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First of the batch of new harvest teas I got from Yunnan Sourcing. The dry leaves look good as they should for Golden Monkey: long twisted leafs with at least a third of golden tips. The smell is not that good though: I expected it to be very sweet and intoxicating but it instead got a smell of old dry leaves, spices and some sourness.

I brewed it western style and got rather mixed results. I put about three grams per a large coffee mug (drinking at work) and first let it sit for 50 seconds. It turned out to be pleasantly malty and sweet but it felt that the taste was a bit lacking and not intense enough. So I brought the infuser back in the mug for another 20-25 seconds and it was too much: the sweetness turned into slight sourness.

All in all, it is a pleasant tea but not very intense and captivating. and finicky about the steeping times. I will try it gong fu but I am not holding my breath. It is not a bad tea but there are certainly better Golden Monkeys on the market: the one from Teavivre, for example.

This, unfortunately, became my all-too-common experience with Yunnan Sourcing: their standard and, often, premium teas are all solid and pleasant but rarely wow you. To get to really impressive teas one needs to move up all the way to the Imperial grade and it will cost you. Don’t get me wrong, the selection of teas at Yunnan Sourcing is almost overwhelming but I was able to find outstanding teas in the non-premium category of other online Chinese tea vendors way more more frequently.

It was the Autumn 2017 harvest. The tea is intensely green and vegetal and works very well in a gaiwan. A VERY good and complex first steeping followed by several decent ones. The western-style brewing produces a solid drink as well, although less complex. Asparagus, broccoli, butter, pepper, grass, mushrooms. Tulips and chrysanthemums on the nose.

This tea is showing a certain familial likeness with other green Anxi oolongs from Yunnan Sourcing like Hairy Crab and Ben Shan. If you liked this TGY (and I did) you will certainly like them as well. Overall, it is a very solid Tie Guan Yin but does not knock you off your feet. A good – and affordable- daily drinker.

It looks good and smells good, like a Dian Hong should. The taste is nothing remarkable though: some malt, some cherry, some sweetness. Kinda reminds me Yunnan Gongfu Fragrant Black from Teavivre but waaay less interesting and lower quality. Nothing remarkable at all and what it does have declines rapidly over the subsequent steeping replaced by off-putting astringency.

One of the rare teas that I am surprised why does Yunnan Sourcing offer them: their other teas are so much better. Not going to buy it again for sure.

This tea (the Spring 2018 version) steadily grew on me over the course of finishing a 50 g. It has a luxurious smell and appearance while dry: tight golden and black curls redolent with malt, sweet potato and carrots – and a heavy dusting of magical golden dust everywhere, which I LOVE.
The taste is strong, fairly complex and instantly recognizable: dark chocolate, malt, sweet potato, floral, flowers and some sweetness. It does well with gong fu and Western brewing, but goes downhill rapidly with subsequent steepings.

Not for the folks who prefer understated teas and love to tease out multiple flavors out of them playing with the steeping conditions. This tea is ideal for drinkers who are into puers, roasted oolongs, Keemuns and other bold teas.

After trying this tea in a gaiwan I decided to do the western brewing and steeped the heck out of it. I used out 3 grams and let it sit in the amount of water equivalent to a large coffee mug for 3-4 minutes. It produced a very lightly-colored yellow-green brew with a pleasant strong taste: grass, tulips, peaches, and a lot of naphtalene mothballs – but in a good way.
By the way, “but in a good way” became my perennial copout for an usual but pleasant taste… although my wife keeps making fun of me every time I use it after I described one of the raw puers to her as “It tastes like throw up – but in a good way”.

In any case, this tea is very forgiving to a long Western-type brewing, and while not as complex as doing it gong fu style it produces a lot of tea with intense pleasant smell and taste ( I got three steepings out of it for 3-4 large coffee mugs). A keeper for sure.

This was a nice ripe puer. I got it A.because I wanted to try something from Menghai and B. because it was quite inexpensive for a 100g cake. The taste is strong and pleasant, with fallen leaves and dry wood. No fishiness, not danky. Nothing too complex or changing over multiple steepings but still consistently pleasant.

My second oolong from Yunnan Sourcing and a very green oolong it is. This tea smells and looks like a lightly oxidized Ti Guan Yin but with a much stronger grassy component. The taste is quite complexand includes spinach, broccoli, grass, rubber, spices, grass, butter, something floral… And naphtalene mothballs… but in a good way.

This tea goes the distance and lasts for multiple steepings (at least 5-6) without losing much of complexity or becoming bitter. I started with a 20 sec. infusion but it was to short of a time so I transitioned to 25-35 secs afterwards.

All in all, it is a very tasty and fairly complex tea that is suited well for gong fu, which is quite typical for oolongs. It is inexpensive, distinct enough from a green Ti Guan Yin offered by Yunnan Sourcing, which makes it a good buy worthy of a reorder.

It was my first purple puer. The cake was not particularly tightly pressed but still required patience and my newly purchased puer needle to separate without turning half of it it into dust. The leaves are large and appear to be black but steeping reveals them to be mostly green.

I have not had much of luck with my puers so far: I stick to cheap products and in that range raw puer is barely drinkable and ripe ones are pleasant but rather lack in complexity. And this purple puer turned out to be a very pleasant surprise in that respect. First, its taste and aroma are decidedly different from other puers I tried. I did the short steepings (10-12 seconds), which produced an interesting mix of lingonberries, red currant, cranberries, black currant leaves and the overripe blackberries that were sitting in the hot sun for a bit. And some honeyed sweetness. The aroma is very intense and consists of the same components.

I got no less than 7-8 good steepings out of it. As usual, only the first couple of them were remarkably complex , but the next 5-6 steepings were very pleasant nevertheless, with the cranberry/lingonberry sourness coming to the fore in the steepings 3-5 , while last steepings were full of calming sweetness. All in all, it is a very interesting tea that gives you a very different taste depending on the duration and number of steepings, which gives ample space for exploration and experimentation. Every time I drink it I pick up something new., it is never boring and repetitive.

This is a very subtle tea. And usually I dislike the understated teas that you have to give your full undivided and focused attention to pick up specific variation in fragrance and taste (many greens and whites fall into that category for me). But this tea is very enjoyable in all its subtlety. The leaves have a malty and flowery sweet aroma and the taste is mineral, malty and sweet. It also has a wonderful and long-lasting aftertaste that comes kind of suddenly and has a lot of different components that I totally do not want to analyze.

What I like about this tea the most that it is very comforting, and “homey”. You seep it and feel instantly cheered up and happy – without any need to deconstruct and analyze. In short, I liked it a lot. Oh, and it is very forgiving with water temperature and steeping times – no need for precision.

The first green tea from China that I really enjoyed. The detailed description that
eastkyteaguy left for the 2017 version still applies. I will not go in such detail but just say that it has a great aroma and a really complex taste: floral notes, citrusy spiciness, spinach and honey. It also gives multiple quality infusions (with sweetness becoming more prominent in the later ones), which is always a plus.

Just a very accessible and forgiving (re: temperature, seeping time) tea for an extremely affordable price. I will probably order more.

Update: I had this tea a few more times. While I still like it a lot, the truth is that all of the complex goodness lasts only one steep in a gaiwan. The second steep is already markedly less interesting, and the subsequent ones are simply not enjoyable at all (one-dimensional vegetal bitterness dominates). Had to lower the score accordingly