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Grabbed a few balls of this with my last YS order and started one yesterday during a meeting and am continuing on with it today. YGB is my favorite white tea at this moment, so I was excited to try this.

Liquor steeps out to a nice golden color and the flavor seems more like a silver needle than most of the YGB I’ve tried initially. Notes of hay and straw with a light sweet finish. Coming back to this tea today, it has morphed a bit (I love coming back to white teas a day later) and developed a bit more depth behind those notes of hay, with a more distinct honeyed finish a floral fragrance and a hint of malt. I think I will probably store and wait a while before trying one of these again.

It’s easy to drink and very convenient, but I think it needs some more time to become as good as it probably can!

Just opened my order of this tea, freshly harvested at the end of March. Would have loved to get to this sooner, but there are so many fresh greens I’ve been working my way through!

The dry leaves of this tea has a faintly sweet, vegetal aroma and each steep of this pours almost clear. The flavor is light and sweet, with indistinct fruit notes and a bit of a fresh grassy finish. I love how the color of the leaves brighten over multiple infusions as they hydrate, and I enjoyed a good number of infusions of this lovely spring green. I think I will try my next infusion with more leaf and also try this one cold steeped overnight.

Silly me finally adding this to my inventory when I only have a few grams left! I ordered this separately from the she qian so I could get that one asap, and this—harvested days later—came not too long after.

Another excellent long jing in my opinion, though definitely distinct from the superior she qian. The initial aroma of this one is nutty, roasty and beany, preparing the palate for the flavors to come. The initial steep is a very light clear yellow, and is smooth with a sweet, roasted chestnut body with almost sugary highlights and subtle florals rounding it out. I love the aroma that fills my space, which is—again—like taking in the aroma of a nice, savory broth. The flavor develops and strengthens in steep two, and even when steeped longer than intended doesn’t become astringent. After subsequent steeps, the florals move more into the forefront of the flavor profile.

While the she qian is, indeed, superior, this is still an excellent long jing and definitely a solid, more budget-friendly choice!

I feel like it’s taken multiple sessions over time for me to develop a better appreciation for this tea. Steeped up what will probably be my second to last session with this tea in a red clay teapot yesterday.

I drank it from the first steep without washing, so the initial steep was extremely light , but clean and sweet. As the tea darkened it became thick and smooth, with some mineral notes and an interesting cooling sensation offsetting the warm, creamy body.

Since I only got a couple of steeps in before it was time to leave work I tossed the leaves into my thermos and filled it with boiling water. It kept warm overnight and I finished it this morning. Still nice and smooth with an easy to drink sweetness, thick mouthfeel and that distinct cooling sensation.

I am glad I spent some more time with this tea and I think it is a nice daily drinker.

I have been doing an awful job at taking notes lately. :( Life has been so busy that when I have been drinking tea, I have just wanted to drink and enjoy it more organically.

Anyhow. I received this tea around this time in April (so been enjoying it for around a month), and it really does deserve a note. Thank you, steph, for recommending this one!

This tea has a lovely, sweet nutty aroma right out of the bag and tastes of sweet chestnuts from the first steep. The liquor is a very clear, light gold. I really enjoy (and recommend) taking it slow with this tea, enjoying the flavor and aroma of each steep /and/ the aroma of the leaves between each steep. After the first infusion, the aroma of these leaves is reminiscent of a nice, umami broth, and it really fills my office. Inhaling deeply is all it takes to find the nuttiness still beneath.

The following steep brings more of the same flavors, but with more depth, and a stronger sweetness kicks in in steep three. Overall, this is a lovely fresh green to enjoy, and I am very glad I got to enjoy the fresh harvest!

I unintentionally neglected my ripes for quite a while and have spent some time recently trying to drink them more. Last time I had this one, gave it a wash and a long rest before moving on to proper steeps.
Produced a nice, red liquor to start that gradually deepened, and started out light, clean and sweet in the first steep.

Developed a bit of viscosity and remained fairly mellow in flavor overall. I didn’t get pulled into this one enough to take super detailed notes, but it was easy to enjoy.

2005 Green 99

Backlogged note. No longer going in order, but who needs order!

The golden colored wash of this tea smells of smoked wood and petrichor, and has a hint of sweetness and huigan.

The first proper steep is more amber in color with a sweet, smoky flavor. A couple steeps in the color becomes more brown and the smoke dissipates, creating a very nice balance in the flavor.

A light cooling sensation kicks in and lingers in the throat from steep four on, and one more steep in, a pleasant hint of bitterness and a slight drying sensation kick in and the sweetness becomes distinctly honey-like, rounding out the entire experience.

Received a sample of this tea from a tea friend and had it not too long ago. I didn’t take super detailed notes because most of what I got out of it was a nice, deep, chocolatey aroma and flavor. Quite enjoyable! I still have a bit left, so I will take more detailed notes next time if I feel the need to. Thanks, steph!

Another sample from Hoalatha. Couldn’t wait to try this tea out of sheer aroma-driven curiosity. It smelled like fruit loops. Straight up. I’ve definitely had grainy and cereal-y teas before, but this was my first time having a tea that smelled of one so specific!

This tea steeps up nice and golden with a thick texture and sweet flavor that exudes fruit loops and more of that cereal graininess. In the following steep, a darker sweetness and malty, fruity flavors emerge. Really, really enjoyed this one!

‘Tis the time of year for all the wonderful fresh harvest teas, and this is my first time trying some of the fresh spring stuff YS carries. I tried their mao feng last year later in the year and enjoyed it, so figured this would be a good one to try. I wasn’t wrong.

This mao feng has a sweet, vegetal aroma and flavor, and the liquor seriously pours almost clear. It is light and refreshing with an almost syrupy smoothness, and it makes the mouth water without being drying.

I find the flavors to get a bit more robust in steep 3, with appreciable umami and chestnut notes emerging, so I upped the temperature in steep four and five to pull out as much of that as I could before the leaves were spent. Very good, and very glad I got this fresh. I’ll be drinking it frequently and sharing it with tea friends and family for sure!