Yunnan Sourcing

Bought this mini cake with my first order of young sheng samples several months ago so that I would have a daily drinker and also a tea that I could drink without having to study or pay close attention to. Suprisingly enough, for a young plantation bush pu’er, it is very enjoyable. It may not have everything going for it but there is absolutely nothing wrong or off about it. It has never failed to deliver an easy going enjoyable session. It is great for letting go and turning off when I may be taking myself or my tea drinking too seriously. When expectations are minimized it opens up a lot of space for enjoyment and gratitude.

“The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences” -Zen 3rd Patriarch

My first run with this tea was quite disappointing and had heavy notes of hongcha-level oxidation. Retrying today, with a little less leaf and getting a little more nuance out of it. Holding onto some smoky memories in the rinse and first steep, but not pointed. Low astringency, moderate bitterness, moderate sweetness. It has a sweet, soft woodsiness to it that’s comforting, but I struggle to find breadth to this tea, it has a shallow quality to it. Some definition mushroom flavors in the finish and not a ton of huigan. I want to enjoy this tea, but can’t quite get there.

Gongfu!

I couldn’t find my bag of straight snow chrysanthemum so I’m steeping up the next best thing – this black tea blended with snow chrysanthemum flowers. It’s not quite as medicinal as the chenpi that I’ve been steeping this week, but there’s still a soothing and throat coating quality and even the faintest hint of citrusy orange among the heavier floral and sweet black tea flavours! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again that I do think this is one of Yunnan Sourcing’s most underrated black tea offerings!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CeRoX0duQdk/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Olu0foWX9A

Gongfu!

Someone (I think it was Veronica) asked if I could include some snow chrysanthemum black tea in the STTB and this is my favourite by far so it was a great excuse to enjoy a lunch time session and then portion some out for the box as well.

I’m really tearing into this cake, but it’s hard not to when it’s next to impossible to brew this tea poorly. Coating and syrupy liquor with thick medicinal chrysanthemum, orange peel, pine, and basil notes – and not just because of the giant planter of basil. Although the aroma of basil in air does add to the sensory experience nicely!!

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CD1p1mTgfzh/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63EpDmNT2LY

Gongfu!

I had this one over the weekend – I wanted something reliable that would work with weird and not very precise brewing and this favourite fit the bill perfectly. As I’ve said many times before, I love the thick and coating liquor coupled with the potent notes of chrysanthemum, rosemary, cedar wood, citrus and that medicinal, camphor finish…

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_LZq-yAdbA/

I mostly really love my new apartment, but one thing that I’m admittedly missing is that (because of where my bedroom window used to be located) I often had the perfect lighting for really beautiful photographs from my bed. It was perfect for lazy weekend Gongfu while curled up in bed…

Here are a couple of examples photos from the old apartment:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8B5TIMg3Gr/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7RzGaXg6O-/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7emGhVgXC4/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B6tLxnEA2lW/

It’s just so much harder in the new apartment to get that same lighting that I loved.

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

Gongfu!

My roommate cooked us both lunch yesterday; a delicious cold noodle dish with peanuts, sesame, and garlic – sweet, savory and just a little spicy. In return, I steeped us some tea to drink with the meal. I like this one a lot with food – it’s thick and full bodied and the flavour is strong enough to hold up to something well seasoned/strong in flavor. However, the peppery profile and medicinal chrysanthemum and citrus notes kind of compliment a lot of savory dishes while also cutting through them.

I liked it a lot with this dish/meal.

Made an over leafed mug of this tea to drink Grandpa style over lunch, and it was pretty damn delightful. Thick and coating, with a soothing medicinal (but still slightly sweet) snow chrysanthemum note that took over the mug. Like other times I’ve had this black tea, it also had a hint of something sort of citrus tasting, but as I’ve identified in the past I think that’s just a flavour of the snow chrysanthemum itself that I pick up…

Tasting note 7777!!!

I totally meant to pick something significant or with some sort of “luck” related pun to the name/ingredients list for this tasting note, but I just got caught up in the work week and just now with writing reviews that I forgot and this just ended up being lucky tasting note 7777…

I think this is actually a good choice though; it’s one of my absolute favourite teas right now – so much so that I have multiple cakes going at the moment; a home cake and an office cake! This Gong Fu session was at work, so I dipped into the office cake to brew it today. It was a very slow day, what with it being the Friday before a long weekend, and no one really wanted to start any new/large projects, so instead I just drank tea with a coworker for a while while doing a more simple data entry task that didn’t require a lot of attention to be done. It was a very nice experience, getting to begin the session with him and see it through to completion! We talked quite a bit about our experiences growing up in more rural communities, while not having interests typical for where we grew up (me in Saskatchewan, and him in Sri Lanka). We also discussed the tea quite a bit, too.

In total we brewed ten infusions, stacked two at a time in a chahai, before the leaf was brewed out. Although, since we split each stacked chahai we each only ended up with five cups of tea. I think we could have gotten another two steeps, but they’d have been quite light and by the end of our session we were really only getting taste from the chrysanthemum in the blend – the black tea had already died out.

I love snow chrysanthemum though; for me it tastes strongly and potently of orange peel in a chenpi like way, while also having menthol and camphorous notes and a hint of a medicinal quality that I enjoy a lot. It was interesting getting his perspective, as he found the chrysanthemum reminded him a lot of the smell of gunpowder. Gunpowder as in gunpower gunpowder, and not the green tea. I have a hard time relating to that smell, as I’ve never actually smelled it – I only have an idea of what it should smell like through hearing other people’s descriptions/interpretations.

Seeing the tea through his perspective was delightful though!

I love sharing tea with another person.

Ugh – Steepster ate my tasting note.

I don’t want to retype everything so basically here’s the gist: I loved this tea so much when I tried it in the Discovery Tea Box that I placed my first ever Yunnan Sourcing order (which was honestly very overdue, considering how many teas I’ve tried from them) and picked up three cakes of it, along with a ton of other snow chrysanthemum tea blends and a little bit of Dancong.

Now that I have much, much more of this tea I cracked into a cake almost immediately and made myself a big, celebratory mug. It was smooth and delicious with thick mouthfeel and a full bodied mix of malt, cocoa, chrysanthemum, and tangerine notes.

Also, I found a moth compressed into the surface of the cake – but no biggie.

Sipdown (604)!

This sipdown is really only temporary; on my last payday I placed a Yunnan Sourcing order for a bunch of their snow chrysanthemum infused teas – including three cakes of this tea because I liked it so much when I last had it.

Today’s infusion was also bloody spectacular; really thick, syrupy mouthfeel and full bodied profile. Dominant notes were malt, chrysanthemum, and orange peel/oil. I’m super pumped that the flavour is still translating on my palate as weirdly “chenpi” like. It’s just so good. Other softer notes or notes that we more undertones were wood, that “autumn leaf pile” thing, and cocoa. Really well composed, balanced tea.

I’m just STOKED for my order to arrive and to have lots of this one on hand!

Discovery Tea Box – Tea Seven

So, when I first pulled this out of the box I actually thought that it was a shou with blended in chrysanthemum, and it wasn’t until I was actually measuring out the leaf for my session that I realized it was a black tea and not a shou. I pulled this one for a couple reasons; I’ve had chrysanthemum tea but I don’t think I’ve ever had specifically snow chysanthemum and I wanted to try that out, I’d really like to experience a wider range of what Yunnan Sourcing offers because I’ve never been blown away by one of their teas, and if I’m being really honest with myself the biggest reason I pulled this was just because it looked really fucking pretty.

So, I steeped this one Gong Fu – my gram scale’s battery died and I couldn’t find a new one in the house so I had to eyeball my measurement. I aimed for about eight grams for this 150ml gaiwan – though when I was steeping I tried to only fill it to roughly the 125 ml mark. I was trying to leave 7g in the package still so that I could get a second session if I decided to keep this one or, if I passed it along, someone else would still get a reasonable session. I’m pretty good at eyeballing grams – after all I do generally spend a good chunk of my eight hour work day just scooping out tea by weight. It’s one of those “special skills” that I’ve gotten scary accurate with. Very helpful at bulk barn…

Man this tea was different than expected. I really thought I’d be getting full bodied and dark/heavy with floral elements from the chysanthemum but instead it just felt very bright and lively all throughout the session – and sweet. Like, my big take away over all eight infusions that I did was just how much this reminded me of a really sweet, clean tasting shou with a whole lot of chenpi in it. So much sweet citrus notes, and then undertones of things like figs and dates which, while they aren’t weird to taste in black tea, are things I feel like I more commonly experience in shou. Near the end of the session, it did taste a little more floral/conventionally like chrysanthemum but the ride until we had reached that point was just wild – and tasty. So, so tasty.

I just really enjoyed this one and now it’s got my ass browsing through the YS site. I’m happy to see this is actually still in stock; and it’s pretty affordable too. I feel like I want a cake of this, at the very least – but also it’s got me all hot and bothered to the point where I just keep thinking that grabbing a tong isn’t so unreasonable at all…

(Side note – I was picking through the leaf in my gaiwan a little bit after taking some photos for instagram, and the tea/chrystanthemum stained my finger tips orange!)

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bmwl31QHuh4/?taken-by=ros_strange

Okay, it’s time to review something I consumed a little more recently. I finished a 50g pouch of this tea back around mid-late July. I had been sitting on it for well over a year, but to be honest, I was not terribly concerned considering that Dancong oolongs have a reputation for keeping well in storage. Fortunately, what I had of this tea was still vibrant and complex, if a tad mellow. It clearly had not lost much of anything in storage and ended up being a near perfect summer oolong.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 6 seconds. This infusion was chased by 14 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, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of peach, nectarine, honey, lychee, pomegranate, and orchid. After the rinse, I detected a stronger orchid aroma as well as new aromas of cream, vanilla, butter, and sugarcane. The first infusion then introduced a hint of violet to the nose. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of peach, nectarine, and lychee that were soon chased by impressions of cream, butter, sugarcane, pomegranate, vanilla, and orchid. Subtle notes of roasted almond, grass, and malt then appeared briefly on the swallow. The bulk of the subsequent infusions revealed stronger violet impressions as well as new aromas of rose, pear, and melon on the nose. Violet and honey notes belatedly emerged in the mouth along with stronger impressions of roasted almond, grass, and malt. I also detected notes of pear, toast, caraway, rose, apple, watermelon, and minerals. I even picked up on some faint marshmallow hints on a few of these infusions. The final infusions emphasized lingering mineral, sugarcane, grass, watermelon, pear, lychee, and malt notes that were backed by stray, fleeting rose, violet, cream, and butter hints.

This was a surprisingly deep and complex Dancong oolong with respectable longevity compared to some of the other teas of this type that I have tried. I was honestly in awe of how well it held up in storage, and though I enjoyed it immensely, this ended up being a sad sipdown for me. Fortunately, I have at least one pouch of one of the more recent harvests to which I can eventually compare this one.

Since I am currently off work due to a copperhead bite, I have little else to do but keep posting some of these backlogged reviews. It’s crazy to think that I have lived in an area with a large population of venomous snakes for over three decades and never had this happen to me. My residence is literally sandwiched between a forest and a hayfield, and I work outdoors, but no, I have to step on a young one barefoot in my parents’ driveway while watching their cats play-stalk the deer that invade the yard to eat daylilies every evening. Talk about shitty luck. Now I’m stuck at my parents’ house and can’t walk. With any luck I can go home tomorrow, but I probably can’t go back to work until next week at the earliest. That out of the way, this was the last of the spring 2017 Yunnan Sourcing green teas I got around to trying, finishing the last of my pouch sometime around mid-late June. I found it to be a straightforward, but very rewarding tea, and one that kept ridiculously well in storage.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 176 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 14 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 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, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of hay, grass, malt, chestnut, and lemon zest. After the rinse, I detected a slight smoke aroma and a new aroma of corn husk. The first infusion then introduced a roasted peanut aroma. In the mouth, I detected notes of roasted peanut, roasted chestnut, malt, grass, hay, lemon zest, and corn husk that were underscored by a slight smokiness and a hint of sugarcane sweetness that became most apparent on the swallow. Subsequent infusions revealed hints of sour plum and spinach on the nose along with a stronger lemon zest aroma. New notes of sour plum, spinach, minerals, seaweed, lettuce, and lime appeared in the mouth. The final few infusions emphasized lingering mineral, lettuce, lemon zest, grass, malt, and corn husk notes that were balanced somewhat by hints of roasted chestnut and sugarcane.

This was a very nice and very easy-drinking green tea. It had the typical Yunnan green tea profile, which I love, though some folks seem to not be as impressed by it. As I continued to experiment with this tea, I also found it to be very adaptable, a perfect green tea for those who like to experiment with their brewing methods. Though this tea was not quite as complex as some of the other Yunnan Sourcing green teas I have tried, it was still an excellent offering. I could see it making a fantastic daily drinker or a perfect introduction to Yunnan green teas.

I slowly make my way into oolongs. They often come to me as being to sweet and "loud’, and as not having enough of malty backbone that I typically like in Chinese red teas. So, outside of Tie Guan Yin I was rather shy about blissfully swimming in the sea of oolongs. However, this Ben Shan considerably softened my guardedness.

It has a rich smell of tropical fruit, lilac and gardenia. I had it both Western and gongfu and it carried itself well in both. Creamy, sweet, mouth-enveloping, with a pronounced aftertaste. The taste itself keeps evolving with the subsequent steepings. Lots of fruitiness, spinach and butter, some spice and some vegetal notes. A pleasant pale liquor. There really wasn’t any area where this tea was appreciably lacking.

I know that Ben Shan oolongs are often considered to be less complex and exciting then, say, Tie Guan Yin and other more famous brethrens but it did not came out that way to me. And, as new and inexperienced I am to the world of oolongs, I can say with a certainty that this particular tea would not disappoint another relative novice like myself. Especially given its very accessible price.

It’s very possible that several months later, after trying a few other oolongs I will have to come back and lower the rating I am about to give to this Anxi Ben Shan but for now, based on the amount of pleasure I derived from it compared to the other teas I had tried up to this point I have no choice but put it in my personal 90s.

I am realizing I don’t have so much of this cake left by now, but still enough to keep it aging along.

At the moment, the tea has a herbal, earthy, mineral, and sweet aroma with hints of smoke and shaving cream.

The mouthfeel is biting and milky, and can get quite astringent at times. The taste is sweet, bitter, and vegetal at first, with notes of leek, butter, and pine noticeable in the first steep. Second one brings more camphor, tobacco, honey, and parsnip. Later ones are spicy, bitter, and warming. Overall, the depth of the tea seems slightly improved over its very young state.

I finally joined the covid club, while I didn’t lose taste and smell, my current tea perception is surely affected by it.

In any case, it is fun to check up on this tea’s progression. It seems to have a more rustic character now. The aroma reminds me of forest floor and beeswax, while the taste is a mix of green wood, citrus fruits, honey, root vegetables (beetroot, celery), with some further hints of chickpeas, vanilla, camphor, cumin and apricot in final few infusions.

The tea is somewhat astringent and numbing, but it can be easily pushed to extend the session to about 14 infusions.

Here’s another yearly report on this blended sheng. It seems to be less vegetal and floral for sure, displaying more grainy qualities. Interestingly, I found the mouthfeel fairly different from what I remember. It is foamy initially, with a lightly chalky finish at times, lower astringency and overall thicker texture.

The dry leaf aroma has notes of sweet wood and apricot. On the other hand, after the rinse I could detect scents akin to forest floor, butter, ammonia, and coriander.

The liquor itself is bitter and cooling with notes of wheat, pear, apple, kumquat, and cabbage among other ones. It is very flavourful and kind of satisfying I’d say. The long-lasting aftertaste is dominated by honey flavours and complemented by a hint of celery.

Revisiting this cake 1 year after my previous note, although I have drunk it throughout the year several times too. Dry leaves are quite fragrant with the dominant aroma being a fairly standard sheng one – gasoline – complemented by beeswax and forest floor. The wet leaf aroma hasn’t changed that much, I can mostly smell cooked cabbage now.

First few infusions have a nice floral bitterness and taste of dry grass. The finish is somewhat sour, which continues on in the aftertaste too, which also has a distinctive honey note and induces a cooling and tickling sensation in the throat. It is a long and evolving aftertaste, better than I remember from previous sessions. There is a noticeable huigan and I notice a nice head clarity and body warmth after just the first two steeps. The mouthfeel is buttery and on the thin side.

Overall, I am really liking the progression of this tea in its first two years. It is quite a bit on the savoury side at the moment, but it is tasty and with a very nice cha qi and a strong aftertaste. A great value for the cake, that’s for sure.

My first impressions of this cake. It is indeed very well balanced and pungent tea, with upfront bitterness and long-lasting aftertaste. The dry leaf smells very green and vegetal, while the wet leaves have more of a cooked vegetables aroma and leave the impression of a cool morning mountain breeze. In terms of viscosity, this would be on the thinner end of the sheng spectrum, which is not surprising given the price.

However, the tea is pretty calming and made for a very pleasant session. Taste is also nice, although not super complex at this stage. I think the aging potential is definitely there though. I am looking forward to seeing its development.

This is a tea that for sure aims above its category, the price/quality ratio is impressive.

Summer Vacation! I received this from derk, thanks so much! I have to get up early tomorrow (on a day off too, uuuuugh…) so I made a very small cup of this so I won’t get too wired tonight. Since I didn’t use much leaf since I was making such a small cup, I decided to set the rest to cold steep overnight as an iced tea, as I remember thinking when I tried a different Bi Luo Chun sampler that I might like it iced, so now I’ll have a chance to try that.

This got steeped a bit longer than my last cup — not by intention, but because I was doing some stuff in my kitchen and wasn’t being precise about it. It was definitely a much stronger flavor and had just a little of a vegetal bite, but I think I got back to it before any true astringency damage could be done.

This is a much more savory flavor than the other Bi Luo Chun I tried, very vegetal with notes of grass, lemon, water chestnuts, and a hint of spice (particularly pepper and anise) toward the end of the sip. Still just as relaxing, though.

Today I brewed the last of my 50g at 195-200F instead of 190F to see how it would respond. Picked up the sourness of watermelon rind like in its partner dragon balls and it got a little astringent in the third steep.

Warm and busy day called for a western brew of some white tea.

1T/8oz/190F/3 solid steeps timed only by the color of the brew. A fourth steep was light but still nice.

Dry leaf smells like the taste of lychee, hay, sugarcane, meyer lemon, honeydew and cantaloupe. A tad musty. I sniffed the first brew but none thereafter. I remember cantaloupe, oats and sweet cinnamon-vanilla-buttery glaze. All three brews had a typical silver needle taste and sweetness. Cantaloupe, honeydew, oats, lychee and that sweet cinnamon-vanilla-buttery glaze, maybe some peach or apricot, honeysuckle and hay? I don’t remember if eucalyptus made a presence, which I really like in this style of tea. A little scratchy in the throat on the first steep but after that it was thick and smooth. Good lookin’ liquor.

I much prefer this one over the Jing Gu White Pekoe Silver Needles due to a lack of bitterness and astringency. Easier to produce a consistent no-fuss western cup. Seems like it’s holding up better with age, too. I’ll probably make this one my go-to silver needle, as in 50g/yr. I don’t need much silver needle in my life.

I’ve ordered samples of all of Scott’s 2018 ripes (five have been released so far this year). I will try to review them all. I tried Lucy a while back (and reviewed it), and it was very good. This one is also very good, but it is a different style than is typical. I’d say its defining characteristics are sweet and simple. It is pretty smooth with almost no astringency/bitterness. It is not very complex, but it has a very unique flavor. It has a sweetness I associate with lao cha tou (ripe nuggets). It has a nice feel and good flavor, and solid qi; the sweet is front and center, with burnt coffee and a hint of chocolate in the background. I don’t think I’d reach for this very often, but I will definitely get a cake or two. I bet it will age very nicely, and will be very smooth and straightforward.

Definitely the most dynamic young sheng I have tried. Steeped forever as well. Dry cup aroma last well into the session and actually lasted longer than any tea I’ve tried.

Just finished the sample of this tea. Enjoyed everything I’ve tried made from this varietal. It’s a unique tea for sure.

This tea started out a bit light and felt the need to push it for the first few steeps. Floral and a bit peppery with a somewhat light and sharp mouthfeel that goes into the throat. Not much bitterness or sweetness.

Middle steeps develop a rounder flavor and mouthfeel. Bit of huigan. Dry cup smell out of this world. Bitterness building pleasantly but no sweetness. Flavor very good, interesting and unique.

Later steeps I started to push this tea pretty hard and got some good bitterness which was followed by a pretty heavy astringency that almost overpowered the rest of the experience. Flavor still excellent. Shortened steep times but still got intense astringency. Still not much sweetness.

I guess I’ll just keep hitting it with water and see what happens…

Still later steeps. Finally the astringency gives way to a very clean bright soft sweetness. Wow what a nice way to end a session.

Like I said before. Dynamic. Surprised me several times. Just when I was feeling bored or overpowered with any aspect of the tea it would change up. Longest steeper I’ve encountered out of about 25 young sheng I have sampled so far, most of which are much more pricey.

Huigan overall is deep and present but not particularly strong.

Good balanced pleasant well rounded cha qi.

Definitely buying a cake.