough-syrup-like quality. This flavour profile persists over the next couple steeps. As one would expect, the final steep was a lot less nuanced and more vegetal.

This was a nice, easy-drinking dragonwell that had an extra something special due to the hint of cherry. I’d gladly purchase it again.

I believe this is my first Bing Dao tea. I’ve tried teas from around this area like the YS 2017 Nuo Wu, but nothing from Bing Dao itself. I actually have a full cake of this, have had since before the price ever went up. It is however sitting at the bottom of my pumidor in a tricky spot, so since I wanted to try it out while it was still young and review it while I was at it, I went ahead and ordered a ten gram sample of it just for this session. I usually like to give teas a couple months in my pumidor after arriving as I’ve noticed a correlation with a higher likelihood of having a rewarding session, but hopefully the two and a half weeks in this case is adequate.

I steeped the entire 10g sample in a 140ml gaiwan using water just off the boil. I did a short 5s rinse and tasted the wash while I let the leaves soak up the moisture for five minutes or so. The taste was still light and green at this stage, but the aftertaste was quite long-lasting. I proceeded to do a total of twelve infusions, the timing for these being 6s, 6s, 8s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 75s, 2 min., 3 min. and 5 min.

The first infusion was still relatively light both in terms of taste and body. The cha qi was already quite potent however. I don’t know if I’d call it very mild astringency or just a slightly prickly sensation, but in addition to that the tea had a slightly numbing effect on the tongue. I’m not sure if I’d quite go there myself, but I could see people calling the taste remotely fruity. Just after a couple of small cups, my head was already throbbing. I could feel the tea especially behind my ears and at the back of my head.

As is to be expected, the second infusion was stronger, but surprisingly also smoother. The broth was also a lot thicker, kind of fruity, with slight astringency in the finish. The steep that followed was similar. Strong, astringent, but without the hints of fruitiness. The qi was now moving to my upper back and chest. The fruitiness returned in the fourth infusion. The taste didn’t remind me of any specific fruits but tropical fruits in general. However once the tea cooled down I felt like I was tasting peach. At this point my airways began to feel clear and there was a slight cooling effect. The qi continued to be potent. I began to feel very relaxed, but at the same time like I could go do high-level sports.

Steep number five was very clean and fresh. I could also feel a slight burning sensation at the very back of my tongue and some astringency of course. This was followed by a brew that was a mixture of fruity, green, creamy and astringent which was an interesting combination. The seventh steep is where the Bing Dao tasted most like your typical young sheng. It was young, green, astringent, perhaps even a tad bitter. The taste was clean and the body decent. This seldom happens to me with raw pu’er and typically with only some really high-end dan congs, but I actually kind of liked the astringency in this steep.

The next two steeps were quite similar, clean and astringent, but the first was still kinda yummy for whatever reason and the second one quite savory. Steep ten was a bit of a surprise with some citrus to the taste now, maybe even hints of sweetness. The astringency was very strong now in the finish. In contrast the astringency was largely absent from the eleventh steep which brewed clean, juicy and oily with a pleasant taste to it. Steep twelve was the last one I did. At this point the tea was still going strong in terms of strength. The flavors had simplified and the astringency was back, but at no point was this tea really about the taste so it was hard to notice a huge difference. The tea could have likely gone on for multiple infusions, but I decided I’d seen most of what it had to offer.

Looking at the leaves at the end of the session, I saw hardly any broken leaves, burnt bits or even slightly more oxidized leaves with red edges. This is not something I see too often even with some really expensive teas, and it tells me about the level of confidence the people who processed the tea have in the quality of their material and the dedication they decided to put in.

This was a nice session. The thing I should note about this tea is that even though it was astringent to varying degrees in nearly every steep, it never became overbearing or distracting and while it wasn’t necessarily a good kind of astringency which is very rare to begin with, it was never really bad either. The qi is very noticeable, but never too aggressive and can actually make you feel quite good. The strength and longevity are good, but where the tea failed to impress me was the body. It’s not poor by any means, but not particularly noteworthy either. In terms of taste I don’t think there is that much going on right now, but how this tea sounds when described and when drunk are two different things. The tea is more enjoyable than it may sound, but at the same time it is not really a beginner-friendly tea and like with many other high-end pu’ers you are paying for many things besides the flavor.

Would I recommend this tea? That is a tough question. If you are looking to educate yourself and learn what a tea that you can trust to be Bing Dao as long as you trust Scott tastes like, I would recommend trying a sample. I myself invested in this tea for the long term. Saying if it will be worth it ten years down the line would be difficult. If you like strong tea with cha qi and find the astringency in this tea acceptable or perhaps even enjoyable, this is a tea that could be drunk now. I don’t think it would necessarily be worth its price tag though.

I had a good time with this tea. I didn’t necessarily love it, but I certainly wasn’t disappointed with it. I paid $170 for my cake. The price has gone up considerably since then. I found the quality to match what I paid for, but even at the current price if you really like the tea it’s probably worth it, especially five or ten years down the line. I’m sorry I can’t be more help than that, but if you’re looking to buy a tea as expensive as this, you ultimately need to trust your own judgment.

Here is another green tea sipdown. I think I am now down to only four Yunnan Sourcing green teas from spring of last year. So far, there has not been a bad tea in the bunch; each has offered a unique and memorable drinking experience. This one was particularly noteworthy for its thick body and heavy vegetal character.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea buds in 4 ounces of 176 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 14 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, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea buds emitted aromas of hay, malt, corn husk, and smoke. After the rinse, I found new aromas of grilled corn and straw. The first infusion brought out a touch of pine on the nose. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of hay, malt, straw, corn husk, and grilled corn chased by touches of sugarcane and cream on the swallow. Subsequent infusions saw the nose turn increasingly savory and vegetal. Pine and smoke notes belatedly emerged in the mouth alongside new impressions of minerals, butter, cedar, grass, asparagus, bamboo, squash, lettuce, lemon zest, and carrot. There were also some subtle green bean and pea notes here and there as well as a thick, heavy, meaty umami presence. The final infusions offered notes of minerals, butter, hay, bamboo, and grilled corn along with a strong umami presence and delicate undertones of sugarcane, carrot, and malt.

This was a very nice green tea. It was also a very filling and overwhelmingly savory, vegetal tea. I tend to like extremely vegetal and/or savory green teas, but this one was almost a little much for me at times. Fans of such teas, however, will likely get a huge kick out of it. If you are the sort of person who loves heavier teas, look into acquiring some of this or perhaps check out the spring 2018 production.

Initial impressions. On opening the bag I was greeted with a funky, fruity smell like maybe a nectarine or plum that gave way to hay, spring/summer grass, and almost meatiness. The brew was intensely savory with a solid returning sweetness. Spinach, sweet grass, seaweed, and a ton of umami. Broccoli crowns that have been steamed until soft. Buttery mouthfeel. Even though the leaves don’t have much of an intense green going on like a gyokuro, I would suspect a relatively high theanine content based on the taste.

Update:

I found this tea to get too astringent too quickly brewed in a gaiwan, even after dropping the temp and time. However, it’s quite good brewed western, ~5g to ~330g water, 180’F, for 2 minutes. Brewing this way really tames the bitterness and astringency but keeps the brothy and crisp brew.

Update:
This turned into my daily driver and I fell into an easy rhythm with it brewing it western style. 5.5g:300ml, 10-15s rinse, 2:00, 2:20, 2:50. It doesn’t get bitter or astringent, but steeping too long can make it too thick and undefined. You get really clear, sweet sugary notes with the first steep that evolve into more defined floral, malty, and fruity notes in the later steeps.
I’ve gone through it in a handful of months so I can’t say it’s really aged. It is a little more aggressive these days, but I think that’s due a higher ratio of broken leaves and dust as I reach the bottom of my bag.
Cold brews into a great, but a bit light, iced tea.