Yunnan Sourcing

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Recent Tasting Notes

Spring 2022 batch.

Prepared in my Jian Shui gaiwan, and served in my porcelain tea cup via my glass cha hai. Filtered Santa Monica municipal water just off the boil throughout.

Dark gray, twisted wiry strands with some patches of yellow/gold. Fairly uniform. Unremarkable dry aroma.

Butterscotch liquor. Delicate nose is vegetal/waxy/and faintly grainy.

Mild, faintly malty flavor with hints of piñon and dried plum. Linear, slightly dusty finish. A bit more leather and hay emerge if pushed along with a mild bitterness/astringency.

Medium-light body.

Decent, but not much character – will revisit after the package has been open for a few weeks and revise if things improve significantly.

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 8 g 5 OZ / 150 ML

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90

The first time I had this I drank it grandpa style, following the advice of Zhen Tea on youtube, and I’m so glad I did. The aroma after pouring boiling water just over the top of the tea leaves was incredible. I’ve never had tea smell like baking cookies before! But I digress.

This tea was fantastic. Very buttery, and nutty. Not bitter or astringent at all. I had a lot of fun munching on the tender leaves as I was drinking as well (although those were a bit astringent but not unbearable). I was using a very tall glass so I only got 2 infusions out of it but that’s really all I needed. I’d never tried anything western/grandpa style and it was so neat! I will be buying this again.

Flavors: Butter, Chestnut, Nutty

Preparation
Boiling 8 min or more 3 g 12 OZ / 354 ML
Cameron B.

My lazy heart loves grandpa style ha ha, especially for red and aged white teas.

dandelionxriot

It was my very first time brewing anything grandpa style and I’d say it was a success!

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81

A very ancient tasting ripe puerh with deep texture – applies both to the soup and the aromas. The first steeps brings out the foresty and earthy notes, and the later ones bringing the camphor and cocoa powder-like taste.

Flavors: Camphor, Wet Earth, Woody

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 6 OZ / 175 ML

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I finished this one up a while ago but forgot to post a note. I feel bad because it was a tasty and charming white tea. It deserved better.

I recall that it reminded me of a green tea at times; it had the hay notes you see in many white teas, but it was altogether grassier than what I expected: bamboo shoots and sweetgrass too! It was a temperamental steeper and could get grass-bitter if oversteeped though. It made me think of a laying in a grass field and listening to the blades rustle in the wind. All in all, a very restful and vibrant tea.

Flavors: Bamboo, Clover, Floral, Grassy, Hay, Pepper, Smooth, Sweet, Warm Grass

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 1 min, 30 sec

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85

2023 Ode To Tea – Part II – Y

Another sheng I haven’t written a note for yet.  From JakeB QUITE a while ago!  Thank you!  And it’s another sheng I think is a great sheng, as long as I only steep for 30 seconds Western.   I love that only sheng tastes like this and it is just so different from shu.  All steeps were fairly similar in flavor.  It’s almost like an odd, otherworldly tropical fruit with a tangy note, yet also a cream quality.  I think it was a good thing I neglected this sheng for a while?  I bet the flavor improved.  I only have one steep session of leaf left.  I love the wrapper design too.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 teaspoons // 45 minutes after boiling // 30 second steep
Steep #2 // 30 minutes after boiling // 30 second steep
Steep #3 // 33 min after boiling // 30 second steep
Steep #4 // 30 min after boiling // 45 second steep

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Thank you beerandbeancurd for this sample! Initial rinse: Some type of Chinese veggie. Drywall. Creamed…. something. Initial taste at about 30 seconds reveals a silky mouth feel with cream of wheat and old wood in the basement flavors. the 1800 house notes really punch your face the longer you steep. Makes me seriously want to get back to my Ancestry searching but I promised myself I wouldn’t touch it till after I am done with my current tea dream. Oh and pine. Big pine notes too. Walking through a pine forest. Actually, I’m finding some new basement notes in there as well. That smell of crisp drywall and spackle. Each steep brings out more woodsy notes but thus far nothing much different. A bit more cream of wheat, no maple syrup or butter of course. Holy smokes. I just bit into a chunk of rotting wood. You know that big pieces of lumber they used to use to hold up earth before they started using concrete blocks and such. Wow.

Marshall Weber

“1800 house notes” haha I love it. Rotting wood is great too :)

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82

Solid JJM. Good malt and cocoa and toast — generally a nice warming profile for the morning. Bought this on a whim when all the blacks dropped in spring and will be happy to pour it for wake-up cups.

Flavors: Cocoa, Malt, Toasty

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70

Received from Yunnan Sourcing July 2023. Dry leaves a mix of olive green to greenish brown. Tightly packed, I got a lot of breakage and powder in my first session.
Rinsed for 10 seconds at temperature (205F). Wet leaves smell like hops and seaweed, and after a couple steeps lemongrass.
First steep 15 seconds. Liquor is a light honey color. Aroma very clean, makes me think of an ocean breeze/seawater with a hint of cut grass. Not as bitter as I feared for a sheng puerh, very accessible for those who prefer shou but are willing to explore sheng. Light vegetal, bit of orange blossom. Finish is sweet and viscous, bit of cooling on the tongue. Very calming sensation in the chest, like deep breathing.
Second steep 20 seconds. More bitterness apparent in this one but not off-putting, and at the sides of the tongue a new subtle lemony tartness, maybe pairing with more noticeable orange blossom aroma. Color unchanged.
Third steep 20 seconds. Bitterness has faded back to steep 1 or I’m used to it, sweetness also faded. Otherwise consistent.

Flavors: Cut Grass, Hops, Lemon, Lemon Zest, Orange Blossom

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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84

Dry leaves: tea tree (melaleuca alternifolia) oil, smoke, tobacco. Nose on the liquor was rather dull — my cha hai just kinda smelled like it came out of a hot dishwasher(?) the whole time.

Steeps were bright, with a rounded feeling in a horseshoe along the back of the cheeks, some throat scratch. Herbal, smoky, tobacco punch, playdoh. That beautiful Bulang smokiness coming through from the wet leaf, along with tobacco, Chinese medicine, old wood.

This tastes younger than 2008 to me (a sheng baby, admittedly, but I’m thinking of a favorite 2010 Bulang that tastes more aged than this one does)… based on notes from 5+ years ago, it also doesn’t appear to have changed super-much in that time? YS’s relatively dry storage, maybe?

I enjoyed it but don’t feel the need to chase it at this point.

Flavors: Bright, Herbal, Menthol, Smoke, Tobacco, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Woody

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88

This Nannuo is all the good things sheng can do. It’s not flashy, I wouldn’t say, but it’s delicious and solid and it makes me feel nice. A little smoke without being smoky; a little tobacco without being tobaccoey; some fruit without being fruity. Some sour, some flowers, some subtle cooling around my molars. Like a well-balanced bowl of noodles.

Longevity is so-so, as it starts petering out around 10 steeps.

This is certainly a region I expect to interact with more; reminiscent of nearby Bulang, unsurprisingly, a mountain range I’m quite fond of.

Suddenly I remember my Google mapping project, which I abruptly abandoned as life started unraveling, lol. I’ll get back to it when the dust clears; for now, I’ll just go tick Nannuo off as a good ’un.

Flavors: Flowers, Menthol, Pleasantly Sour, Smoke, Tobacco, Tropical Fruit

Preparation
3 g 2 OZ / 50 ML

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3-stage filtered L.A. water just off the boil into my white/brown “turned” Jingdezhen gaiwan then into one of my rough clay Japanese tea cups from the 1990s.

Breaks apart fairly easily by hand. Small (but not overly broken) leaf material.

Liquor is a clear, burnt umber to auburn gradient.

After a 20 – 30 second rinse, flash brews a few times before you have to start extending the infusions before the color/flavor starts to fade. Goes for maybe 10 infusions, beyond which you’d need to actively boil the tea.

Free from off notes (fishy/sour/funk/etc.), but a touch weak overall. Can grow bitter if pushed, but is largely dusty/earthy/woody with hints of mushroom and old leather. Pairs well with food. A smooth but unremarkable ripe.

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 3 g 5 OZ / 140 ML

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84

The younger of a couple Nannuo samples, as I try to get a feel for the region. The compression here is pretty tight, and it took a few steeps to open up. Once it did, I got the distinct feeling I had overleafed; I willy-nilly let an 8g chunk ride in a pot I normally brew with 6g. Not particularly sweet or fruity or floral; bitterness is very present but not unpleasant. Thick soup, robust and mouth coating with gentle huigan and just a touch of cooling on the return (no camphor flavors noted, however). I don’t feel I’m a very good judge of qi today.

A solid Sheng-with-a-capital-S profile that just kept steeping — I lost count. Not particularly striking in any one aspect, but a lovely session and a tea I’d happily drink again.

Flavors: Bitter, Juicy, Menthol, Smooth, Thick, Tobacco

ashmanra

One thing that really changed my puerh sessions was the recommendation from mrmopar to do a rinse and then leave the tea alone for ten minutes or so, letting it really absorb any remaining water and steam while it rests. Then really enjoy smelling under the lid and in the pot and let the leaves kind of tell you what they want and need. If it is super sharp, there might be too much leaf or they might need really short steeps at first. (Not saying the way you made your tea was wrong, far from it. Just sharing wisdom from a puerh aficionado!)

I am loving your tea journey. You are already surpassing my pu knowledge as you get to know the characteristics of each region. I have not put in that effort, but rather just taken such teas as come my way! You inspire me to do better with the tea mountains and regions!

ashmanra

Oh, and the aficionado is mrmopar, not me! Ha ha!

beerandbeancurd

Thank you for the mopar wisdom! I have taken to a rinse and then a very long sit, but I like the added “conversation” with the leaves not only via water and taste but also via steam and smell.

I have amassed too too too many samples in my curious perusing and learning and rabbit-holing. Thats okay… tuition tea, as they say. They will keep me busy once I move to the mountain!

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89
I had the spring version. Steeps 1-2 tasted like butter and spinach. Intensely sweet & floral on later steeps with some sour apple notes, and a lingering floral aftertaste. The tea was very thick in later steeps.
Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 30 sec 3 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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79

Floral, berries, sweet. Slight chocolate. I prefer to brew this western style, even though I only get 1 strong steep out of it.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 0 sec 3 g 8 OZ / 236 ML

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67

Sweet and smooth. Not very complex. Very inexpensive.

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95

This tea is a favorite in my household, that I’ve re-ordered many times. It tastes like roasted sweet potato, nutmeg, cinnamon, and molasses. My husband and I can’t get enough of it.

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 2 min, 30 sec 3 g 8 OZ / 236 ML

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84

Oolong is delicious; Dan Cong is oolong; Dan Cong is delicious. I feel as though I know just enough about the stuff to understand why folks get stoked about it, but not enough to have had my brain and soul shaken into conversion.

There’s a certain satisfaction to drowning it hot and fast, ripping it out of the pot before it can put up its tiny astringency fists and punch me in the face. But also I kinda crave the long-lazy, the deep pull of wisdom and nuance and patience.

Ah. Maybe I’m craving some yin to my current yang… maybe pot-ripping will perfectly align with some tidy, quiet, dough-proofing future day, to bring its own kind of nuance and wisdom to me then. We shall see.

ashmanra

I love this…<3

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96

Whoa. I don’t remember how I ferreted this out of YS’s dizzying collection; maybe it was the scotch whisky mention. This blew me away. Baked and smoky cocoa, herbal-medicinal… I can’t wait to come back to this. Tian Jian joins Liu Bao on my holy-heicha pedestal.

I’m in escrow on a home in the mountains — the one everyone kept saying would appear when it was supposed to, the one that’s flying through inspections, the one that was lived in and not flipped, the one that doesn’t feel like it is going to kill me via starvation because I can’t afford groceries.

I am cautiously optimistic. (False. She’s trembling with anticipation.) Shhhh. Thanks, universe.

Flavors: Cocoa, Herbaceous, Medicinal, Smoke

ashmanra

Oh, happy happy news!

beerandbeancurd

Thank youuuuuuu <3

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I was anticipating roast and minerals here, but found an astringency reminiscent of Dan Cong that distracted me from much else going on in my cup. Tasty but a little jarring. I honestly think I’m just not quite in a place to sit and commune with leaves right now, too, body or mind, so this is a grain-of-salt take and a pause button until such time…

Flavors: Astringent

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Gongfu Sipdown (2322)!

Enjoying the sun and gentle breeze with an outdoor session of this sheng that was kindly gifted to me by Togo! The liquor is light bodied at first, but with each steep pushes into something more medium bodied and substantial on the palate. Consistent astringency, in a much more woody and mineral sort of way. The tasting notes are in part floral, with elements of dried chrysanthemum that has been pressed in an older, antique book. It’s also slightly vegetal in a way that rides the line of sweet and savory – it makes me think of orange bell pepper in the process of being cooked, where the aroma is a mix of cooking oils and the bright, crisp essential oils from cutting into the crisp, ripe pepper just moments before. Hard to put into words; it’s just such a specific smell that’s been translated into the taste of this tea…

It’s interesting because the tasting notes of this session do feel a little bit in direct opposition to the hot weather and this bright, whimsical and floral teaware set up. Oops! Regardless, I had a lovely time with this sheng and really appreciate Togo’s generosity.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cuc2XP3uY6e/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjjvFlW3VFM

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