Yunnan Sourcing

When I first got this tea I wasn’t supper exited because I remembered having the 2015 and being not to impressed (no pun intended). Nevertheless, I gave this one a chance, and I’m happy I did because it’s a lot better than I remember 2015 was back in the day.

This is a slow burner tea. I had to push a bit to get this tea to open up. So if you are brewing this one, Don’t be scared to go for those longer steepings of 15’, 20’, 30’… If you do you get rewarded with a fairly interesting blend. If I would read my tasting notes I would never pick this one up but in a very strange and unconventional way it sort of works.

There are 2 very distanced aromas present. One of fruit and the other of vegetables. Now if you were to give me this on a plate to eat, I would be very hesitant of eating it. But somehow here it works.

Dry leaf: Marzipan, strawberry

Wet leaf: Asparagus, tomato, light roast, mango

Liqueur: umami, vegetable broth, strawberry, mango,

+4 / 5 steeping: Umami, bacon, multi cereal bread

Would I recommend this tea? I don’t know. On the one hand I am inclined to say no but on the other hand this is a supper funky tea, and not in a bad way. So I suppose buy a bing not a tong if you are intrested.

I brought the rest of my sample to my parent’s house a neighborhood over, wanting to spread the joy of this tea but also to have something to warm up to after shoveling snow for three hours. It wasn’t a great session unfortunately. My parents aren’t really the patient type and wouldn’t even sit down for my improvised gong fu set up, which dampened my enthusiasm. I brought my kyusu over, found a tea towel, two glass espresso cups, a shot glass, and a measuring cup as a pitcher. It was a pitiful yet amusing sight. The tea itself was just as fine as last time. My dad said it tasted like an ashtray but nicer. Didn’t quite get tea drunk but I did take a heavy nap afterward. Oh well.

Received as a free sample from Yunnan Sourcing. My dive into gong fu tea has led to me experiencing a phenomenon new to me known as “tea drunk.” I felt it first when I tried the tie guan yin last week. Kind of a high, invigorating yet serene. I didn’t attribute it to tea at the time but feeling it again this evening led me to do some research. Apparently it’s possible the combination of caffeine and L-theanine is producing this effect? Exciting. And from my understanding, this is different from cha qi? Anyway, I quite enjoyed this sample. Smoky, earthy, and woodsy at first, later fruity, kind of plummy almost? Steeped around 15 times.

Drank this again today and was reminded how good it is! Smooth, good in the mouth, easy to swill. Mild astringengy but not tannic tasting. No buyer’s remorse for having bought the 5-tuo bag (500g).

Brewed up a golden yellow, slightly smoky, slightly bitter, slightly astringent. Not as smooth as expected for a 16 yr old tea. No fishiness, compost notes, or foul odor. The leaves are chopped into 1-2 cm pieces, are now a green-brown color, and darken with each infusion. Tasty and enjoyable nevertheless. 8+ infusions. The tuo was very tightly compressed and I had difficulty prying off chunks with my pick.

Brewed some gong fu and brewed some cold overnight. Still love it! Not much different from my last session, but found that it does taste more herbaceous the more it’s steeped, not because of an increased temperature.

As for the cold brew, it’s delicious. The dill flavor I was looking for? It’s all here. Very refreshing to have this morning.

What a really pleasant and relaxing tea. Anything rose takes me back to Poland for whatever reason, and I really smelled that here. Was looking for dill since that’s mentioned in in past years’ tasting notes, but tasted more cucumber and melon. Brewed gong fu style, good for many steepings. 15s + 5s at 85°C. Messed with the temperature a little bit, seems like a lower temperature (80-85°C) yielded a more floral taste while a higher one (85-96°C) made it taste more herbaceous, though this requires more sessions to confirm! Also, I used my gaiwan for the first time! Accidentally let some leaves through during a pour and scalded my finger but you know, I’ll learn.

First tea in a few days. Weather-related migraines were one of 2020’s many unwanted “gifts” and they appear to be here to stay. Every time the air pressure drops it feels like my skull wants to split open. I don’t remember signing up to be the human barometer. Everything tastes and smells a little off when I’m migrainey so I’m drinking a tea I’ve had many times instead of trying to form an opinion about something new, just in case my taste and smell are still off even though the pain is gone.

I think it’s been a couple of months since I last drank this tea. It’s not my favorite moonlight but I like it quite a bit. It was the first big cake I ever bought (I think 200g was the biggest before this one). 357g seemed so huge when I pulled it out of the shipping box…I thought it’d last me forever but I’ve managed to drink about half a cake in around 10 months. I’ve been thinking I should order more but I haven’t decided if I should get more of the 2018 or try the 2019.

This tea’s got the fruity white tea flavors but with some darker, black tea type stuff going on too. It might be because of my lazy, imprecise timing but some steeps taste and smell more like white tea and some more like black. Once in a while I get a hint of that vanilla-y flavor my favorite moonlights have, but when I try to focus on that flavor I can’t find it anymore. Not sure if that’s a me thing or if it needs more time to develop that flavor. It’s not brain-breakingly complex but it’s interesting enough to keep me coming back to it. It’s been my go-to tea for when I can’t decide what I want to drink. Smells good, tastes good, and it doesn’t seem to be very particular about how it’s prepared. I’ve played around a bit with the amount of tea, amount of water, water temperature and steep times…it’s been drinkable no matter what I’ve done to it.

Brewed gong fu style, 12s at 96°C, adding a few seconds with each steeping. Beautiful spinach aroma, flavors are smooth and vegetal. Light roasted flavor more pronounced after second steeping. Overall very pleasant, but looking forward to trying higher quality tieguanyin.

Nice strong tea. Smokey and spice-like, piney actually. Good bitterness. It actually reminds me quite much of the 2006 CNNP 8891.

It is a smooth, sweet tea with pronounced notes of dried fruits. Very pleasant. I recall that the 2012 version that I had around 2018 was even better, with a thicker mouthfeel and stronger aromas. Perhaps that can be accounted to the age difference of 6 versus 2 years?

This tea is also really, really cheap.

Just had this cold brewed (despite it being freezing cold here and right before a snowstorm hits!). This is so tasty I might rate it 100. Every flavor I loved from my gong fu preparation is present here, and the honey notes are more pronounced. Also getting a hint of marzipan. This is going to be a regular of mine for sure.

I’m new at this. Previously a casual drinker of bagged tea and David’s Tea and the like, I decided to delve a little deeper. So I ordered some of the most popular teas from Yunnan Sourcing and am now attempting gong fu cha. My first attempt went well! First off, the aroma is divine. Chocolate and malt with hints of honey, and a vaguely toasty smell, almost like cereal. I’d describe the smell overall as sweet and woodsy. A comment on YS listed the following brewing instructions for 4 infusions, so that’s what I tried. 1) 20s, 90°C 2) 20s, 90°C 3) 35s, 90°C 4) 45s, 95°C. The first tasted very clean and pure, the second and third richer and slightly more astringent, with the fourth starting to lose flavor. The woodsy and wet earth flavors became stronger with each infusion. Quite enjoyable!

Autumn 2020 Tea: One of my favorite Jin Guan Yin. It’s beautifully fresh and floral, light in color and impossible to oversteep. Delicious, a bit drying in the back of the mouth but not juicy. Warm summer grass.

2021 sipdown no. 13 (another amazing tea from Cameron)

This one is tasty! The flavour is light, yet has depth. There is a smoothness paired with a plum-like sweetness. Yes, I get plum here and I really enjoy it.

Thanks Cameron!

Finishing up another sample. This one from Sil!

I haven’t had a raw puerh like this for a long while. It’s still sharp, but it does have depth of flavour. I don’t know that I could drink this all this time, but I’m appreciating it right now.

Hello hello.

I went through my teas today, organized things, bagged teas that I like to drink but don’t want to clean a strainer for, etc.

And I found a tin of samples. Heh.

This one is from Sil. I do like it. It’s sweet. A bit sharp as raw puerh can be. I don’t have anything excellent to say about it. Just. It’s nice. I appreciate drinking it today. Thanks!

As recommended I started with very short steep time, 15 s for 5G of tea in my smaller gaiwan. I rinsed the tea once and poured myself a cup after the initial steep, as I was curious about all of the comments on this teas depth and intensity. The bite and after taste was one of earthy smokiness, that I quite enjoyed. The first five or so steeps were done in short bursts and had the lingering Smokey taste but with more and more sweeter notes presenting themselves as I steeped On. At the 6th or so steep there is little to no stringency and smoky flavor, it is all but gone now, and tastes mostly sweet and soft.

I don’t have much experience with young liu bao. This one strikes me as above average production with very good longevity and complexity, but time is going to be the judge of that ultimately.

At the moment, the dry leaves have a fairly strong fermentation aroma, which, after the rinse, turns into an earthy, woody and slightly sweet mix with a nice lichen note.

The taste is more savoury and medicinal than other liu bao I’ve had. It does have the characteristic earthy and nutty notes, as well as the woody sweetness to a lesser extent, but they don’t dominate the experience. On top, there is also an interesting floral kind of bitterness a bit in the way of endive and mint. Hints of dry wood smoke and honey can be also found underneath.

The liquor has a very smooth, creamy texture that has a palpable thickness to it and induces a faint numbing sensation. Aftertaste is dominated by woody sweetness that really comes to the fore over time.

After buying and devouring 2 samples from this kilo brick, I finally decided to dive in and buy an entire brick. My tea budget isn’t very big, so dedicating $120 to a single tea takes a lot. In short: I love this tea. It is everything I want in a comforting cup, but I know it isn’t for everyone.

Smell (dry leaves): Smoke/campfire smoke, High mountain forest aromas, mushrooms
Smell (Wet Leaves/Cup): Smoke, malt, nutmeg, seaweed/umami, chocolate, bay leaf, salinity, minerals/rock

Taste: There is smoke, but not nearly as much as you’d think from the smell. That smoke really seams to bring out the chocolate-y malt notes. There is a nutmeg/cannella/cinnamon mixing in that gives the tea a big Mexican Hot Chocolate feel. The entire tea wants to go savory, but there is a very prominent mineral sweetness that takes the lead. No astringency. A bit oily in texture. The only bitterness is a dark chocolate bitterness.

This tea isn’t the best looking. It has a lot of stems. A lot of stems. Many. The leaves themselves are in excellent condition for a fu brick. The fermentation isn’t really heavy. The leaves are a dark forest green when wet. Being a fu brick, it is chock full of fungus. This tea always leaves me in a good mood. Really relaxing comforting tea. If the flavor profile sound good to you, I’d highly recommend sampling.

I used about 5G of tea for my first tasting of this without washing it. I steeped initially for 5 s and added between 5 to 10 s per steep. This is mouthwatering it is so very light and refreshing. Notes of floral and sweetness. Absolutely delicious—a fan fave on my end !!

As I steeped in the floral taste dissipates and rounds out to become a deeper, richer and more full bodied taste of Black tea. Still very delicious—gets more complex the more I steep!!

Since I’ve been revisiting several of the green teas in my stash this week, I figured I should do this one too. I think it’s my favorite of all my jasmine greens. I’m not really sure why I prefer this one over the Fuding Yin Hao jasmine in drank a few days ago. This one smells and tastes a little sweeter to me…not sure if that’s from the leaf type or growing region or something else. Like the Fuding Yin Hao, this one is April 2019 harvest tea with May jasmine flowers.

I decided to use my smaller glass gongfu bottle, 175° water, 120-ish ml, steeps starting at 15-ish seconds, just an eyeballed amount of leaf because I’m lazy. When I don’t weigh the tea I try to aim for slightly less than I think I need and then add more if the flavor isn’t strong enough. I don’t like my greens overleafed and I have a long history of being rather heavy-handed with teas and spices so if it looks to me like it couldn’t possibly be enough it’s often just right :-P

I’m not sure what else there is to say about this tea. Like with many jasmines teas, I can really only identify jasmine in the flavor and aroma. They all just smell and taste like jasmine to me. I can tell if they’re different teas but I usually can’t describe what’s different about them very well.