2014 Yunnan Sourcing Yi Bi Village Wild Arbor Raw Pu-erh Tea Cake

This sheng has a strong forest character. I could imagine really liking it with about 20 years of dry storage. As it stands, not exactly worth drinking right now mostly due to its price in my opinion.

The aroma is sweet and foresty with notes of apples, alpine herbs, ghee and mussels. Rinse is light and cooling with flavours of sweet grass, tree sap and apricots.

However, from the first infusion onwards, the tea is very pungent, biting and tart – almost acerb. Early on I can taste wood, forest floor, hot hay, straw, peanuts, saffron. Overall it is quite a rural and sweet profile though. The body is medium and the mouthfeel somewhat colloidal and buttery. Later steeps are more bitter with mild astringency and intesified nutty and foresty notes. There is a hint of camphor as well as dry grass. The mouthfeel is numbing in the middle and more smooth towards the end of the session. The late steep are somewhat boring though.

In the aftertaste, more umami emerges with its accompanying lasting sweetness. There are notes of nuts, mushrooms and decaying wood. Cha qi is super warming and it brings me to the present moment.

Mostly dark green threads lightly compressed on top with harder compression underneath with more broken leaf. Light moss scent pre and a peppery moss scent after steeping. Flavors are most appealing, sweet apricot, medium viscosity, good mouth feel, just right amount of bitterness and astringency. Cha qi is restrained making it good for afternoon imbibing. I quite like this tea.

I’m rushing to try a few samples while YS is still running their 12% off sale.

This is a style that I like. Slightly sweet, not too bitter. I immediately noticed some smoke in the nose, but didn’t really see it in the taste, which was a sweet straw, with hints of wood and a trace of stone fruit. The taste became richer in subsequent steeps, but the flavors didn’t change all that much, with the exception with the appearance of some tannin at the end of each sip.

There was a really nice finish, and enough cha qi that I had to stop for a few minutes to let it wear off, so it wouldn’t affect my judgement too much. Bottom line is that I really liked the tea, so need to decide whether to buy more or just to go with samples.

I didn’t order this sample, but I got it anyway! Even though Yiwu isn’t usually my cup of tea, I’m inclined to make an exception for this one. It does indeed have the typically floral Yiwu profile, but good lord is it strong! There’s medium-high bitterness, plenty of body, and is intensely focused and structured. There’s also a bit of dry-fruit texture, though not as much viscosity as other Yiwu’s I’ve had (this is sort of the opposite of Scott’s GFZ), I’ll probably be inclined to spring for the cake at some point…