Yunnan Sourcing

Haven’t had this tea since Covid started in March. This tea has definitely changed. Not sure if that is due to how I store the tea, in a plastic bag in a dark basement cupboard, or if drinking different teas has changed my impression of this tea. I don’t think I’ve changed. I’m not getting that grass taste at all as I mentioned in my review. The tea goes straight to a green stem taste. Not really wood, but more of stem. A green stem not a dried stem. I still like the tea which lasts a good number of steeps.

I thought this tea was a shou puer. I’m glad it isn’t as I now have a new type of tea to explore. Sure heichas and shous are siblings. Some would suggest that all shous are heichas but not all heichas are shous.

This tea is wonderful. I’m going to politely disagree with those that suggest grass as in mowed grass. Mowed grass scent and taste is more of a green tea and this is not a green tea. Now… I’m going to tell you that it does have a grassy scent and taste. When you were a kid, did you ever walk along, come across grass that had grown a really tall stalk with seeds, ripped that stalk from the rest of the grass plant and then sucked/chewed on the end of the grass stem? That’s how the first couple of infusions of this tea are. It so reminds me of a meadow after a quick rain, or the bank of a pond or lake. I’ve had this tea several times since I bought a basket of it. The other times, I’ve gotten more of an earthy flavor from this tea. Hopefully that means I’m getting better at tasting different nuances and will be able to write better reviews.

The taste hits you right square in the middle of the tongue. No preamble, no aftertaste. The taste is just there and then it’s like, where’d it go? Ok maybe it lingers a little while.

Subsequent brewings bring out a little more woodiness in a good way.

Boychik kindly sent me a sample of this tea together with a bunch of teas I bought from her, and I drank it today as I was craving some aged sheng. I definitely enjoyed it and found it to be quite easy to drink with no noticeable off notes. It ranks above average as far as the semi-aged sheng I’ve tried thus far goes.

The taste is very smooth and somewhat herbaceous (pine) and fruity, with a strong menthol/camphor note and a sour finish. Aftertaste is cooling with a lasting sweetness and notes of wood and papaya. I found body decently thick and the texture quite bubbly, especially in the first few steeps.

One downside of this tea is that it doesn’t really last beyond 9 or 10 infusions, but frankly for a 14 year old tea at this price, one probably shouldn’t expect much more.

TTB #19

I really liked the other Verdant roasted oolong in the tea box, so I had to give this one a try as well. Unfortunately, this one’s not for me. The roasted flavor is much stronger, leaving a bitter, ashy aftertaste in my mouth. The resteep was a bit lighter in flavor and I enjoyed it more, but still not something I’d want to drink again.

Another go at this oldie, this time as a digestive following a dinner of homemade Thai red curry. The alkaline flavor and ashy taste of this aged da hong pao were definitely muted after eating such a flavorful dish. I enjoyed the profile of the tea better following my meal versus having it on an empty stomach/clean palate. I still can’t seem to pull more than 4-5 (if I include the rinse) worthwhile infusions; like an oolong that’s given up a bit of its youthful essence with each trial by fire, I also don’t exactly possess the vigor that I once did. Can’t fault the tea for that. There is still a mellow strength to this tea.

Book pairing: Simply Thai Cooking by Wandee Young and Byron Ayanoglu
These recipes are excellent for restaurant-style Thai without being drowned in sugar, salt and oil.

First session with this tea. I bought it a few years ago and it has sat in a sealed jar since then.

Rich and tangy dry leaf scent with impressions of oak, smoke, berries, spices, currants, dark chocolate, pine. It reminds me of both a mulled wine and a smoky scotch. The reroast is the dominant vibe once brewed, integrating well with a berry and spice tone. Taste of ash, especially in the back of the mouth. Alkaline, some umami. I noted an early aroma of caramel and hazelnut with fleeting wet wood ash.

There’s a milky feel in the mouth after the swallow that slowly morphs into a throaty astringency and a drying, unripe peach skin aftertaste that lasts the entire session. I also notice tobacco and wood cask tones. Feel good, calm, with a light camphor effect deep in my chest. The tea quickly grows into a dry woodiness. I was able to pull only 6 infusions from the leaf (really only 4 that were worth it).

Other reviewers find this to be a favorable tea. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. There’s a dominant ash taste and an alkalinity to it that are a bit grating. Maybe the reroast is too much for me despite it not being a sharp, fresh flavor. Otherwise, the tea has a balanced, mellowed profile. It is tonal rather than possessing specific tastes.

TTB #9

What an interesting tea! It’s a roasted oolong (which I’ve had before) but one with a very strong floral note that clashes with the earthier aspects in an interesting way. It’s sort of like you’re consuming the whole flower, including the dirty roots! (Which isn’t a very appetizing mental image, come to think of it…) I’m also finding it a bit drying at the end of the sip, not smooth and creamy like the oolongs I love. Personally, this isn’t really to my taste and I wouldn’t drink it again, but I’m glad I had the chance to try it!

TTB #7

So excited that this TTB includes some straight black teas! I love experimenting with different flavored blends, but sometimes you just want plain, delicious TEA. This one is lovely…super dark, twisty little leaves that smell strongly of cocoa. It brews up deep brown and chocolatey and resteeps beautifully. A very comforting tea for a cold January day.

In early 2020 this tea is lovely. Earthy, but with a mineral kick, it is quite mellow, and pleasant. No off odors or flavors, it just tastes good, and has a pleasant feel to it. The epitome of an “everyday” tea in the good sense that it is pleasant, enjoyable, easy, and does not require much of you other than enjoyment. Wish I had more.

stunning cha qi
lubricating

Arby Advent Backlog
I prefer a maltier black tea, so I thought this was just rather light and all right. Just not my preference!

One of the first YS sheng productions I tried was the 2011 Autumn Mang Fei. It didn’t leave a particularly strong impression, but I was at a very different stage of my tea journey. Today I had the second from the Mang Fei series – 2018 spring vintage. It is a nice tea with a pronounced character, but its profile doesn’t quite appeal to me personally as much as some other YS teas to be honest. 

The aroma is an interesting mix of fish, dry earth, bitter melon, Mediterranean shrubs, and clay bricks. I found the taste to be very mineral, more so than any other raw pu’er I can remember. It is quite bitter and astringent with a lot of umami notes. There are flavours of vegetable broth, oregano, okra, cumin, banana skin, and a light honey towards the end of the session. The aftertaste is probably the highlight. It is long and spicy with a strong fructose sweetness and notes of cape gooseberry and curry leaf. The mouthfeel is also fairly interesting in that it is very warming and creamy.

This was my last sipdown of 2019, a year I am so thankful to have put behind me. I am planning on making some big changes over the course of the new year. I say that every year but have already gotten to work on a couple things. Hey, at least I’m actively trying to make some progress for once and not perpetually getting bogged down in the planning stage. I am not at a point where I feel comfortable sharing any specifics here, but more details will likely follow over the next several months. Anyway, this was an odd and interesting tea. Of all the dancong oolongs I have tried over the last two or three years, I could not compare this one to any of them.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After rinsing, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 6 seconds. This infusion was followed by 16 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, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of lemon, kumquat, tangerine, sugarcane, cream, and butter. After the rinse, I picked up new aromas of roasted almond, geranium, and yellow gardenia. The first infusion introduced a plum aroma. In the mouth, the tea liquor expressed notes of cream, butter, roasted almond, lemon, and grapefruit that were chased by hints of tangerine, geranium, sour cherry, and sugarcane. The subsequent infusions coaxed out aromas of grapefruit, roasted peanut, grass, violet, wood, baked bread, and orange zest. Stronger and more immediate sugarcane, geranium, tangerine, and sour cherry notes came out in the mouth alongside belatedly emerging yellow gardenia and plum impressions, Notes of minerals, violet, roasted peanut, wood, orange zest, pear, baked bread, grass, and white grapes also appeared, and I was able to pick up hints of pomegranate, coffee, and kumquat as well. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized mineral, orange zest, butter, grass, lemon, baked bread, and tangerine notes that were underscored by lingering hints of cream, sugarcane, sour cherry, grapefruit, pear, kumquat, yellow gardenia, and roasted almond.

As you may have noticed from the above description, this struck me as being a very citrusy tea. Fortunately, it was not particularly astringent. The way this tea’s aroma and flavor components came together was challenging and truly bizarre, yet I do not recall anything striking me as being out of whack. Everything was actually balanced really nicely. Ultimately, I think I would just classify this as one of those teas that was not quite for me. The yellow gardenia (nothing like what most people would expect) and citrus characteristics were very interesting and satisfying, but I think I tend to prefer nuttier, sweeter Dancong oolongs over the tarter, more pungent styles. Still, I will definitely be trying more Huang Zhi Xiang in the future to get a better feel for it.

Okay, I am kicking off another year of Steepster activity with a review of my first sipdown of the new year. This was the last of the Yunnan Sourcing black tea dragon balls I had lying around, and in truth, I put this one off for so long because I had every intention of making it one of my holiday teas. I’m a huge fan of rose teas and got it in my mind that it was going to be the tea with which I rang in the new year. Honestly, I probably should have picked something else considering that I had a sinus infection at the time and this was a rather delicate tea, but what’s done is done. I was still able to get a lot out of it, and while I would not call it a bad offering, it was not my favorite of Yunnan Sourcing’s black tea and flower dragon balls. That was surprising too, because, again, I love rose teas.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After rinsing, I steeped the entire dragon ball in 160 ml of 195 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 16 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, and 15 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of cedar, cinnamon, eucalyptus, malt, and rose. After the rinse, I detected a stronger rose aroma and new scents of cream, butter, and baked bread. There was also a subtle vanilla scent lingering in the background. The first infusion brought out a somewhat stronger vanilla aroma. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented very delicate notes of cedar, cinnamon, malt, cream, butter, and baked bread that were chased by hints of vanilla, eucalyptus, and rose. The subsequent infusions coaxed out aromas of sugarcane, cocoa, sweet potato, camphor, black pepper, ginger, roasted almond, and caramel as well as more amplified rose and malt scents. Stronger and more immediate rose, vanilla, and eucalyptus notes came out in the mouth alongside impressions of minerals, earth, black pepper, sugarcane, caramel, cocoa, camphor, red apple, honey, roasted almond, and cooked green beans. I also detected hints of red grape, grass, sweet potato, orange zest, and ginger. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized mineral, malt, baked bread, earth, cocoa, and roasted almond notes that were balanced by fleeting hints of rose, honey, sweet potato, caramel, black pepper, cooked green beans, cedar, camphor, and orange zest.

This seemed to be a fairly balanced offering overall. One thing I noticed about each of these black tea and flower dragon balls was that each of the floral presences interacted with the base tea in different ways, sometimes thinning or thickening the body of the tea liquor, muting or amplifying certain aroma and flavor components, influencing the time at which each characteristic emerged, and sometimes introducing something unexpected. I basically picked up the same characteristics from the base tea with only minor differences, but each pairing seemed to organize and present them differently. This pairing emphasized harmony and balance, but that being said, it also struck me as a little too even-keeled in many places. I was actually hoping for a heavier rose presence and a few interesting rough edges, but I got neither. One positive aspect of this pairing was that the rose petals seemed to thicken the body and bring out more texture in the tea liquor, which was something I did not expect to occur. Big Snow Mountain black tea seems to consistently strike me as being a bit thin and watery, but I could not make that complaint with this particular offering. Honestly, this was a more or less solid pairing. Though I was hoping for a few pronounced peaks and valleys or a few unexpected wobbles here and there, this tea basically just stayed the course for the entirety of my drinking session. Fans of sweet yet balanced floral teas would probably be into it on one level or another.

Arby Advent Backlog
I had a Teavana version of this tea many years ago, which I found enjoyable. These days, I don’t really drink this sort of tea, so I couldn’t point out any special notes. It tasted decent, though not as nice as other versions. Not super special, but I’m no expert.

[Spring 2019 harvest]

Being familiar with Laoshan green teas, I finally decided to give a shot to a Laoshan black tea. The verdict is somewhat similar to my impression of the greens – the tea is complex, unique, and priced very well. However, that also means that I wouldn’t select it when just want a classic black tea.

Dry leaves exude an aromas of peach, raisins, plum, pine wood, and toasted bread. That is already intriguing, but the wet leaf smell is even more strange. It’s hard to pin down, but some associations I have written are: incense, dark chocolate, aluminium can, sea salt, meat, and canned peach.

The taste is bitter in a subtle rather than in-your-face way. It reminds me of walnut shells, lemon skin, cloves, burnt food, grapes, and sugar. There is also a light smokiness to it. Finally, the liquor mouthfeel is milky, viscous, and mouth-watering.

Yunnan Sourcing’s Bang Long is a tea with a distinctive character. I’ve had it twice now and the second session was definitely more enjoyable. I think that having some exposure to it helps me appreciate it better. Also, the aromas are more pronounced now. However, the selling point of this particular tea is its unique and pungent taste, as well as the long-lasting aftertaste.

Let’s start with the aromas though. The dry leaf scent is sweet and reminds me of gummy candies. After the rinse, I can smell peat, wood, and candied orange zest, while the empty cup aroma is floral and orchid-like.

The liquor has a medium body and the texture is not particularly noteworthy. It tastes amazing though. It is bitter, sweet, and astringent with a sort of sour finish. There are many flavours, the main ones being malt, apple, and wheat. On top of those, notes of freshly cut grass, yeast, earth, nuts, and orange peel appear too. The aftertaste is strong and evolving with a crisp, cooling and metallic character to it. There are also some new flavours emerging, such as mint, vanilla, parsley, honey, cloves, and carrot cake.

The cha qi is not very aggressive, but definitely noticeable. Drinking the tea induces a warming sensation in the chest and helps clear my mind :)

[Spring 2019 harvest]

This tea is nice, but I find I tend to prefer less tippy black teas, which are more robust, display more complexity, and are also often cheaper. The most notable aspect of it is the soft and velvety mouthfeel I’d say.

As for the dry leaf aroma, it has notes of cocoa and bread, while the wet leaves smell of wood and cranberry. The taste profile is actually not that different. There are flavours of cocoa butter, sugar, tree bark, plum, and burnt bread. It is more tangy and tart than an average black tea of similar kind I think.

The tea tastes like asphalt and metal mostly. I got a few notes of sweet flowers and some green vegetable notes. Most likely won’t buy again.