Yunnan Sourcing

Laoshan tea is hands down my favorite Chinese green tea. It has every element that I love in green tea – grass, florals, umami, sweetness, and fruity flavors – in perfect harmony. Verdant tea, which specializes in teas from Laoshan, has been my source for ages, but with their spring harvest being delayed this year, I decided to give Yunnan Sourcing a try. I’ve been curious about their Laoshan teas for a while now and got both the Imperial Grade and Classic Laoshan green teas.

This tea has the signature Laoshan soybean aroma. When the leaves are placed in a warmed pot, more aromas of warm grass, soymilk, green bean, and edamame emerge. Wet leaf smells like roasted vegetables. The first steep is a luscious mix of cream, soybean, fennel, and floral hints. Really smooth and refreshing. The second steeping brings out more vegetation and some toasted grains. The last two infusions are less nuanced but still smooth without any bitterness.

I use a 2.5g of leaf to 120ml water ratio to brew this tea and steep times of 25s/30s/40s/55s. Temperature control is a key factor in getting the most out of it. I used to be afraid to push green teas past 175 F, but I’ve learned that most quality teas have good heat tolerance. This tea went from good to divine when I raised the temperature just 5 degrees to 180 F.

Today I threw a pinch of leaves in the tumbler to take to work and the resulting brew was amazing. Super floral and fruity with an almost honey like sweetness. Even after steeping the leaves for a long time, it did not turn bitter.

I don’t know if it’s this particular harvest or the farm, but this Laoshan green was fantastic and still reigns supreme among Chinese greens for me. Looking forward to doing a head-to-head tasting of this with Verdant once my pre-order arrives.

Like many other teas with chrysanthemum, these dragon balls have a honey-like sweetness accompanying the delicate white tea flavour. An additional peppery flavour makes for an interesting brew that altogether reminds me of a spicy chamomile, perhaps with light notes of mint. Definitely an interesting tea. The liquor is a beautiful golden orange colour and coats the entire mouth and throat leaving me salivating.

Since I just finished reviewing What-Cha’s China Yunnan Silver Needle White Tea, I figured I may as well go ahead and review the tea to which I directly compared it. Even though both teas were presumably identical, I ended up liking this one slightly more. As noted in my review of the other tea, I think that was a result of me naturally preferring Yunnan white teas that are brewed at a lower water temperature.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose leaf buds in 4 ounces of 176 F water for 10 seconds. I chose a slightly different starting point for this session because of the lower water temperature. The initial infusion was followed by 18 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, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and 30 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry leaf buds emitted aromas of hay, straw, and eucalyptus. After the rinse, I noted new aromas of marshmallow, wood, lemon, malt, and sugarcane. The first infusion saw the nose turn a little woodier and something of an indistinct nuttiness emerge. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of cream, wood, hay, straw, malt, eucalyptus, and marshmallow backed by a hint of sugarcane. Subsequent infusions saw the nose turn creamy, buttery, and a little spicier. Interestingly, the nose became noticeably fruitier too, as I detected pronounced aromas of honeydew and lychee. The aroma of vanilla that I noted so early in my review session of What-Cha’s Yunnan Silver Needle also appeared around this time. New notes of minerals, butter, cinnamon, honeydew, oats, peanut, cantaloupe, apricot, lychee, and lemon appeared in the mouth. A soft, subtle maple candy note was just barely detectable on the finish of several of the middle infusions. The final few infusions presented lingering notes of minerals, sugarcane, oats, cream, and eucalyptus backed by nigh ghostly hints of lychee, wood, straw, and honeydew, though bitterness and astringency took over on the finish.

Okay, the lower water temperature that I employed during this session clearly brought out different notes compared to the higher temperature I used for the What-Cha tea. I also noted that several shared components came out at different points, also likely due to the difference in water temperature. Compared to my treatment of the What-Cha tea, the preparation method I used here generated a softer, sweeter, fruitier tea liquor with less woodiness, nuttiness, and herbal character, and while I was able to stretch this session out more, there was a bitterness and astringency present in the final couple of infusions that I found somewhat distracting. Again, if I had to pick between the two, I would go with this tea as well as the preparation I used for it, though I do not know how the What-Cha tea would have reacted to the same temperature and an identical brewing method. It was clear to me that these were more or less identical teas, so I’m guessing that the results would have been pretty much the same for me.

Dry leaf has a very complex smell with notes of fennel, celery, roasted nuts and peach, at least as far as I could tell.

After the rinse, the fruity aromas seem to be amplified, although not totally dominating. It’s a beautiful smell in any case. Another note that I picked up is that of fried plantain. Later on also some more green and floral notes of rose and cactus.

The first thing I noticed when I started drinking the tea is the incredible softness of the liquor. I would say this is a full bodied tea without a dominant flavour. There are some vegetal notes, it has some fruit sweetness and sourness in the finish. A lot of complexity and a lot of associations are brought, but few persist or are strong enough to be of note. The taste profile is somewhat reminiscent of a Baozhong Oolong with a tiny bit of background roastiness adding some more depth to it. Not much astringency is present and virtually no bitterness unless pushed a lot. At least in early steeps that is. Later, there is a light celery bitterness present.

The cha qi is warming and makes me quite relaxed and easy to enter a dream-like state.

Woah, what a complex and pleasant tea. I feel like the 25g I have will not be nearly enough for me to figure this tea out, but I will surely enjoy drinking it whenever I feel like exploring and/or relaxing. It’s the kind of tea that’s really not suitable for doing something else while drinking, because it just takes all my attention.

Dry leaves are a bit smaller than I expect, but give a fruity, herbal scent. When wet, aged smoke reveals itself, with a bit of meatiness. Quickly then, pine sap and lots of herbal notes. Overall round, married, and richly flavorful. Paler than I expected for 16 years, but still having great aged qualities, with tobacco and leather playing strong in the finish. A high note of astringency rides in the middle and late steeps and it empties out by steep 6 or 7. Great value overall and a tea with a flavor profile and aging history that is right up my alley.

The best jasmine tea I ever drank. Very natural jasmine aroma.

This is a subtle and mellow tea, not too strong in either aroma or taste. Smell is thick, heavy and damp with notes of pickle, grilled corn and (roast) vegetables. The taste is medicinal, grassy and floral. There is a bit of honey, but the dominant flavour is the one of dry grass/hay. Bitterness and astringency ares mild initially, but the astringency picks up steam considerable throughout the session. The mouthfeel is buttery, numbing and quite dry in the finish.

Overall, I found this sheng to be quite pleasant and easy to drink. However, it didn’t seem very complex. The cha qi is very strong though, especially considering it’s an autumn tea.

I have delayed posting this review for so long now. I finally decided to get it over with simply because I knew I had to get it out of the way at some point and wanted to be done with it. I dreaded posting this one so much mostly because I found this to be a really unexceptional tea. Normally, I like the Wuyi oolongs offered by Yunnan Sourcing, but this one did not do it for me in the least. For a Zhengyan tea, this was bland and poorly balanced with an unappealing texture in the mouth.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 205 F water for 6 seconds. This infusion was chased by 15 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, and 7 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of cinnamon, char, pine smoke, and cedar. After the rinse, I noted new aromas of roasted peanut, cannabis, and mushroom. The first infusion did not seem to offer anything new on the nose. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of cinnamon, char, and roasted peanut backed by a subtle creaminess. Subsequent infusions saw aromas of black cherry, black pepper, rock sugar, ginger, and hibiscus emerge. Flavors of mushroom, cannabis, and pine smoke belatedly appeared in the mouth accompanied by stronger cream notes and faint hints of cedar. New impressions of malt, black cherry, rock sugar, ginger, black pepper, hibiscus, caramel, and minerals emerged along with some subtle candied orange peel notes. As I worked my way deeper into the session, I also noted some faint grass, roasted green bean, and tobacco notes that came out toward the finish on several infusions. The last few infusions mostly offered notes of minerals, cream, malt, roasted peanut, and mushroom backed by very faint rock sugar, tobacco, and candied orange peel notes.

Generally, Wuyi Shui Xian is strong on the nose and on the palate, but this one was oddly timid in a number of places. The mouthfeel was much thinner and slicker than expected, and several of the aroma and flavor components did not always work well together. This was an awkward and often somewhat unappealing tea overall; indeed, it was definitely one of the least likable teas of this type I have tried. If you are looking for a quality Zhengyan Shui Xian, I’ll be honest and just tell you that this one is likely not going to be the tea for which you are looking. There are much better teas of this type out there.

Many of the reviews for the 2017 version of this tea at YunnanSourcing.com mentioned that it is pretty heavily roasted. That jives with my own experience with YS dan congs. So it was quite a surprise when this year’s crop turned out to be very green.

I steeped 4g of leaf in a 4oz gaiwan. The dry leaf had a delicious aroma of honey, apricot, flowers and baked bread. After a quick rinse, I got notes of sandalwood, wet rocks, and roasted peaches on the nose. The first steep tasted sublime. Juicy fruit nectar with TGY like florals. No char or roasting could be detected at all. Full mouthfeel with notes of honey and grape. I resteeped for 5 more infusions which brought out peachy notes but also a little bitterness. Nothing too heavy but probably an indication that I need to keep my steep times short.

This is the greenest Mi Lan Xiang I’ve ever had. Normally this type of dan cong has a roasted edge to it, but it’s barely detectable here. The taste and aroma of this tea resembles a TGY or duck shit oolong more than your typical Mi Lan Xiang. Recommended for fans of lighter oolongs.

Today I tried something a little different for this tea, in order to see if it makes me like it more. Also, I didn’t want to spend much time on the session. That’s why, I only used about 2.5g in a 100ml gaiwan filled to about 2/3 each time. On top of that, I also broke the dry leaves to about 1/5 of their original size, so that the extraction is faster.

The resulting tea is less pungent and lighter bodied. However, the taste is more robust and in fact manifests its more subtle aspects better. I am happy with how it turned out and I will continue experimenting with this tea further in the future.

The aroma of this tea is fairly weak for a Dan Cong oolong. I can smell some cookies (especially in the dry leaf), overripe fruit (passion fruit in particular) and sometimes cheesecake. The taste is bitter and crisp, with some notes of honey and herbs. Mouthfeel wise, I also found it somewhat underwhelming. It’s quite thin, soft and slightly sticky. Astringency levels are good, maybe a little too high, but that could very well be due to my brewing not being perfect. I didn’t detect any particular cha qi.

It is definitely not a bad tea, I enjoyed drinking it. However, given the price, I cannot recommend it, especially compared to other Dan Cong oolongs from YS.

The last of the four cakes I bought from boychik is this budget semi-aged sheng. Today’s session was very nice, with a bit more body and more pungent character than when I tried it a few weeks ago. Apart from having acclimatized by now, I think that preparing it in a larger gaiwan also helped. Even though this particular cake has been stored by boychik for a few years, the notes are very similar to the ones from the sample I got from YS more than a year ago. Nevertheless, I do detect some more tartness. In the aroma, it’s an alcohol like scent of fermented fruits, while in the taste it manifests itself through a grape skin flavour. Forest notes like moss and tree bark are also quite present, as is the camphor in the aftertaste. Apart from being cooling, mouthfeel is also slightly numbing I’d say.

I am very happy that this tea expanded my tiny collection of aged sheng, and I have no doubt I will be drinking quite a bit of it in the near future.

This is a very nice semi-aged, medium bodied tea with many subtle notes. It seems that the price has gone up considerably in the last few years, but I would say that it’s still a very good value.

The smell is not too strong, but pleasant nonetheless. It is quite cooling and I could find some thyme, petrichor, wet wood and ash aromas, plus a little bit of mushroom/moss after late steeps. The taste is a mix of sweet and bitter, with the main flavour I am getting being dried fruits, probably dates would be the closest approximation. The first few steeps seemed sweeter, while the middle of the session was fairly bitter actually. Other notes I get are those of dry wood, thyme (and other floral ones), mushrooms and camphor, the latter mostly in the aftertaste.

There is some nice astringency that helps the liquor, which is not too thick, even though it coats well.

Compared to another popular option from YS in this price and age range – the 2007 Pin Xiang “Bu Lang Shan Tuo” – this tea is definitely sweeter, more fruity and less herbal.

I’m going to put my note in as I wrote it, because I found this interestingly changeable for shou. It is actually the 2012 that has varied reviews, but the reason could be similar.

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Continuing with the shou because of my cold, I broke out my 2009 Nan Jian 801 tuo from YS. This doesn’t seem to have much to show for the age – it’s another quite woody and earthy shou, has good thickness, but there isn’t really anything that says it is older than the 2016 Yong De I was drinking before. Wouldn’t get this one again because there isn’t much point (yeah, it was a cheap tuo). The tuo and the wet leaves in the pot both smell much more interesting than the tea.

Oh hang on! I am now on my second 500ml water in my thermos, and now I get huigan if I riffle it in my mouth, which admittedly I don’t do that much when drinking shou. That makes some sense of the split in reviews for this tea – it has multiple entries under slightly different names on Steepster, and some say it is sweet and some say it isn’t. Either that, or the character really does change after 500ml of steeps, which is odd given that it isn’t that tightly compressed and the leaf I put in the pot was not a single big chunk but mostly loose.

Ok tea, you have risen in my estimation mid-review and become significantly more interesting. (I do prefer it if my shou isn’t finicky though!)

I’ve been putting in ~6g of these to give me more thicker infusions for my throat – that’s more leaf than I’d usually use. (Gongfu in 140ml clay pot, not entirely full – I’m getting 85ml out in my cup, most steeps about 25s, increasing as it thins out).

ETA: Water temp. Close enough to just-boiled gives huigan, once it has cooled a bit it doesn’t.

Not a bad white tea, although not as unique in flavours as some other moonlight white teas I’ve tried. It’s possible I am not brewing this properly, will try adding more leaf next time to see. There is a definite a sort of sweetgrass flavour that comes through which is quite nice, and only adds to the already thick liquor.

Golden Monkey is the tea that awakened me to black tea after avoiding it for most of my life. The YS 2016 version was marvelous. Last year’s version was also good, though not as sweet. So this year I decided to upgrade to the Imperial grade stuff to see if was really worth it. Well after gongfuing around with this tea, I can say this is totally different from the standard grade version and not in a good way.

This tea resembles keemun in appearance with its dark curly leaf. There’s fewer gold-tipped leaves here than the regular grade version. On the nose, I get an almost pungent aroma of dried fruit, smoke, and malt. The tea brews to a nice reddish amber. The taste though was far removed from any other golden monkey tea I’ve ever had. It has a very basic black tea, dare I say Lipton-like flavor. I didn’t get any of the deep caramel and molasses notes I love. There was no sweetness or real nuance to it at all. Subsequent steeps tasted the same.

I’m still scratching my head at this tea. It wasn’t bad or anything, just flat and kind of boring. Maybe this was an off year or something, but it’s hard to believe this is golden monkey tea let alone the high grade stuff.

Nice mix of different aromas, I can smell black pepper, bay leaves, nuts (especially in the dry leaves), overripe plums and cherries and red wine. Overall it’s quite a sweet smell though. Taste-wise, it’s more savoury and very nutty. Much more than most ripe pu-erh’s I have had. There is also some light coffee bitterness and medicinal note in the taste. The mouthfeel is creamy, effeverscent and a little bit numbing with a touch of dryness in the finish.

One can play around with the steeping times a lot for this one. I often like to push them long, which gives a less sweet and more coffee like character to the brew. I found this tea to be a great value, very suitable for daily drinking.

Based on the description I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I hoped this would be a nice blend between a milky and roasted flavour oolong. I was pleasantly surprised to find my hopes satisfied, with a happy addition of extremely floral notes! This is truly a unique oolong, but I will say that it’s probably not for everyone. The flavour is very difficult to describe. I think this is up there with milky oolong for me.

While this isn’t a bad black tea, I was disappointed. By far not as good as other dragon balls I’ve had from Yunnan Sourcing. At first it was beautifully floral and sweet tasting, but after a mere 3 brews gong fu style the flavour dropped off to a dull grassy-ness reminiscent of a tea at the end of a long brew session or cardboard. The only redeeming quality I found is that there is a very pleasant aftertaste of sweetness that lingers from the first couple brews. Perhaps I got an off ball? Won’t be purchasing again.

A very good green tea, not as pungent and delicate as the imperial version, but in terms of the price/quality ratio they are comparable.

The dry leaf smells of chestnut, seaweed with a hint of sweet (maybe vanilla) aroma. Wet leaf has more of a beef broth smell, complemented by some fresh grassiness in the background.

The taste has a mix of brothy, vegetal, mildly bitter and surprisingly also fruity (strawberries) notes. My favourite steep is probably the third, because of the thicker texture, cooling aftertaste and a bit more astringency. Taste-wise, it is not extraordinary, but definitely a pleasant savoury drink with sour and fruity undertones. In fact, this infusion somehow resembles a brighter version of Dong Ding oolong. I know it sounds strange, and maybe I am just imagining it, but that’s what came to my mind now.

This is another of the teas I finished back in May. If I recall correctly, I finished it sometime close to the end of the month. It was a tea I had a bit of trepidation about trying. Ginger is not one of my favorite things, and I had seen several other reviews of this tea that basically stated it was a subtle tea and may not be to everyone’s liking. I found that I shared those sentiments myself. Even though the ginger presence was thankfully not consistently overpowering throughout, this struck me as being mostly a very subtle, elegant tea not ideal for regular consumption.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 8 seconds. This infusion was followed by 13 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 10 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 offered a clear ginger aroma supported by pungent fruit and flower aromas (almost like a mix of pomegranate and orchid) and a touch of bread-like character. After the rinse, the ginger aroma grew stronger while subtle red apple and vegetal scents emerged. The first infusion then saw the ginger aroma continue to dominate, this time mostly overwhelming the other scents offered by the leaves. In the mouth, notes of ginger, baked bread, butter, and orchid were chased by pungent fruity (pomegranate) and vegetal notes that I could not quite place before the ginger reasserted itself on the swallow. Subsequent infusions saw the nose turn nutty, fruitier, and more vegetal. New notes of minerals, roasted almond, red pear, wood, cinnamon, lemon zest, hibiscus, green pepper, and grass emerged in the mouth alongside subtler notes of red apple, radish, and turnip greens. The final infusions offered mineral, wood, roasted almond, and ginger notes with some barely perceptible fruity and vegetal undertones.

This was an interesting oolong, but it was not one that I would be in any rush to reacquire. I appreciated that the ginger aroma and flavor was carried throughout the session and that the tea offered a unique range of aroma and flavor components beyond the ginger, but I found some of the tea’s most appealing qualities to be a bit too subtle in most places. As mentioned earlier, I am not the hugest fan of ginger, so this tea was likely going to be a tough sale for me anyway. I’m just happy that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I guess that says something. People who enjoy the smell and taste of ginger would probably enjoy this tea quite a bit. It’s still not my thing, but I enjoyed my experience with this tea and would not caution fans of Dancong oolongs to avoid it.

This is everything I’ve ever wanted out of a jasmine green tea. The jasmine is balanced and not perfume-y like many cheaper jasmine teas on the market. The pearls are a very decent, uniform size and have clearly been rolled with love.

This green tea is as light and refreshing as a white tea, it steeps very well both Western and Gong Fu style (I prefer the latter as you can taste the layers of flavour as they devlop). The leaves are incredibly pungent with a strong, true jasmine scent. More umami flavour arises in later steeps, but it never goes overboard. Almost no astringency or bitterness, just sweet floral notes and a light but calming cha qi.

I should also say that I have the 2018 batch.