Yunnan Sourcing

Been giving my sample a heavy dose of humidity since last tasting. Flavor and aroma is definitely improving. Starts with very faint wet storage taste. Some bitterness and floral notes, no astringency.

Perhaps it’s in an awkward stage but this tea is somehow lacking in flavor over all. It’s hard to describe. I will need to try and increase the leaf ratio. Initial flavor is of eucalyptis and slight camphor/menthol. Delayed sweet apricot huigan, some bitterness. Thin body. Some qi. Vegetal and some umami.

Brisk, floral, honey, astringent

Gorgeous leaves

Sweet and vegetal. Vegetable broth. Excelent.

Sweet and bitter. Brews red.

Glad I just bought one, i found it unchanging and one dimensional. Sweet and spicy, cappable of some bitterness (i liked the bitter potential). Ball was VERY tightly compressed. Would make great iced tea. Standard yunnan white taste.

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