Yunnan Sourcing

Stoned high cha qi. Very sweet, mostly sweet. Apricot, pleasant astringency and bite in initial steepings. Awesome qi.

This tea I had tried awhile ago but forgot to post the review for it, so this is the second time I have ordered it and reviewed it. I have to say I was in love with it immediately. I will confess this is the only liu bao tea I have tried so I have no basis for comparison. However, I find this tea incredibly interesting and both robust and delicate. For me it conjures the image of willy wonka, if he had a tea (instead of an everlasting gobstopper) that turned from chicken soup and then into a flower. Odd image and not very professional ‘tea tester language’ I suppose but that’s what I keep getting with this tea on separate occasions of review.

Gongfu’d (but have steeped it western style before and noticed no real difference)

First steep (no wash). 30ish seconds 195 F lilac body with orchid notes immediately hit palate and it smooths out and leaves a slight floral , mostly lilac, flavor lingering. The brewed leaves and tea soup smell interesting, like creamy chicken noodle soup. Very savory and wonderful; there is the surprising twist of the tea being floral and sweet. A nice copper tea soup color.

2nd steep, 200F 30 seconds: the lilac is out in full front, the orchid is still there as well. Conjuring past memories of fresh ‘hawaiian orchid lei’ . The tea has developed some bitter notes, but doesn’t detract and is still very pleasant (and this from someone who normally hates bitter tastes). It pairs well and brings out the lilac flavors. (Anyone who has tasted or smelt lilacs knows that there is that slight pugnent bitterness to it, and that’s what I am getting here).

3rd steep, 195 30 seconds: Smooths out a little bit, flavors less pronounced but I wanted to bring the bitter down a little bit afraid that it will develop in a negative way. The orchid comes out a little more here. Still drinkable and floral but the flavors are dying down a little bit. Orchid notes lingering on the tongue. I would probably stay at 195 F in the future, but 200 works as well.

4th steep, 205 50 seconds: Experimenting at a higher temperature. Tea still drinkable and floral with orchid lingering on tongue with slight pleasant bitter notes. This is probably where I will drop off but it might be good for another 2 or 3 rounds I am just avoiding more caffeine intake at this late of an hour.

This tea is not very long-lasting; however, for myself, the ‘thick creamy chicken soup’ smell of the brewed leaves contrasting against the delicate and floral tea itself is kind of a novelty which I happen to enjoy. I find the price to be extremely en pointe (16.50/250 grams). I had planned on ordering more of this but ended up ordering other samples instead. Will probably order a larger batch in the future.

This tea is absolutely gorgeous in its dry leaf appearance but decidedly less impressive as a drink.

First, the good things: if someone wants to enjoy all of the visual richness of different colors, shapes and textures that green tea can offer this tea would be an excellent choice. The other good thing is that this Mao Feng, unlike many other greens, is way less happy to smite you with vengeful bitterness for any deviation from the rigidly prescribed water temperature or steeping time. In short, it lets you to experiment.

Now about the taste. I have to wholeheartedly agree with eastkyteaguy’s review of the 2017 harvest: “This was one of those teas that seemed a lot simpler than it was. Had I not taken the time to carefully and patiently ponder each sniff and sip, I undoubtedly would have gotten a lot less out of it. I found that this tea required focus and dedication in order to fully appreciate it.” Unfortunately I tend to drink tea mostly for pleasure and when I pour myself a cup I really DO NOT mentally go “Bluegreen, now you need to muster all of your patience, focus and dedication!”

And to a casual sipper like me this tea tastes very light, full with grass, wild flowers, asparagus and a bit of umami. If you steep it hotter/longer it acquires a bit of equally pleasant vegetal bitterness. In short – a pleasant light tea that does not overtly impress you or shows a lot of personality. When you focus on every sip it does reveal a lot more but I strongly prefer teas that are way less guarded, those that want to be your friends from the very first sip.

I’m a little torn over that tea: At the beginning very nice velvety texture and overall quite soft and balanced with floral notes, but quickly a rather dominant astringency comes to the surface, which I do not like so well.
Images and more at https://puerh.blog/teanotes/2017-san-ceng-yun-ys

I will say within the first sip of this I could tell that I wasn’t the intended target audience for this tea.

Unfortuntely, I must have read the description wrong as YS was very accurate in describing it now that I am rereading it.

The tea itself is obviously good quality: it brews many steeps, and is nice and viscous in the mouth. Be very careful not to over steep this tea if you are going western style; I did a 20 second wash and followed with a 30 second gongfu at 200-205F and it was already very dark at that point.

It has very consistent bitter notes, not something I enjoy in tea, with some slight orange notes and light pepper taste. Overall, bittersweet chocolate is a good way to describe this tea.

It is very strong, dark and of a thick consistency. It was not an easy drinker for me, and it felt like the tea version of biting into high quality chocolate. I ended up drinking the 5th steep with a high fruit/hazelnut (sugary) breakfast and it kind of sat in the background and brought out the nuts; it was very nice taken that way but probably not what it was designed for. I’ll most likely just drink alongside food after this review.

There is a nice, slight tingling sensation that occurs in the mouth area. It does leave a lingering, chocolate aftertaste though; which I can admit was pleasant.

In my own personal book this tea would be about a 65 as it’s going to be a hard drinker for me and the cost was rather high; however, it is my fault for not reading the description properly and the tea obviously clocks in at a higher rating based on the factors I mention above.

This is probably obvious but don’t get this tea if you do not care for bittersweet
chocolate (cooking chocolate).

Not quite as nice as the other dragon ball I tried recently, but delicious nonetheless. Floral notes are most prominent, I did not note anything extra special about the black tea though.

This lovely tea is refreshing, sweet, and yet still robust in flavour. The chrysanthemum takes an already great black tea to new depths, the two ingredients dance together to produce a rich flower and chocolate flavour that ends off with the most pleasant notes of wildflower honey. I would give this tea a higher score if it were easier to brew, I find the dragon balls are too large and are probably meant for making a whole pot of tea or gong fu brews (not really my brewing style for black tea). This is hands down one of the nicer black tea blends I’ve tried.

I’m mixed on this tea. On the one hand it has a good medium body with a roasted peanut taste and great viscousness in the mouth. However, a couple imperfections which will keep me from investing in a brick. It has an acrid aftertaste which lingers on the tongue; it’s not an unnatural taste that feels wrong or chemical but I don’t particularly care for it. It is an easy to deal with tea and is not picky and brews many steeps. There are underlying notes of sweetness which never fully form into a particular flavor and they go on to create that bitter aftertaste . This tea was first brewed at 185 steeped until I found the taste pleasant (3 minutes apx) with a large amount of leaf and taken out and resteeped at 195 F for 5 minutes or so. I’ve had other Hei Chas and this one does not have the sweetness I really enjoy. The flavors are simultaneously too flat and too complex. Yu initially expect great things of it with the robust, sweet flavor coming immediately to the forefront but it never evolves and instead leaves you with contradicting flavors and a bitter , lingering sour note. Normally I don’t mind teas which are little basic but this does not work for me.

I guess I’m finally writing tasting notes for my Yunnan Sourcing teas that I bought last year before my dad’s stroke (it will officially be a year in a few days). He is doing good! He is coming along with his speech. AND he has been riding his bike and even went kayaking recently… so to see him doing these things now after seeing him in that ICU bed last year is amazing.
Also, SO MANY awesome books were released today. Sigh. I can never keep up, even if I was reading a book a day. A new Helen Dewitt last week and now There There by Tommy Orange, a new memoir by Porochista Khakpour, and more by Lauren Groff, A.M. Homes, Marisha Pessl and a couple more that sound awesome. AHHH. I am a READER but I am SLOW. Help.
On to the tea… I did buy the 2016 harvest of this because you guys gave it the best rating. The leaves here are twisty and wrapped together, black with hints of gold. I steeped them in a teabag again to make sure the barnacled infusers had no impact on the leaves (to be honest, I haven’t really noticed a difference in the steeping of the YS teas so far anyway, between the teabags and the barnacled infusers.) I do love golden monkey teas. I expect them to result in a black murky brew though. This is more like a light red. There is a complexity to the flavor here, it’s just not as deep and dark as I would like my golden monkeys to be. It’s nice that it’s complex though. Malty, smooth, sweet… hard to describe The second steep seemed more savory but much the same. I really don’t want to have to use two teaspoons of leaves every time to get great flavor. Hmm.
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoons for a full mug// 15 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // few minutes after boiling // 4-5 minute steep

Today I woke up and didn’t want to drink ANY of the tea that I’ve been happily sipping on over the last couple weeks. I wanted something new and exciting, alas, all I could find are a couple of these shou tuos (which I had buried at the back of my cupboard for emergencies as I was really not overly fond of this tea when I first bought it). I clearly need to buy more tea.

Anyway, to my happy surprise I liked these little tuos far more the second time around!!! I’m starting to think I happened to drink an off cake last time because there’s absolutely no compost/fishy smell today. This brew is woody, earthy, and slightly sweet when you drink it, but I will be honest — it smells like a barn. The scent of hay or wheat is strong, although not as prevalent in taste. My gaiwan is still stinky after rinsing it! There’s also a very nice leather/smoked flavour that I find is more common with shengs. The liquor is thick, rich, and pure black like coffee for the first four or five brews. Excellent re-steep value and mouth feel.

All in all, I’m now kind of wishing I bought more of these as they were very inexpensive at the time. I hope my third and final tuo tastes like this and not lacklustre/borderline disgusting like the first round. Fingers crossed!!!

Upon first sip a bold and earthy flavour hit my palette, followed by some pleasant woodiness and a semi-sweet aftertaste. What I didn’t enjoy is that it has a pungent compost smell which unfortunately was present through most of the steeps. If you can get past that this is a decent aged ripe pu-erh.

This tea quickly became my daily drinker when craving some hong cha.

Very comforting and easy drinking tea. Although when focusing on the taste it has some great fruit and chocolate flavors. It leaves a nice sweetness in the mouth lasting an hour or so. I can get it to last 8 or 9 infusions pushing it pretty long in power steeps for the last couple ones. Little to no astringency, and whatever bitterness is in there transforms to a lasting sweetness.

I originally bought 50g of this tea, and after a week of recieving my order, it was all gone. I then ordered 300g more of it, and already consumed another 50g of it. This white is flavorful and complex. It’s easy to brew and highly accesable. I have brewed this tea many times, and in the future, will contunue to. Once I run out of this tea, I’ll probably buy more if it to store for further aging.

You can read the rest of my review here…

https://www.theoolongdrunk.com/single-post/2018/06/04/Jingmai-Sun-Dried-Three-Aroma-Bai-Mu-Dan-White-Tea-Spring-2018-by-Yunnnan-Sourcing

One thing I liked about this tea was how clean and clear the material was. Another aspect I like about this tea is its surprisingly thick texture — especially considering this tea’s price point. Although I didn’t get a lot of qi (energy) from drinking this tea, it proved to be a relaxing session nonetheless. This tea proves to be a fun, yet accessable daily drinker. It’s something that I’ll look foward to having again in the near future.

You can read my full review here…

https://www.theoolongdrunk.com/single-post/2018/05/24/2017-Tofu-Village-Mini-Cock-Autunm-Sheng-Puer-by-Yunnan-Sorcung

I will first start by saying that my leaves do not look like the leaves in the photo. Sure, some of the leaves are green, but then half the leaf turns darker. I’m not sure if this is the leaf aging or production not being the same, so it looks different. Or maybe YS took a very bright picture. Anyway, these leaves sure are unique in color and length. They must be the longest leaves I’ve ever seen. I didn’t measure but a HUGE amount went into an empty fillable tea bag. The flavor is a little light for all these leaves I used for one mug. But what flavor is there is delicious — it tastes like a quality tie guan yin and possibly even had hints of another of my favorites: wen shan bao zhong. Smooth, buttery, floral, sweet and fresh. All the lovely characteristics I love to find in a lovely oolong.
Steep #1 // // 28 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 20 minutes after boiling // 2 1/2 minute steep
Steep #3 // 10 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep

June Wedding! Time to move onto a “borrowed” tea (or in this case, something I was gifted or received via a trade, exchange, or traveling tea box… in other words, something that wasn’t simply purchased from a company). So this tea came from the last Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox, which was organized by tea-sipper. Thanks to tea-sipper and the kind individual that shared this sampler!

I prepared the 2g sampler I saved from the box western style, and noticed a floral aroma of honeysuckle from the pale yellow infusion. Despite this tea being a 2015 harvest, I was really impressed with the flavor. It reminded me of some of the Yunnan green teas I’ve tasted, but still retained that very light, delicate, silky mouthfeel I’m used to with white teas… I can definitely see myself wanting more of this varietal! The base is warm and grassy, with a subtle hint of anise and nuts, and a sweet floral finish.

Really enjoyed this one, and surprised at how much flavor it produced, considering both its age and the fact that most whites I’ve tried in the past have had such a subtle flavor.

Sure, I’m writing a tasting note late for this one, but whenever I steep this, I’m always trying to find the magic everyone else was tasting with this one. I even steeped the leaves in a fillable empty tea bag to make sure the steeping wasn’t being altered by my barnacled infusers. The result seems the same as the infuser steeps I tried before. This tea is just too weak for me, even if I steep two teaspoons, even if I steep for five minutes and even if the flavor is SUPPOSED to be this light. It just reminds me of a very mild Laoshan black crossed with one of those roasted oolongs that aren’t my favorite. Somehow I’m just getting a roasty flavor and a thin fruity flavor, possibly cherry. Both steeps almost taste exactly the same. It’s just not the tea for me.
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoons for a full mug// 10 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 5 minute steep

My first experience with snow chrysanthemum and a very positive one.

This purple tea comes as a nice little black cake with orange and yellow snow chrysanthemum pieces all over – festive! The dry leave smells strongly of apricot, smoke, fallen leaves and spice. The flavor is fairly complex: I could pick up apricot, peach, prunes, spice, carrot, smokiness, dill, mineral… The aftertaste is very long, spicy and apricoty.

Ying Shan Hong reminds me very much of the fall season with bright orange colors, bold taste, splendid decay and wisps of smoke in the cool air. This tea effortlessly won me over and got me intrigued with the potential of snow chrysanthemum in other teas.

Going back to school is such a pain. I was looking forward to it so much, and now with classes starting Monday, I’m dreading it more and more. I also keep looking at my now barely manageable backlog of tea reviews and feel extreme trepidation with regard to the process of getting them all posted. I suppose I may as well start here since I have not reviewed a green tea in about a month. I think I finished a pouch of this tea back around the end of April or start of May. I can’t be sure at this point. I tend to love the Laoshan green teas Yunnan Sourcing offers, and no surprise, I loved this one. As a matter of fact, I am more than a bit shocked that this tea only has two prior reviews and that it’s reception to this point has been so mixed. In my opinion, this was an excellent green tea and a slight step up from its sister offering, the Laoshan Classic Green Tea from Shandong.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 176 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed 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, I detected pleasant, fully-formed aromas of grass, soybean, seaweed, and roasted walnut. After the rinse, I found a stronger soybean scent and new aromas of toasted rice and spinach, though the latter was rather subtle. The first infusion then introduced scents of bamboo and sugarcane along with a hint of roasted chestnut. The tea liquor offered notes of soybean, grass, spinach, seaweed, and bamboo that soon faded to reveal impressions of sugarcane, toasted rice, and surprisingly enough, both honey and butter. Subsequent infusions revealed belatedly emerging impressions of roasted chestnut and roasted walnut as well as stronger sugarcane and honey notes. Squash blossom, umami, mineral, nectar, lettuce, and asparagus impressions emerged as well. The final infusions offered lingering mineral, grass, umami, and butter impressions underscored by hints of nectar, sugarcane, seaweed, and toasted rice.

Though this tea did not offer anything out of the ordinary for a Laoshan green tea, it was extremely enjoyable nonetheless. Compared to its aforementioned sister tea, it demonstrated a bit more smoothness and staying power while also displaying admirable depth and complexity for a tea of its type. I cannot fault this one much at all. It definitely made me want to try this year’s version, though I doubt I will be able to spend much more on tea this year. Definitely give Yunnan Sourcing’s Laoshan green teas a chance if you are at all interested in Shandong teas. I doubt they will disappoint.

While I ordered the black version of this tea, and indeed Yunnan Sourcing marked my bag as such, what I received is this green version. Well, it’s Spring-time I suppose, so OK, why not:

Picked in April, 2017 (likely a few days after my son was born), this might no longer be at the peak of freshness. I’m also using filtered Santa Monica tap water, no scale, and no thermometer – so my results could probably be improved upon – although this tea seems very forgiving.

Infused at 15, 30, 45, 60, and 90 seconds. The liquor is a a lemon-lime-like shade of chartreuse. Nutty, vegetal, almost briney aroma with notes of wakame, and hay initially. The flavor follows the nose, adding in some fresh herbs (oregano?) and melon in the finish. More sweetness and less complexity towards the end of the session. Dry but not drying – energizing but not excessively so. Fairly rich and clean overall – hard to over-steep.

Yikes, I’m probably one of the most inconsistent reviewers on the site, but oh well.

[First steep] This tea had quite the effect on me, it’s really unique. On the first steep it brewed so incredibly clear and amber, with an amazingly fruity taste. I’d say it tasted like subtle grapes and figs, along with a little bit of a raisin. I’m not sure why so many people here in the states are too fond of raisins but honestly I love them so much, so that’s probably the reason why I really like this tea (so far). Lets hope the other steeps are just as good!

[at about the 4th steep?] This tea is still impressing, it still has that arisen taste to it, and has a great mouth drying effect with a tad bit of bitterness. It also tastes like, hmm I’ve forgotten the name but it’s the dried Chinese fruit that is like the arabic date, it tastes exactly like it! This tea is really good, and perfect for a late night read.

[I’m far too teadrunk to remember] Ahh, in conclusion this tea is probably one of my favorites. I’m not sure why it’s had such a bad reputation with other reviewers but I absolutely fell head over heels for this tea! It’s just got such a unique, smooth, and nuanced flavor, and really brightened up my day. I drank this tea during a late night read, and it deffinately was made for the occasion.

I’ll try my best to force myself to review teas, haha, but I’m probably not going to be on for a little while, but until then I wish all you tea heads a great summer months!

It never ceases to surprise me how many excellent variations of the basic tippy dianhong tea exist. This is one of them. This tea has a strong base of sweet potatoes and baked bread but on top of that has many sweet fruity and vegetable notes: peach, melon, floral, asparagus, spinach, broccoli. The taste is complex and enjoyable and remains enjoyable in the subsequent Western-style steepings (it did lose a lot of nuances, though) with hazelnuts coming forward strong.

This tea is very sensitive to water: to appreciate all of the nuances one needs to use sweet spring water. The overarching tea character is not one of the relaxation and lazy savoring – it is a very energetic, uplifting tea that is well suited to be one of the midday drinks at work. In that respect, this tea is not that dissimilar to more refined Keemuns. My only complaint is the regrettable lack of a lingering aftertaste , which Keemuns, for example, have in spades.

Nevertheless, this is tea is very good and worthy of a reorder. I will look if they have an imperial grade for this tea though since this tea would have a potential to be awesome.

A unique tea for sure. Strangely enough though, the same characteristics that I like so much in YS’s Ye Sheng black teas, don’t do it for me in this sheng. I can imagine that the profile becomes more likeable over time, but I am not going to invest in this tea in order to find out. Maybe in a few years time, I will try get hold of some sample that’s been aged more.

First time trying my sample and despite this being a very complex tea, I can’t say I really found the taste very pleasurable as it is. There is very little bitterness and only a little astringency. The taste has quite a lot of depth and is reminiscent of celery, parsnip, nettle and generally some roast vegetables. In the smell, I noticed robust notes of wet grass and soil along the vegetal ones of asparagus, kale, steamed vegetables and lemon. It’s a fairly sweet smell, which translates to the taste as well.

The mouthfeel is drying and foamy, with medium body. I get a strong warming sensation as well.

I can imagine that as I get more used to the taste, my enjoyment of this tea could raise significantly, but I will have to wait a few more sessions to assess that.