Yunnan Sourcing

I appreciate sheng with depth, power, and kuwei, or pleasant bitterness. I might as well admit that I am a total sucker for descriptions/tales of teas that come from remote mountains—especially if they’re accompanied by photos. Scott knows this well. Needless to say, I had high expectations for this tea.

The dried leaves in my sample are mid-sized spindly tendrils that smell of sweet grass and wild flowers. Wet leaves are of a candied, high floral aroma. Steeps 1 to 6 start out soft and candy-like, then quickly turn towards a dandelion greens-type of bitterness quickly replaced by high sweet floral and raw honey notes. After steep 2 the tea soup becomes thick and heavy with with the sweet (floral), bitter (dandelion greens), and savory mingling together.

Those flavors are accompanied by a delightful, saliva-inducing, very strong mouthfeel that quickly fills the mouth and throat and lingers for a long time after drinking. It’s as euphoric as it is tranquil. The energy is out of this world. It sets in my entire body. I am transported back to that remote, high altitude forest whence these leaves came. At this point, I don’t care where they came from because this is powerful stuff.

Edit: I recommend very short 5 sec steeps until 6. As the bitterness increases with each steep so does the huigan and mouth feel. The empty cup and cha hai are covered in an intense tropical orchid fragrance. I can see this tea becoming more textured and impactful in the coming years.

Appearance: twisted reddish-brown whole leaves when dry with very few stems or non-tea parts. When brewed, the leaves appear to be about half oxidized. Aroma: astringent, spicy up front, with fruity and nutty notes. Mouthfeel: middle of the road. Taste: 1st steeping: Considerable astringency, followed by a distinctly lychee-like flavor, with some cinnamon and black pepper mild spice, as well as nutty and woody notes. There’s some of the longer-lasting mild bitterness, but not it’s more at the front of the mouth than the back of the throat like a high mountain greener oolong would have. 2nd steeping: similar, but more of a honey flavor, and the astringency and spice notes are considerably reduced. This trend continues with increased steepings. Overall, I like the first steeping very much, but the following steepings lack some complexity.

All this talk of LBZ made me want to try one of my samples ive been saving for a rainy day, so I broke this one out. Also because ive got two sleepeze tablets (diphenhydramine hydrochloride) and one should knock me out at a decent time I thought, what the hell, lets go.

Quick rinse, first couple of steeps & I can smell the leaf from across the room. Prunes, smoke, camphor & just the right amount of dankness. A bit murky

Taste is soft but powerful, deep & sweet aromas from the liquor. I love these rounded shengs. Nice toungue numbing already, sweet taste, its vegetal but I cant work out what. Like deep pastel shades of dark brown green mixed with sparkly sweet overtones. It was balanced nicely, I liked the thickness as well. Everything just ‘right’.

And the bitterness is just slowly creeping in. I was expecting a more bitter tea but it took a while for the raw to show itself, and even then it wasn’t as strong as I thought it would be. At about steep 10 I was just leaving the gaiwan to do its thing. It never went off the scale, I found it to be quite forgiving in that respect.

All in all a nice session. I liked the first 5 steeps the best, the sweet prune & dank camphor was nice. Hefty price tag though!

Also this was the last of my sample, not quite sure how much but could have done with a bit more leaf to fully appreciate the flavour.

2014 harvest from Terri. I love that her box has a few same teas from different years because i can try drinking them at the same time to see which i prefer. Just makes for a fun time. This one i haven’t had, as i generally prefer autumn harvests. Hot there was a strong note to this one that sort of jarred with the overall cup….as it’s cooled, that’ lessened and it’s a smoother, more mellow , malty cup now. i still prefer the autumn 2015 harvest that i’m also drinking, but this was a decent cup :) thanks terri!

https://wordpress.com/post/cuckoossong.wordpress.com/424

Rinse smell is soft and inviting, with promises of complex floral and honey notes in the aroma. Tasting this rinse, there is already a density and sweet, creamy character to this tea, though it’s still more water at this point… There is a sticky, candy-like aroma from the leaves. The first proper infusion is clear like golden morning light, but still tinged by snow-pea green. As I sip, the first thing to strike me is the rich texture which drags itself down the tongue leaving fresh vegetable and wild honey sweetness in its wake.

The next notable element is the tea’s qi, or energy. Though not yet overpowering, I do feel a sudden rush to the head, which eventually settles behind the brow. This is a thick and sweet young sheng, active and full of life.

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The subsequent infusion glows a darker and deeper gold without the hints of green from before. Its taste is more pungent, with notes of flower pollen and beach grass. There is also a bitterness present in this infusion, hiding just beneath the surface, which leaves behind a back and forth interplay between it and the sweetness in the aftertaste.

The third cup is clearer and crisper, with a more forward but fast passing bitterness. The creamy and desserty qualities I associated with the 2013 San Ke Shu become more apparent, in a way that is almost reminiscent of a Taiwan Oolong such as Jin Xuan, being both milky and vegetallay sweet at the same time.

The fourth infusion is crisper still, admirably structured and with a texture approaching what I would call ‘minerally’. Subsequent infusions remain full, alive, bitter, sweet, with a pungent floral complexity. In my very humble opinion, this is a nearly perfect young raw puer. As things stand, I can’t really see any reason to sit on this cake or put any portion aside for aging- this is already a very real tea, with a character that is direct and pure. Each steeping is enjoyable, and brings me back to why I love tea.”

Another from nicole that i’ve had a couple cups of but apparently forgot to write a note on haha. I don’t drink a lot of green teas because i generally reach for blacks and puerhs first so they’re not as fresh by the time i get to them. Samples are better for me with greens. This is a green tea…savoury more than hitting you in the face with leafy, vegetalness. Overall a nice treat to try :) thanks Nicole!

I did a big oolong order from Yunnan Sourcing recently and this was the best tea of the bunch. A bit surprising because I’ve struggled with dan congs before and normally shy away from roasted teas.

The roasting on this tea though is subtle and accentuates its honey and fruity flavor. I’m still fine-tuning the brewing, but my experience with it has been amazing. The natural sweetness of this tea is unreal – hard to believe it has no added sweetener. The honey flavor is thick, coating your entire mouth and then finishes with a nice mineral touch. I’m not getting any of the floral flavor that others described. Occasionally, it hits you with a stunning peach flavor that’ll make you swear you were drinking a flavored tea. At present I can only coax it out by cold-steeping the half-spent leaves. I’m sure there’s a way to hot steep it to get even more peach out of it. Currently I’m doing flash steeps with boiling water which works okay. May need to experiment with lower temperatures.

This one makes an awesome cold brew and I can see this being a perennial buy.

The brew to this smells more appealing after the Classic version—more like a chocolate biscuit. The wet leaves almost smell like a hot cereal with cocoa. There’s something almost liquor smelling about the brewing leaves that leaves me a little dizzy with anticipation. I’ve never had the Godiva chocolate liquor, but it’s how I would imagine it to smell.

The cocoa flavor is much more pronounced than in the YS Classic.; it comes out of my nose as I breathe out. The dark chocolate flavor becomes sugary as it cools, and the flavor turns a little bready. I’m getting chocolate croissant feelings from this tea. There’s a bit of astringency that brews out in subsequent steeps, and any bitterness is like that of a dark chocolate rather than a bitter black tea; it’s very faint.

I did a comparison on the YS Laoshans against Verdant. Full post and photos here: http://www.catlaittea.com/2016/09/05/laoshan-showdown-yunnan-sourcing-vs-verdant/

Once brewed, the wet leaves lose their Halloweeny smell, for which I am grateful. Trashy American chocolate isn’t really my thing in either tea or food form. The aroma is more like a burnt chocolate pudding, a scent I can definitely get behind. I’m one of those people that actually enjoys eating the skin off of a cooling chocolate pudding.

The brew is a bit thin, lacking in body and depth, for a black tea. There is a light cocoa flavor, a sugary sweetness, and a hint of yeasty sourness. That hint of Halloween candy is back on the finish. As the brew cools, it gets sweeter. There is also some slight astringency on the back of the palate.

Subsequent steepings reveal a bright, yeasty honey flavor with a wash of cocoa on the finish. Though it’s still on the astringent side, the brew definitely thickens and sweetens as it cools. I’m still getting that Halloween candy flavor out the nose.

Though this tea is perfectly pleasant, I know I’ve had better Laoshans than this.

I did a comparison on the YS Laoshans against Verdant. Full post and photos here: http://www.catlaittea.com/2016/09/05/laoshan-showdown-yunnan-sourcing-vs-verdant/

Happy Labor Day everyone, I hope you are having a fantastic holiday weekend. I am not doing anything special, well Ben has off from work today so we might play some Magic, but other than that it is just a day without mail. I know one exciting thing I will be doing today, cooking! Making sure Ben has lunch for the week, it will be a grand event.

Today’s tea is another hong cha from Yunnan Sourcing, Big Snow Mountain of Mengku Black Tea * Spring 2016 in my ongoing quest to go all Pokemon with all the red teas. You know, there are a lot of tea blogs out there, and several of them are very single focused, usually on Puerh but also several on Greens and Oolongs, if I am not careful I could easily become a blog dedicated to the world of reds, so I have to limit myself a little…only a little though. So, first with the sniffing, and what good sniffing it is! It is both light and rich, not one of those red teas that smacks you in the face with a bar of chocolate and pile of malt, this is subtle caramel peanut brittle, gentle malt, subtle mineral notes, and a bit of a fresh woodsy quality, like someone snapped an oak twig next to my nose, but one that has gone dry rather than being green. Recently dry, not soggy and rotting.

Oh hey! A peppery red! It seems like the last couple of year’s Dian Hongs have been lacking in the pepper department, so it is nice to run into one with that note. Alongside the pepper is a stronger note of malt, some sweet molasses, and a nice undertone of peanuts. The aroma of the first steep is lovely, very ‘Dian Hong’ with notes of toasted peanuts, malt, molasses, and sweet caramel. I was a little surprised I could not detect any yammy goodness, but not all teas have the orange tuber as a note.

Well hello mouthfeel! This one is not so much smooth as it is slippery, like thinned down okra and that is super fun, it is like a slip and slide in my mouth but with tea! It starts with this smooth slippery quality, but by the time I have swallowed it the texture turns to a more familiar thickness. The taste is delightfully sweet, starting with honey and caramel and moving to malt and sweet potatoes with a finish of peanuts and a touch of very distant roses.

The second steep brings in a fascinating change, distant notes of patchouli and myrrh in the aroma along with the sweet caramel and molasses, I love when tea gets that resinous quality (though technically patchouli is leafy, but shh.) The slippery quality of the first steep is replaced by thick smoothness that sticks around the full steep. The taste has a tangy woody cocoa shell quality that blends really well with a sweet potato and molasses middle. The finish is gentle resinous myrrh and a lingering aftertaste of caramel coated peanuts, yum!

Did I go for a steep three? You betcha, I also went for a steep nine but I won’t bore you all with the details in the middle. This tea does not really change a lot between steep two and the inevitable finish, but this is not a bad thing since when it reaches its stride the stride tastes lovely. I really liked how it could be a solid daily drinker or a special occasion tea and plan on adding more to my collection.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/09/yunnan-sourcing-big-snow-mountain-of.html

This is an enjoyable tea with a heady aroma of honeycomb and orange blossom. Lots of juicy citrus and floral fruitiness along with a slight tartness. The taste and scent of this tea lives up to its Pomelo & Flower name. It compares favorably to TTC’s Citrus Scented Four Seasons which is quite remarkable considering this one is unflavored. The difference is YS’s is fruitier and thicker while the pomelo scented oolong has a more refined taste. Both are good in their own right, but lately I find myself craving the YS tea more.

I’ve tried many different ways of brewing this tea, and flash steeps at just below boiling seem to bring out the best flavor. Short steeps are key to minimizing bitterness. Packs a nice cha qi/caffeine punch too.

From Puerh TTB! This one was alright – I wasn’t the biggest fan of the flavor profile. Started out kind of mushroomy with a bit of nuttiness and very slight sweetness, getting smoother and more balanced through the first 6 steeps. The mushroomy flavor started to get more savory – like those weird mushrooms you find in your Ramen Noodles (that taste awful to me by themselves) – shiitake? After that, I started getting a bit of a weird off note in the finish – like it was getting a little too savory and a bit funky. A floral note also started to develop on the front, along with a slight sugarcane note, though this tea was never super sweet or anything.

I did feel a bit of a buzzing qi mid-session, interesting as I was using my small gaiwan, so not imbibing too much tea overall. Decently powerful tea. More about that than flavor for me.

Woodsy, malty, fruity, astringent, a little bit bitter. This tea was very tasty. A classic red tea flavor without the chocolate overtones I’ve experienced from several recent teas.

Glad I picked this one up, for sure.

I am in a tough spot of mental illness. I am trying to be gentle to myself.

This had cha qi from the first sip. I thought I was imagining things until I looked at the website description and it did indeed mention powerful qi. Perhaps it is from being re-roasted a few times over the course of nearly a decade.

Gongfu’d in my Da Hong Pao yixing. First steep was of roasted mineral water. Subsequent steeps gave way to distinct notes of bourbon and vanilla coke aged in an oak barrel. When the bourbon gave out, last few steeps were of light cola with a dash of honey.

Not something I could drink every day, but what an experience it was!

re-review as I found this works a lot better in small gaiwain, slightly overleafed (thanks whoever suggested that in the tea of the day thread) & 70c water, treating like a green, flash steeping.

You do really need kids gloves with this one to stop it tasting soapy, but this way there is the classic ya shi perfume & slightly nutty aroma, but on an almost green-tea base. Not any citrus bitter, but interesting dry vegetal taste buried under the pearlescent aroma.

Weird tea for sure.

totally not sure about this one..

It looks amazing on paper, Ya Shi leaf (of which some of my favourite tea has come from) but put in a dehydrator early to stop the oxidisation, and you end up with a lovely green leaf with an amazing fresh aroma.

Apparently this is a new technique, & im finding it hard to work out how to brew it,, the leaf is more delicate than TGY, so too hot & we are in oily soapy blech territory, even when flash steeped. Ended up around 70-80c gongfu being the best imo, where the oily taste was kept at bay, because there isnt much else to balance it out. I cant see it working western but maybe with a lot more water it might, but those leaves being in the water for too long.. doesnt scream to me how a Dan Cong should be.

What else to say? well its a little vegetal, lovely steamed milk aroma, tiny bit sweet, but really needs something else to balance out the soapy taste. After every sip I was shaking my head wondering what the makers are trying to put across here – that oily taste, sure its recognisable but all the really nice fenghuang ive had, they had loads more going on which balanced it out (and overtook it with fruit or velvety lushness or florals or, you get the idea – when I brew im keeping the oil at bay, but when its the dominant flavour? hmm dunno about that)

Maybe with some detailed brewing instructions I might like it more? im currently stuck as to how to make this more palatable. its very odd to my tastebuds.

Im also going to stop drinking it for the time being because if this makes me think of soap everytime I drink my other favourite teas by mental association, i’ll be very very displeased..

This is another one of those shous that smells like crab boil to me—dry leaf, wet leaf, and brew—although the wet leaf smells a bit earthier, and the brew has a hint of a sweet smell to it. I don’t mind the crabbiness, as it doesn’t mean that the tea will taste fishy, and as a Floridian, I’ve never found crab spices offensive. So it works for me.

The brew itself is mineral, dark flavored, sweet, and thick. That tangy kind of ferment flavor is strong, but again, it’s not fishy at all. I pushed it a little around steep 4, and it got a bit bitter in a way that reminded me of a black coffee, which was nice. It did get a bit astringent toward the end.

Yikes! Too much for me. Has that sour, vegetal taste like zucchini. It’s bitter and astringent with that shengy kind of flavor that I can’t really describe yet.

I have a sample that’s 2011 of this cake so I assume I am leaving the review on the right tea. I had this one today and it did not impress me. It brewed up a gold colour. I was having the tea while I was working so I wasn’t mentally making notes of each infusion. It is just that each infusion did not impress me. I would brew one up, have a few sips, say “nope, not right”, and then do another infusion. I didn’t hate it but I can’t say I loved this tea either. Nothing seemed to stand out about it.

This was a sample kindly send to me by a steepster to aid in my quest to find black teas I could enjoy without sweetener. I’m beginning to suspect that for me there are not such teas., but the learning process is fascinating.

This tea is intense. Even smelling the brewed infusion smells intense, kind of a sharp, intense smell that almost seems too intense to drink. Without sugar, it is too much for me, but with sugar it got me going pretty quickly.