Yunnan Craft

Kindly included as a freebie in my latest order — thank you! It’s been so long so I’ve tried a young sheng, so I’m delighted to have a go at this. Prepared in a porcelain pot.

First several pours smell and taste like vanilla sugar in an astringent-sweet broth. It’s deep and clear, pleasant to drink. Buttery and nutty flavors are folded in as if they were made of silky fluff. The tea has a flowery component but it’s light and natural, not reminiscent of perfume. Bitterness is elusive — until it isn’t! Strawberry candy lingers in the aftertaste which later turns a bit acidic. That strawberry flavor is unlike hard candies; it is more oily-tasting? like a Hi-Chew, and later with the acidic aftertaste, it becomes reminiscent of the actual fruit. By the fourth steep, brassy apricot and astringency take over. That metallic taste is one I tend to get from autumn teas like this one.

The ball opens with ease, which is always welcome in this format. Poking through the leaf, I found a fully intact huangpian leaf an inch longer than my middle finger.

Lovely late morning tea.

This is a dry stored tea evidenced by both the taste and the leaves which peel easily in sheets from the brick sample.

Salty, peppery TCM, spicy redwood. No dank must or earthy wet soil notes. Although it’s a bit papery, that quality melds well with the light, mineral texture. Some small burps bring back the taste. A clean and easy to drink tea. This is the shou pu’er I want after a meal, rather than having a thick, creamy or oily shou as a meal in itself. It possesses a neutralizing energy and acts as a gentle digestive.

The brew can be forgotten about in the pot and still produce an easy drink with slight caramel accent.

Even without oversteeping, this is not a durable tea. But at $0.11/g, I think it’s a good deal and would recommend for the price.

A continuation of last night’s pot of 2006 Mengku Rongshi Da Xie Shan from Yunnan Craft. I have an order on the way from them for the first time in 4 years, so figured I’d dip back into their selection.

Tastes like the sheng puerh version of the region’s red teas. Kind of a blond tobacco taste with notes of elderflower, honey, elderberry, raisins, mugwort. Slightly buttery, honeyed and light with sweet smoke at first then becomes more fruity midtoned sparkling and cooling. Cool sweetness in back of mouth. Bitterness is light but if pushed hard, can overtake the tip of the tongue while numbing it. Some steeps can be astringent on my tonsils, others can be rather alkaline, and others oily-colloidal or thin and juicy. Smoke comes out again later with more of a raisiny taste.

The dark shades of the dry leaf cloak the range of green still present in the wet leaf, which sometimes greets with butterscotch when lifting the lid for the next pour from the kettle.

My body swells subtle with wild feel energy. A better afternoon session than evening as the caffeine effects are gentle yet persistent.

It’s a generally friendly sheng with some age that I wouldn’t hesitate to gift or serve. It is sold out at Yunnan Craft. They claim there were 2 batches made, and this tea received Kunming storage . The cake available at King Tea Mall doesn’t state which batch, and it has received Guangzhou storage.

I had a nice Huo Shan Huang Ya from Teavivre last year, and thought it would be fun to try the same tea from another vendor for comparison. Both teas were around $18 for 50 g, meaning that the quality should be similar. Since Yunnan Craft didn’t provide brewing instructions, I used the ones from Teavivre, steeping 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot at 185F for 50, 60, 70, 90, 120, 150, 180, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted rounds.

The dry aroma is of hazelnuts, green beans, snow peas, and butter. The first steep has notes of candied hazelnuts, green beans, snow peas, grass, butter, and something fruity that’s close to melon. Asparagus appears in steep two and the tea has a starchy quality. I get corn and cornhusk in the next couple steeps, with apricot sneaking through in the aftertaste. Subsequent steeps have notes of spinach, beans, grass, apricots, and minerals.

This is a lovely yellow tea that’s perfect for spring. I think the one from Teavivre had more nutty, buttery flavours while this one is greener, though it’s hard to remember much about a tea I drank a year ago. Both are less aggressively vegetal than most green teas—a definite plus in my books!

Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Pours goldenrod, starts so delicately with creamy tropical fruits. Pineapple, banana, apricot. Bitterness stays low in the mouth, around the tongue and low cheeks… this is maybe the clearest huigan transformation I’ve experienced yet. Plum.

I used just 3g in a baby gaiwan, so not a huge qi bomb for me. I’d like to revisit another (that is: available) vintage or two of this and see what I find.

Thank you, derk. <3

Last of the Blind Samples from several years ago. This is “E”, a basic sheng. Young astringency, bitter hay and stonefruit. But I feel relaxed, so there’s that.

Moving on to blind sample D

This sheng puerh has a meadowy, plummy date aroma to the dry leaf, strawlike with a rich fruity sweetness. Warming brings a sharp tang like dried cherries and prunes. Rinsing turns the leaf more pungent with eggplant, olive, osmanthus and marshmallow root.

Aromas and tastes are consistent throughout steeps. On the nose I get strong notes of grilled peach and grilled eggplant, wet hay. In the mouth, the tea has a deep, rich taste up front of hay, purple flowers, marshmallow with a citrusy feeling. The body is viscous and soft with a bitterness that is not so well integrated. It does linger and is a bit intrusive right now but I think it will complement the tea as it transforms with age (if it ages well – I think this might be a sheng subjected to new methods of processing as there is some visible oxidation and prominent aroma). Burps early in the session, no stomach discomfort.

This leaf has enough strength to last several infusions but I did lose interest at some point and didn’t steep it out. The way the tea presents its character and bitterness up front, along with its energy, has me thinking this is bush tea or young tree. Also, the leaf has a thin, flimsy structure, but I do see a few fat, chunky buds that look like they’re from a different pick. Processing isn’t the best – plenty of scorch marks. A difficult to describe intensity moves through my body that has me thinking Menghai region but I’m definitely not confident in that assessment.

It’s actually a decent tea but not my jam. I think I’ll brew up the remainder of the sample as iced tea.

One more blind sheng sample to go!

Sample C

Tastes like a wild sheng or a purple leaf cultivar, but from where?? Really nice touch of soft floral-woody cinnamon with some ooey gooey baked plum-peach to the warmed leaf. At first drying and very juicy, it takes a few steeps to settle into character — let’s call it “Leathery Osmanthus atop a Bed of Straw and scented with True Cinnamon”. Main vibe skews savory, kind of like roasted chicken? A little purplish bitterness that numbs. Mineral. At times coppery metallic. Autumn tea crosses my mind. The sweetness in the cooling huigan reminds me of peppermint. The aroma and aftertaste really nail down that Leathery Osmanthus association.

A good one, not that any of the blind samples so far have been bad. I was simply feeling this one today <3 Easy drinker for me, not too complex but alluring. Feels like it would age well enough.

At the end of session, very strong compulsion to listen to
Depeche Mode – Enjoy the Silence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGSKrC7dGcY

Edited to add: the energy of this one is deceptively strong. I felt normal while drinking this. Hours later, I experienced levels of wackiness I haven’t felt in ages. Loaded with caffeine but somewhat tempered by other compounds. Idk, the more I think about how it made me feel, I’m not too keen on it. Like some Jingmai teas I’ve had, energy is akin to ephedrine. Jingle-jangle.

Blind sample B

The color of the leaf and aromas/flavors point to this being a wild sheng. The overall vibe is the low, damp and earthy scent of forest mycelium mixed with iodine. Juicy and very tingly, metallic. Bitterness is present and grows on the tongue before giving way to a sweet and fruity-floral aftertaste that rises into the sinuses, turning into a more distinctly rich, brown sugary date. Mildly cooling in throat and chest but not in mouth. Needs longer steeps to bring out its potential.

This one didn’t grab me as much as the first sample but it was fun to taste what I think is an example of wild tea with some age and humidity attached to it, the latter of which I don’t think I’ve experienced before.

Thank you, Yunnan Craft!

Yunnan Craft out of kindness sent 5 blind sheng puerh samples with my first order 4 years ago. They wanted to know my thoughts. Several years later (such is the life of a tea hoarder)…

I present Exhibit A.

Observe the leaf — strong and healthy, fuzzy. Colors range from almost black to to silvery fawn. A mix of leaf and needle. Further inspection of the wet leaf halfway through the session yields a mostly 2 leaves and bud picking, large leaf variety.

This is an easy drinker, mellow. At first it is sweet and oily, medium-bodied and fluid, rather mouthwatering with a pleasantly strong tingling on the sides of the tongue. This texture transitions to some easy bitterness with brassy character midway through the session and ends as a sweetwater brew.

The taste does not vary too much. It starts out fruity-sweet with apricot and a general tone that is a mix of grass-hay-yellow apple-chrysanthemum — mostly a mild brown-tinged gold affair like the color of the liquor. A hint of clove.

With the first session in a cheap-ass ‘yixing’ clay pot, I don’t seem to pull much aftertaste. However, in a tiny-ass duanni clay pot, the sweet date-brown sugar aftertaste and returning sweetness emanating from the very back of the mouth are not shy. Also, in the cheap pot, the liquor is more refreshing and I notice much more of a citrus zest tingly bitterness. Tonight with the duanni, it is more fragrant and fruity in the mouth. Interesting, since duanni is supposed to mute aromas. Neither clay seems to affect the mild expression of mouth-cooling, nor the warm spice felt in the chest.

Overall, this is a very easy tea. It is one I would recommend to anybody who enjoys sweet but not syrupy young sheng and is looking to avoid a gut bomb of astringency. There’s a certain elegance and balance to this leaf that goes somewhat unannounced. It is not a bold and brash brew.

If I am to take a guess, I’d say this is Lincang region tea 4-5 years old (could it be autumn?) and Kunming stored for a brief amount of time before it landed with me. I’m probably way off! Too bad Yunnan Craft at this point probably has no record or recollection of what was sent to me.

4 more blind samples to go :)

Well, this is technically a sipdown as well, but since I had only 5 grams from derk (from when?), and I have used them all in one gongfu session, I won’t really count it as a sipdown.

I even preheated the gaiwan today and after I have added the leaves, a huge “cloud” of chocolate notes appeared. A rich, dark chocolate notes.

Don’t let the colour fool you. It brews very bright tea soup, but the flavour notes as well as the aromas are quite “dark”. As I have already mentioned, it has got dark chocolate taste (as well the aroma), stonefruits, but again the darker ones — or rather autumn ones, like plums, maybe almonds, and certainly nutty notes were there as well. Graham, coffee, carob are other notes that come to the mind.

It is quite forgiving in steeping time terms, becuase honestly, during studying I just can’t count the duration of steep, nor exact parameters of each steep. It is very no-fuzz tea, but with very nice and complex taste.

Thank you derk a lot for this tea. I just wonder when you sent it to me :)

Wow, what a tea! I got this tea from my Yunnan Craft order, and it was my first time trying Puerh in Mandarin. Insanely unique, potent and complex aroma that reminds me of haw flakes, unique and complex taste with a nice amount of potency to it. This tea has a rich, thick texture and has a one of a kind character. This tea also does a madness to the stomach, making it one hell of a digestive with a nice buzz to boost. This tea would be a 90+ if not for its decent but just above average finish & aftertaste and average steep longevity. Wonderful tea that everyone should try, for a very very cheap price.

This tea left me in a drunker stupor. I got this sample from my recent Yunnan Craft order, and wow does this tea pack a punch. Beautiful leaves with a rich character, complex, refreshing finish and decent aftertaste with a cha-qi that rivals gushu. This tea could’ve done with a more potent flavour and aroma, with a thicker and more active texture and mouthfeel. This tea also only lasted 7-8 steeps, which I would’ve expected more from a Pu-erh tea.

My first experience with a Ya Bao! I got this tea from my recent Yunnan Craft order, and it is one of the most delicate and fresh tasting teas I’ve ever had. Delicate flavour and aroma, along with a smooth texture and a unique character. I wish that this tea would have a more nuanced and complex flavour, with a richer aftertaste and finish, as well as some form of cha-qi. If you’re a fan of delicate teas without much action, this could be a good tea for you. However, I just find that it lacks too many things to really be something that I’d recommend.

Dry leaf smalls like a mix of dark, dry and sweet with cool and moist. Strong, fresh TCM, the smell of dried Chinese olive/jujube, thinned chocolate syrup, bamboo. Warmed leaf is rich, dark and sweet with cumin and leather, more of that chocolate syrup. Rinsed leaf, first impression is “this is something I really want to drink.” Hot and a hint musty like boiled leather and boiled bamboo.

The first few steeps are sweet, alkaline and tangy, TCM, jujube; an impression of dry and hard dark earth and ash. I love the tongue-numbing bitterness. It stays there, on the tongue, presenting nowhere else. Third steep on, it transforms into something more spicy, woody, complex dry root beer. I don’t feel the liquor going down my throat, it must be numb, but I do feel a great warmth there. Camphor whisper turns more to menthol. Rather drying, astringency is felt strongly mostly in the salivary glands under the tongue. Mouth remains closed and I sit. Aftertaste is sweet, dry, and woody-bitter.

I’d like to see this heicha 5-10 years down the road and with a touch more humid storage. Regardless, it’s a lovely tea already. It’s what I always hope to get from shou pu’er but rarely do.

This is going to be a very micro note. I’ve had these little rocks sitting around for about a year and finally got around to breaking into one (too many teas to try).

Jeez is the compression tight. You end up with masticated leaf and powder largely, but that’s to be expected.

Flavours are sharply bitter but fall off fast to a pleasant sugarcane huigan. The scent of the leaf is powerful and fruity (like a good sharp tart cherry or jam/preserve).

The energy is instantly felt and lasting flavour lingers. There’s good sheng-jing like a sharp Riesling. The mouthfeel is smooth and it coats the throat nicely. The lid on my zhuni pot is sticky.

Strongly recommended young sheng as long as you’re okay with masticated leaf.

For the price, if you’re a fan of the DaXueShan character, this exhibits it well. Yummy stuff that’ll definitely get your caffeine spiking.

A great warm up and energiser in the cold winter mornings.

Lazy copypaste from puer of the day thread. A Meng Song area tea.

2017 Hua Zhu Liang Zi from Yunnan Craft, who describes the tea as having ‘aggressive ba qi.’

Right now, several steeps in and I feel so… heavy… that lumbering klutzy giant feeling, like I’ve not yet developed fine motor skills. This is a strong tea with lots of licorice root overtone to the leaf and liquor aroma. Easy to drink with barnyard taste, aftertaste that’s vaguely fruity-licorice root, throat feels bitey then full and slightly cool. The bitterness and astringency present at first as feelings in the body then transition to effects in the mouth. I like the tea, but the power tells me it’s best left to age.

Hit me like a brick. Too young to drink now.

Can’t remember why I picked this specific one from others from same farmer. Probably a wrapper. Their design was kind of similar to all mr. Xie offerings, so probably the way name sounded as well was a factor. Nearly sure it was the only tea from that specific sub-area. I am less into taste and more into body feel. That was oily and perfect for alkaline acidity balance. Meaning I could eat any junk food and this piece of marvel would sort everything out. I had to go away for like 10 days without it and my gut flora was still holding that layer. I tried other teas from this farmer, not the same. The only unique thing I stumbled while randomly attacking Google with my queries was they found fossils of magnolia there. Apparently it is ancestor of tea and one of those plants that had different way of propagating since prehistoric times. So it is a kind of dinosaur of plants. But I gave away half of it, can’t remember exactly why, probably got heavier into heichas and saw opportunity to shift to someone who just started switching from cancerogenic medication to humble tea. But anytime I see word “wen” in a name of tea, I always check in case there is some intuitive lead being presented to me by the universe.

Having had this tea a few times now, I’m getting a better sense of it. It’s youthful and loud yet subtle and deep. Complex fruity and astringent herbal flavors with balanced bitterness. Within that complexity, I get peeks of other tastes like clean, white fish meat and crackers. A mouth-filling, oily body and my throat feels full. Very cooling and with a moderate returning sweetness by the time later steeps come around. I really like the energy of this one — it’s centering and focusing with a feeling of oneness experienced in conjunction with the forceful outwardness of teas from the Menghai region. I was as comfortable standing erect as I was in a motherly position on the ground brushing mats out of the dog’s fur for an hour. I guess you could call the balanced effects of this tea ‘adaptive.’

This isn’t an oolong-y sheng despite the long list of impressions below, nor is it processed too green but I do think maybe I need to expose the rest of the sample to some humidity. If this weren’t sold out I’d probably buy a cake.

A sample from derk again and thank you (again).

As a novice in pu-erh drinking, I never much cared about the origin of those teas. I just was thinking — I like it, or I don’t like it. So, I don’t have any idea how different are teas from Lao Wu Shan and Jinggu for example. Or This and from Jingmai. Storage is another big difference and I just can’t tell you what is different. I should start making notes somewhere down about pu-erh, as it is like wine… different regions have different tastes. And yest that’s something I notice, but that’s all and I can’t remember it myself.

But to the tea, I have used 5 grams of loose I had in the pouch from California. I had add a little from the chunk, but 4 grams seemed too little for my 85 gaiwan.

I did quick rinse, but as a morning tea I haven’t wrote this tasting note while drinking, so no single steep notes.

It is nice, smooth tea, with just little astringency, mostly coming with bitterness in last steeps. Overall taste is grassy, bit vegetal, green beans, but as well sweet and little creamy (the smooth factor). The steeps were nice and there wasn’t single steep which told me it’s bad in some way.

The brew was light green with yellow notes, if clear or not I am not able to recognize as I don’t own glass tea cup for pu-erh brewing or at least I need to get cha hai.

Generous sample kindly provided by the proprietor. ~25g yields about two lengthy sessions.

Prepared in my Jian Shui gaiwan, and served in my porcelain tea cup via my glass cha hai. Filtered Santa Monica municipal water just off the boil throughout.

5 flash infusions: Butterscotch liquor; stone fruit, figs, wood, honey, and yam are all hinted at, but the aromatic sum, which amplifies the scent of the dry leaf, is something more concrete and distinctive even if I can’t name it; sweet palate entry, creamy with hints of licorice, leading into a faintly spicy/woody finish suggesting pink peppercorn; slippery, almost thick mouth-feel with low tannins and bitterness.

Well crafted, subtly unique red tea with impressive longevity (I expect to get another 5 infusions out of this session when I return to it tomorrow morning), although the nectar-like sweetness makes me prefer this as a dessert tea rather than a daily drinker.

I doubt anybody remembers this note: https://steepster.com/derk/posts/403783 but I’m revisiting this lazy experiment. So far, this tea has been subjected to 4 years in its sealed sample bag. 4 years exposed to whatever deathly temps a small compartment in my truck can reach. The only air it has breathed has been at the hand of the annual deep sniff. 4 years of near absolute neglect. Now I think about all the places this tea has gone with me, only for me to leave it behind every time I closed the door.

I wonder if all Wuliang puerh are small-leaf like this. If it was initially medium-hard pressed, it has lost much of whatever force held it together. It wants to be pried from the chunk in beautiful sheets. It’s not that it has given up its life force, but it’s saying, “I’m ready.” It releases an evocative pure scent of raspberries from the bag. It wants to be smelled. The same scent wafts from the warmed leaf in the pot, richer and sharper, piercing my senses. The fawny gold liquor sits with steam, evaporating in trails from the surface like wisps of incense. It begs to be drank. Like a phoenix, it roars to life, it rises and soars to new heights!

No, no, haha. Not that dramatic. But it does have so much more life and character. The taste and feelings are more associations than anything, like walking through a dry, sun-dappled oak forest, little tastes of apple and honey, picking raspberries along the journey. The taste is quite deep, round and mellow. Quiet, like a hot day in the shade. Liquor is full in the mouth; astringency has smoothed. Leafy medicinal bitterness is quiet on the very back of tongue and it travels up into the sinuses, mingling with sweet taste. The raspberry is present in the aftertaste — very raspberry, floral, bright red, tangy sometimes tart.

Maybe before, the tea was vapid. Or maybe it was me, the vapid one. Maybe I was too wound up 4 years ago to appreciate an understated tea. Regardless, both myself and the tea have taken a turn for the better. A tea that exhibits such good qualities after years of neglect should be drank, but I’ve resolved to stash it away again in that little compartment for another unknown length of time. Who will I be then and what will the tea become?

Haha. This has to be the most forgettable sheng puerh I’ve ever had. Sandpapery young astringency fades away within several steeps. What’s left is a mostly flavorless, lightly vegetal-honey bitter cup with a whisper of cooling throatfeel.

The only aspect that stands out to me is the returning sweetness and even then it’s like “Whatever.”

Time for a lazy experiment. No control, no reproducibility. The rest of the sample I’ll leave sealed in its bag. The bag will be placed in a compartment in my truck to avoid direct sunlight. It will be exposed to higher temperatures and greater fluctuations than the relatively stable 65-70F, non-air-conditioned storage of my bedroom closet. I will forget about it all summer and probably find it when I clean out my truck sometime in November, at which point I’ll go, “Huh. I wonder how long this has been here. Let’s have a brew.” Or maybe I’ll forget about it all winter. Maybe whoever buys my truck in the future will find it.

What does the proposed treatment hold for such a vapid tea?