Yu Lu Yan Cha Black

December 1, 2012 Yu Lu Yan Cha Tea arrived as a present to me.
I should be considering others, but couldn’t resist the temptation!

My main concentration was on taste and scent (which is what I will discuss). All measurements were as suggested by Verdant.

Method: Gaiwan: http://youtu.be/bp31QnuVPd4 (Wang Yanxin Brewing Yu Lu Yan Cha Black Tea)
There was 1 quick wash, followed by multiple steepings of 5-10 seconds (longer steeps with each pour). The liquor was medium gold then deeper gold, clear and vibrant.

Taste and Scent:
There was nothing predictable about this tea.
No taste or scent that I could compare it to. This isn’t Laoshan Black or Zhu Rong. Not a cleaver morphing of Golden Fleece either.
To compare one to another would be a type of Tea Blasphemy.

I took one small sip of the golden liquor and thought ‘butter’….
Off in a trailing thought…‘butter’…‘butter’….smooth and sweet and then… ‘potato’…and nothing after that.

I sat.

“What is this tea?” I wondered. There’s no chocolate flavor like the others (comparing the incomparable Verdant Black Tea’s), it’s malty, but not with a maltiness that I’ve ever tasted before.

Again I calmed myself, remembering not to rush even though I was excited. This was like opening a gift I’d been waiting for!

I poured the second steep and drank again, noticing the fragrance.

Sweet Vietnamese Cinnamon with a hint of honeysuckle floral that began to wrap around my head like the ‘Dance of the Sugerplum Fairies’. Oh yes…sweet…pastry and candies like a plate of Snickerdoodles in the Copoco Honey Shop.

There I was, sitting on my sofa but not there at all.
All I was thinking about was the Sweet Shop in Old Town.
The zillions of white twinkley lights in the trees up and down College Avenue that turn on magically at dusk every evening from October to March. Kilwins Candy Shop with handmade candies begging me to enter with the scent of fresh caramel popcorn and chocolates.
It was the buttery caramel, the spun sugar so light that a breath could crack it that drew me in past the doorway.

The tea tasted and smelled like that thinnest sweet, buttery spun sugar with a hint of honey. Somehow, the feeling is like the candy commercial on TV where the lady is looking in the window of the store and what you see is the reflection of her as a young girl.

I don’t understand how the sweetness, potato, butter, malty, honey, caramel and cinnamon flavors all dance together with such abandon on the lightest of tea toes without a mishap. What a show!

This is another exquisite tea!

Happy Tea To You! Happy Tea To Me! My Holiday’s Are in Full Swing!

http://youtu.be/eQemvyyJ—g Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy on the Glass Armonica

http://flic.kr/p/dtcfQA The Lights.

Wow. Wow. WOW. I am floored.
There is sweet potato, chocolate and absolutely no astringency. Like drinking a cloud. A silk one. Dipped in gold?
Don’t wanna spend too much time online since I’m at my friends place… but I could not resist logging this asap.

Edit: So the second infusion was pretty bland. I almost didn’t drink it but then decided to add a dash of milk and that spruced things up quite a bit.
The third steep however, was great! It had a distinct mineral quality to it, with a warm cinnamon/potato background to it. Very nice.

I absolutely will not do this justice wiht this tasting note as I’m at work and brewed this western style. I fully intend to do more steepings tonight when i get home, as well as try this gonfu style once my gaiwan arrives..but for now, this is what i have!

This isn’t a malty tea for me. There’s a definite chocolate feel, but different from laoshan black or some of the other black teas i enjoy. As i sip this, there’s a note at the end of my sips that’s almost fruity, but i suspect is just the honey note coming through. (I’m still not sure my tastebuds are 100%) It’s not as rich and bold as other blacks, but it’s wonderfully smooth and delightful as i sip through this. It makes me wish i’d packed my leaves to bring to work for resteeps.

Edit: Some tasty re-steeps tonight that have really been enjoyable.

Well, I’m back from my long trip to Japan — where I didn’t drink nearly as much tea as you might think. Meals in Tokyo are pretty Westernized, it turns out, even when having fairly traditional foods. I had to ask for tea almost everywhere we went, and with the exception of one conveyor sushi bar and one soba shop, none of it was at all remarkable. But, I did drink a lot of matcha in Liz’s apartment trying to keep warm.

I was unable to read steepster while I was away, so if something important happened to you I should know about and missed, please get in touch.

So here I am back in Houston where we’ve been having some unusually cold weather (for Houston) and so I have tea in my hand pretty much any time I’m awake.

This experimental option from Verdant has been a lot of fun, so far. I’m on my second day of gongfu steeping sessions and enjoying the leaf very much.

Somewhere between the rich, chocolate extravagance of Laoshan black and the pleasant bite of Wuyi oolong, this tea has a complex flavor profile and a thick, full mouth feel.

Even early steepings don’t come off as dark you expect them to, given the look of the dry and wet leaf (and the enormous aroma they offer), but that is not to say what you find in your cup is either thin or subtle. The chocolate and malt definitely dominate the cup, but there is more to the picture, here. Unsalted cashews. Orange zest. Buckwheat honey.

This is a cold, rainy day tea if ever there was one.

This is a crisp, sunny Winter day tea if ever there was one.

But I also suspect it would be fabulous as an iced tea in the Summer’s heat.

I have to tell you sometimes I am more excited about the samples I’m getting from Verdant than the tea I actually ordered. I say this because ever time I’ve ordered the samples have been spot on to my taste in tea even if they were way off base from what I ordered!

This time around this tea was included with my order of Golden Fleece. Is it as good as Golden Fleece? Not in my opinion, but it’s up there on my list of top favorites from Verdant.The dry leaf hints at malt and chocolate for me. I have to tell ya, I am a sucker for a malty tea. Always have, always will be. As it steeps there’s still that malty smell with a slight hint of honey. Mmmm honey.

The taste? Again the malty flavor is right there in my face but I do get some passing tastes of chocolate and honey. This gets an a in my book. A sample size of it MAY have also fallen into my cart too. I like it, but it isn’t a tea I have to have in the house all the time. At least not in large quantities.

So I wanted to do more sipdowns today but after looking through the choices I had only one cup left of, none caught my fancy. This, however, has been on my mind for the past few days, especially after Indigobloom`s note on it. I wanted to do this gongfu at first, but I am feeling exceptionally lazy today, maybe because I did a lot of gongfu brewing with my pu’erh yesterday, so I decided to do western. Also, I want to save my leaves, only have 7 g of this :(

The dry smell was quite chocolate and yum, reminded me of Laoshan Black. I steeped for 1 minute in boiling water. The wet leaves were BAM, pure honey, I was very pleased. I love honey, had a lovely honey toast for breakfast, so this was very promising.

Now for taste..this is pretty delicious. I do get the sweet potato that others have mentioned, and although I am not a huge fan of them (aka NEVER eat them haha) this tea tastes quite delicious. There is a strong honey taste and lots and lots of chocolate, but it’s a different type of chocolate than the Laoshan Black. That one was more rich and decadent, this one is more of a honey sweet chocolate with some grain. Not as much malt, but in the last bit of the sip it definitely is present. This isn’t as thick as other black teas either, more along the lines of the Mi Lan Dancong for mouthfeel. Regardless, this is a darn tasty cup, and now I want to try it gongfu at some point to see what happens to the flavors.

I will have a few more cups of this today, going out for bday sushi with friends tonight so don’t want to be too waterlogged, might have to save some steepings for tomorrow.

Overall, this is a nice, sweet black tea. Lots of honey and chocolate, yet lighter and a bit different from the other Verdant Black teas. Oh, and I feel the caffeine in this one hehe :) thank you for yet another excellent tea, Verdant!!

ETA: I actually enjoyed the latter half of the cup a bit more than the first half, it just zipped down and now I will have to make more. It is even more honey, if that is possible, and smoother too? Mmmm ok this is a darn good tea.

This post is for science (and Kittenna) comparing some of Verdant’s black teas I felt were similar but knew would be different, this isn’t side by side but one after the other. I had this tea over a month ago but it seems I did not log it. I don’t think I knew what to say then.

As leaves hit the hot mug, the unmistakable smell of chocolate permeates the air. Yet when hot water hit leaves the smell turned savory. There is something much more grainy than yesterday’s Anxi Fo Shou Black or Laoshan Black a prickly bit of linen, no, denser like a wool cloak.

This second steep is so savory and buttery with sweetness only in the finish. It’s sparkle is different than the wuyi sparkle, but still it tingles in a more earthy manner. There is veg here, avocado which is of course a tree fruit but it has a very veg quality.

Thick heavy savory honey in the third steep, almost raw. I keep using all these rough adjectives and yet it is really a very smooth black tea but there is no doubt it is thick, thick and malty.

This tea conjures up hearty starchy things like legumes and potatoes and makes me want chili or stew but with a bit of molé. Wow so different than yesterday’s rum raisin chocolate cake and it sets itself apart from Laoshan Black as well. I stand very corrected.

Edit to add: I continued steeping this on late last night and by around the 9th infusion or so (I lost count) it turned very chocolaty, very very sweet and even fruity, at that point I had lowered my temp to 205-208F and dragged the infusions out to a minute plus. Only by one in the morning was this feeling at all watered down.

Also watched Mirror Mirror on Netflix and preferred it overall to Snow White and the Huntsman (though Charlize was an awesome queen and had gorgeous raven inspired wardrobe and I liked the Irish tree named dwarves, Lily Collins made a much better Snow White and the prince was funny), completely different tone, very amusing if over the top.

So, I was pretty apprehensive about brewing this tea up as I’d seen (I thought) a few notes about people not being big fans, or about it being quite strong/bitter, etc., but this doesn’t seem to be a problem for me! I was cautious and used about 1.5 tsp in boiling water for 1 minute (the low end of the given parameters, which were 1-2 tsp for 1-2 minutes… I think…) The aroma was reminiscent of Laoshan Black with chocolatey notes, but it’s definitely not quite as intense, and the flavour fits perfectly with this, being chocolatey and malty but less so than Laoshan Black, but also with a bit of… hay-y flavour, aka that flavour that I attribute to bagged blacks. I’d be tempted to call it “Laoshan Black Light” or something to that effect, as that’s how it’s coming off to me.

I’m happy to have an ounce of this added to my collection – it will help tide me over until the 2 oz. of Laoshan Black that I ordered last night arrives! (Also, it’s neat to have tried another tea with a cool story behind it!)

ETA: Second infusion (2 min) still has chocolatey notes, and more of that “classic black” flavour. Still pretty decent. I’m wavering on going for a third infusion though… getting awfully sick of reinfusing things, haha (I’m sure it would hold up for one more though).

I miss-placed 2 oz of Sichuan Caravan…(sigh)…I know it’s around here somewhere…there is no way I already drank it all!! Oh well…

I’ve drank this YuLu a couple of times now, both western brew and gongfu, and I have to say, it is not my favorite of Verdant’s Teas.
It does have a flavor profile that in some ways reminds me of Jin Jun Mei, with it’s peppery honey qualities, and a little of my beloved Laoshan Black chocolate-ness, and the color of the liquor is a beautiful honey, with a stunning saffron yellow backdrop.

So what’s my problem? It has a burnt smell to me, and after drinking it I had what I call the ‘rock gut’ sensation, which I don’t care for.
Will I drink it again? Sure, I still have plenty of it, so I’ll add it to my rotation and give it another try in a week or 2, and I may experience an entirely different feeling. That’s one of the things I love about tea! I can drink the same tea many different times, and it might not always be the same for me, as my experience is in part effected by my mood, and I’m a little grumpy today, and other factors.

Next…

My Black Friday order just came in, nad I’m very excited to finally taste this tea. When I opened the bag, I was greeted by a pleasant aroma of a well-roated blak tea. It’s actually not as strong as I thought it would be, but I’m no expert on roasting. The leaves themselves are a lot like the Zhu Rong balck tea, small and curly. I was a bit generous with the ammount of leaves that I used, and I used near-boiling water to steep them for 15 seconds. The resulting tea smells like chocolate, yet is actually surprisingly light colored and clear. The finitial taste is a very smooth and clear chocolate flavor, which fades rather quickly into a lingering sweet aftertaste. Teh aftertaste lasts for at least two minutes, but I’m not good at restraining myself for much more than that, so who knows how long it actually lasts.

Second cup, 10 second steep. The tea is already beginning to trasition, and a malty flavor has begun to assert itself, contrasting nicely with the chocolate flavor that was then main flavor. The aftertaste also greatly changed, having become less sweet and also fading after about 45 seconds. These developments were interesting, and I can’t wait to see how they continue for the next cup.

Third cup, 15 seconds. The tea continues to change, but it went in a bit of an unexpected direction. First of all, the chocolate is mostly gone from the flavor profile, and the tea actually sweetened a bit since the previous cup. Also, there is bit of somthing akin to really really weak citrus begining to make itself known, which is a bit confusing. Also, the malt flavor is getting very muddled, and I’m not sure where that is going either. So far, this tea has been very different than I expected, which is actually really nice. It’s fun to have a tea that keeps you guessing.

Music of the Day – Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, performed by the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, the University Chorus and Alumni Chorus, and the Pacific Boychoir.
Link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEllLECo4OM

Quick Notes Thanks to Bonnie for sharing this one with me.

Dry – Chocolate, cream, vanilla, lightly malty.
Wet – Chocolate/cacao, creamy, vanilla, thick sweetness.
Liquor – Golden Bronze.

Gong fu in Porcelain Gaiwan 4-5g/4.5oz

1st 6secs – Deep chocolate taste with some tart notes and creaminess up front. As it washes down, it is creamier sweet with deeper chocolate notes, that turns slightly tasting and sweet. The aftertaste is cleaner but still has a creamy chocolate taste.

2nd 5secs – Thicker and deeper chocolate notes with tart notes and some creaminess up front. As it washes down, it is creamy, thick with strong chocolate notes, with sweet vanilla notes. The aftertaste is creamy, thick and chocolaty.

3rd 8secs – Thick, deep chocolate notes with some tartness and creaminess up front. As it washes down, it becomes creamy deep and thicker chocolate with sweet vanilla notes. The aftertaste is chocolaty and creamy.

4th 12secs – Deep chocolate notes with more tart-tangy notes up front. As it washes down, it isn’t as creamy but is smooth and turns vanilla sweet. The aftertaste is thick and creamy chocolate notes.

5th 17secs – Chocolate notes with some tart notes and some sweetness up front. As it washes down, it is smooth with prescent but weaker chocolate notes and vanilla sweetness. The aftertaste is sweet with chocolate notes and slight thickness.

Final Notes
This is a great black tea, is is a deeper and more complex Laoshan Black. Laoshan is mostly sweet while this one has deeper complexity with tart (slightly bitter but not astringent) notes. I feel like it balances itself very well and makes it a very pleasant experience. Thanks Bonnie!

I think I might like this one better than Laoshan Black these days. Enough said.

EDIT: I just noticed that this tea has thousands of tiny sparkling hairs suspended in it. This is something I have not seen in a black tea before. It looked beautiful glittering in the afternoon sunlight!

Groan. . . 4 hours sleep to get hubby off for the weekend with army. I’m exhausted and I have a dentist appointment in two hours, so I can’t go back to bed.
This is great cup to wake up with. I can probably sneak in two more too.

Holy Hannah This Stuff IS GREAT!
Smelling the leaves is heavenly! Definite chocolaty notes with malt and buckwheat.. I was so excited to try this tea.
I rinsed/steeped at 205˚F for 4 seconds and 2 ‘perfect teaspoonfuls.’ Delightful. Chocolaty malt and definite buckwheat.. all tied together with a dark honey of sorts. mmmm
Second steep was 8s. The buckwheat and malt notes are sticking around.. the chocolate has gone, but now there’s a thickness thats developing.. melting like butter almost. I would say this steep was half as sweet as the first.

Loving this Yu Lu Yan Cha!

Wow.

This tea is my new obsession. I must applaud Wang Yanxin for this one and thank Verdant Tea for somehow managing to take this tea away from her. Anyone with the ingenuity to create such a wonderful masterpiece is a tea wizard. With a complexity rivaling many oolongs, a melt-in-your-mouth texture, and deep, rich aromatics, I can say right now that this is an instant favorite of mine.

I don’t even know where to begin describing it. While tasting, I wrote down the names of a plethora of teas I’m familiar with that this one reminded me of in one aspect or another: A dry leaf appearance like Verdant’s Zhu Rong with less gold, aromas of chocolaty goodness like Laoshan black, at times a body similar to a shui xian or mi lan xiang, a liquor with a coloration somewhere between a dian hong and Zhu Rong, hints of orange citrus notes like a huang zhi xiang. This tea is a Frankenstein’s monster of all my beloved teas combined.

Brewing parameters: 100mL gaiwan, ~1/3 full dry leaf, near-boiling water

The dry leaves present a calming aroma of pure tea, heavy malt, and deep chocolaty notes. I can catch undertones of the charcoal roasting, and it adds nicely to the overall scent. After a quick wash, I excitedly took a sniff of the wet leaves, wondering whether they were hiding something. A rich aroma of chocolate, roasted coffee beans, and a slight fruity scent wafted up. It reminds me of this dark chocolate bread that a local bakery near my home town bakes. When it’s fresh, it has this really thick, cocoa-yeasty smell that just hangs in your nostrils much like this tea’s aroma does. I’ll take you through my gong fu session:

Wash (~1") with water cooled from boiling.

Steep 1 (2"): The malty flavor in this steep is really prominent and melds with a pure tea taste to create a full-bodied brew. Underneath, tones of chocolate, hickory? spices, and coffee come into play. There is also this faint tartness that causes a bit of astringency, but also a slippery mouthfeel that becomes very quenching. Right from the start I felt a strong cha qi from this steep.

Steep 2 (3"): The pure tea flavor increases a bit, paired with an addition of honeyed sweetness. Both chocolate and spicy notes become stronger. The tartness also increases, and becomes more orange-like, or maybe tangerine? The body becomes fuller, and more rounded modeled by a very smooth and creamy mouthfeel, which continues on into the next steeps.

Steep 3 (4"): The spices and citrus notes blend together into this undertone of spiced oranges. There is an additional starchy note underneath that reminds me of the Golden Fleece’s sweet potato flavor, but less sweet and without that caramel-y texture. The most intriguing moment of this tea unfolds in this steep. A pure sugar flavor emerges out of nowhere, becoming very prominent in each additional sip. It produces this lightness on the tip of the tongue, forming a tickling/cooling sensation. In addition, the tartness of the orange notes combines with something like dark chocolate to create this “pulling” sensation and something that makes me imagine what chocolate-covered mandarin oranges would taste like. It’s not astringency, though. Maybe somewhere between that spicy mouthfeel and astringency. Kind of like that sensation after eating dark chocolate with nuts with an additional tartness. It’s difficult to describe, but it makes my mouth beg for another sip and I love it.

Steep 4 (5"): Where I typically write my mouthfeel/textural notes, I only have “THE BEST” written. Starchy and honey flavors increase, while malty notes become more subdued. Pure tea and chocolate flavors reign supreme, and that pure sugar taste/sensation remains very noticeable. In addition, a vanilla cream flavor emerges and ties everything into this nice, well-connected bundle of yumminess.

Steep 5 (7"): All tartness seems to drop out at this point, and all I’m left with are sweets and spices. The sugar taste seems to morph a bit here and become more like brown sugar.

Steep 6 (10"): A nice caramel flavor emerges here and blends very nicely with the new brown sugar flavors. Most other nuances remain constant and the starchy/potato-like flavor diminishes. The body is much lighter at this point, but the mouthfeel is so smooth it’s almost melty.

Steep 7 (13): The sugary sweetness fades out here, and is instead replaced by spiciness that is felt on the tongue. Interestingly, there is a fruity flavor on exhale that seems to hint that something new is coming.

Steep 8 (18"): Indeed, tiny hints of a dark fruit/berry flavor peaks out from the bottom of the flavor profile, blending with notes of vanilla cream chocolate, spices, and malt.

Steep 9 (25"): Basically the same as the last, with a lasting thick and spicy mouthfeel.

Steep 10 (35"): In descending order: malt, pure tea, peppery spice, honey, something between apple and raspberry, chocolate, and finally, vanilla cream.

Steep 11 (1’ 10"): Mostly the same as the last steep, but the flavor has faded severely.

This tea just makes me feel awesome. Very comforting, very warm.

Wait! The leaves! How could I forget? The wet leaves’ appearance is interesting. They are either deep black or a chocolate brown in coloration, and it seems these two colors are divided quite equally. Most of them are also very spindly. They’re rolled extremely tightly. Very few stems, but the size and shapes of the leaves are pretty variable.

Back logging…
This tea is a Chameleon. Every single steep changes; not in the normal way tea does either. The smell of the dry leaf and when wet for some reason reminds me of roasted salted nuts… not sure what kind though.

1st Steep: Malty smoke, sweet after taste, smells like roasted slated nuts, strong yet smooth.

2nd Steep: Malty, with a tingle left on the tongue. Not as smokey. Kinda of a powdered coco after taste.

Cooled down: More flavor coming through; more smokey cocoa. Slight creaminess. Smells like roasted nuts.

3rd Steep?: Weaker, light citrus taste, less malt, more brisk taste.

Not sure what happened to my notes on Word but I don’t know if that was the description for the 3rd or 4th steep…

It should be noted that the coco taste isn’t typical. It is kinda like roasted and slightly smoked coco beans; Not the kinda of smokey woody flavor, more sweet roasted smokey.

I almost feel like the early steepings are like a fine Assam and morphs into a really good Ceylon, but through out is done with a bit of Yunnan flare to it; I haven’t any of these strait so I can’t be sure. I can’t wait to see how this tea does Gong Fu style.

Specifics

Leaf: 2 tsp
water: 8oz
Pot: Porcelain
Sweetener: A bit of light agave sometimes
Steeps: 1:35 and add 40’s from there on…

The smell as I poured it was like a warm, buttery potato.

It’s definitely unique! There’s nothing astringent, it has a wonderful honey sweetness, the potato taste comes with an overall “meal” taste to me (like it’s a nice big meal of potato and roasted veggies). Most of the chocolate notes hit at the end for me too, so it’s like dessert! There are so many tastes going on in it, but they come together in such a smooth, delicious way.

A fragrance of honeyed pineapple. The taste is a lovely buttery chocolate with slight honey or pear back notes. No astringency or acidity. Really a magnificent tea.

SO this was pretty good!
I like the complex flavors i was getting, loved the other tea more that i had of verdants so maybe thats why i’m not 100% floored. but this is really good though i did not really get any astringency and i do like a touch of it as its a sign of a good tea i hear.

The second steep was not nearly as good and i had to add some other things to perk it back up. Overall a very nice tea!

A very smooth black and resteeps quite well. I didn’t particularly like the results from gaiwan, but brewing it with more water in a cup produced much different result. I think I like it.