Yuannian Tea Co. - PuerhShop.com

This was a very inexpensive sheng from Puerhshop. Given the price of just over $17 I did not have too high expectations. Still this tea was better than the average cheap sheng. It had developed a nice orange colored tea liquid. It had not developed the taste of leather and tobacco that I frequently find in eight to ten year old sheng. It was fairly sweet at first until the tea opened up. Then it got bitter for a few steeps. Somewhere around steep eight I noticed it got sweet again. This was not the apricots of a young sheng. I am not sure how to characterize it so I won’t try. This was a very solid iron cake. I broke out the ice pick for this one and had a hell of a time prying off leaves. The average tea pick wouldn’t have been sufficient and those cheap tea picks they sell would have broken.

I steeped this twelve times in a 150ml gaiwan with 9.8g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 445 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min. The only truly disappointing thing about this tea is I felt no qi from it but then again I usually don’t feel noticeable qi from teas that others report have good qi. If anyone is looking for a cheap sheng that is good enough to drink but doesn’t cost too much I would recommend this one. While it was in no way spectacular it did have it’s good points. First it was cheap. Second it had no unpleasant aged flavors. Third the bitterness did not last and was replaced by a mildly sweet note. By sweet note I do not mean sugar sweet. I think this one was worth the money I spent on it certainly. If I had paid $80 or $90 for this I would have been disappointed but at $17 I am pretty happy with the purchase.

Its sweetness and strong YiWu fragrance has matured over the past year and a half to a darker, more earthy sweetness. You can still taste some of its region of origin towards the end of the sip, however it certainly changing to a thicker cup. The liquid has darkened a bit as well. I’m definitely going to hang on to enough of this one, in order to observe its continued development over the next couple years.