Yunnan Sourcing US

I like this even more than the Spring 2023 Heaven’s Door raw pu-erh I tried recently, and this tea is at a more affordable price point, too. A similar flavor profile between the two, but this autumn tea has more perfumy florals (violet) to go along with the cotton candy sweetness, which is also somewhat nectar-like. This tea is a bit more complex with more grainy flavors and apricots, too, and some deeper more leathery notes to it. A really wonderful tea!

I bought a tuo of this a few years ago, and liked it enough to buy a full sleeve. I swear I thought I posted a review of it here, but now it seems gone. The tea is still available on the Yunnan Sourcing US website, albeit now at a higher price. My working tuo has been 3 yrs in a jelly-jar with a breathable filter paper cover in my dark tea cabinet at ambient, 55-60 %RH, while the sleeve is sealed with a 60 %RH humidity pack. The large leaves in the tuo were so tightly compressed that it crumbled off as I tried to pry some out. Today I brewed 5g of leaf in 100 ml boiling alpine spring water, starting for 1 min, for each of 8 sequential infusions, going 2.5 min for the 8th. I use a stainless steel strainer and a set of porcelain espresso cups for convenience. (My goal was to achieve the same tint in each liquor, which is difficult to observe in a ceramic teapot or decorative cups.)

The tea was potent, lightly astringent, moderately bitter, very smoky still (it’s now 20 yr old!). Good tea flavor on the tongue and mouth, with notes of hardwood smoke, camphor, cardamom, and an aroma of freshly-fallen autumn leaves. Although it’s been dry-aged both abroad and here in my midwestern cupboard, there was a tinge of “humidity”. All 8 infusions had the same flavors and aromas and strength, so I might as well have brewed it western-style. Perhaps I used too much leaf, so I’ll reduce it to 1 g next time and post a followup note in the comments.

Spring 2024: Beautiful green tea. Nutty and sweet with lingering taste. A touch of green apple tartness with nice elderflower florals in taste and aroma. Feels nice and buttery, too.

Pretty nice. Definitely still has a bitter edge to it, kind of like bitter grapefruit. The flipside of the bitterness is a nice grapefruit/citrusy sweetness. This also has the cannabis-like flavors I’ve noticed in the other purple tea varieties I have tried. I still prefer the Wild Tree Purple Moonlight White Tea from Jinggu, but this would be nice on occasion.

2023: Nice cotton candy sweetness. This is the sweetest of all the raw pu-erhs I have been sampling. It is indeed thick with a buttery mouthfeel, as described. The flavor is kind of “empty,” like how a good Keemun tea can be – deceptively simple. It feels like not much else is going on, but if you pay attention there are hints of florals, fruits, and maybe some oak at the edges of your sips. Definitely an easy drinker.

Spring 2024: Oops, I had intended to buy the Spring 2023 version, as I know the roast will take a while to mellow out a bit. I brewed a batch up and it was pretty bad because of the fresh roast. I then realized I accidentally purchased Spring 2024 version. Doh! This one needs to sit in the cabinet for at least 6 more months before I try it again, maybe longer. Well I will be excited to try it again many months from now!

“Dark” florals. Maybe like a violet that is somewhat past its prime? A little bit of mulch, and some grape-i-ness. All these qualities are very subtle, but the tea itself is strong with pretty thick body. It is smooth. Sometimes leathery and sometimes not, sometimes briny and sometimes not. Cotton candy sweetness at times. This tea is kind of a wizard, putting on different faces. It seems to me this is a pretty great example of a young raw pu-erh with complexity but also a sophisticated smoothness that can be enjoyed immensely in its younger stages. Not that I know all that much about raw pu-erh yet.

Far from a Shamrock Shake, but I think there is kind of a minty element that seems to be the main thing going on here. Some woodiness, but the flavor profile is very distinctly different from the other Xiaguan “Gold Ribbon” tuo cha that I recently tried – In particular, I am not getting any spice notes. The mouthfeel is noticeably kind of “creamy,” which is interesting. Not a bad tea! It is cool that you can pick these up for fairly low prices.

Similar to the 2021 Xiaguan “Gold Ribbon” tuo cha I’m currently drinking, but a lot smoother. Because I brew western style, these 8-gram dragon balls are a treat for me, brewing up a bit heavier and more syrup-like than I am used to. I typically use 5 grams if tea for my 16-ounce glass, and now I am using 8 grams instead with this tea. I couldn’t bring myself to break up the beautiful pearls of tea, which come individually wrapped with little twist-ties.

I guess with this particular blend, you are receiving the “luck of the draw,” as there are many high-quality mao cha samples potentially included here, but they will not be uniformly blended. So I suppose one dragon ball may taste somewhat different from another. In my experience, the three dragon balls I’ve sampled have tasted more or less the same.

This was mellow brew overall, with nice woody notes and some cinammon/fennel spice in the background and hints of florals and fruit. There is a touch of smoke, but I wouldn’t consider smoke to be a major contributor to the overall flavor profile here. An enjoyable and amazingly smooth blend of raw pu-erh. At $3.25 per pearl, I’m not sure I would continue buying these, as I can find teas I enjoy more for less. But I’m glad I sampled and it was a good experience to help me understand the world of raw pu-erhs better.

I do very much enjoy the dragon ball concept, and will probably keep exploring these. The convenience of the individual-serving dragon balls makes much more sense to me than having to break up awkward cakes of tea. It would be nice to find more dragon balls available in my preferred 5-gram dosage, though, but I guess you can’t have everything.

Spring 2023: Took me a while to review this one. It doesn’t hit you over the head with jasmine, but is rather subtle. Which is nice, because the base green tea shines through. I would swear it is from the same garden or maybe a similar garden from which YS sources its First Flush Mao Feng green tea, which I love. The base tea here seems to share the same softly floral/lavender characteristics as that one. Nice and sweet and a good complement to the jasmine fragrance. This is a nicely balanced tea, with a good medium body to it. And good for a few steeps western style.

Spring 2024: Wow! The small leaves smell wonderful and are very nice in appearance, mostly in obvious bud/leaf sets.

First steep is very light in color and fragrant. Nice and sweet and deceptively light. I like them like this! Lots of little “hairs” from the young buds in cup, and you get that nice “green chestnut” flavor. Some florals are present, perhaps along the lines of osmanthus.

Subsequent steep at three minutes is a bit more yellow and robust.

I’m not super experienced with dragonwell teas, and certainly I am not an expert on authentic ones from the Westlake area. But I imagine a tea of similar quality to this would cost much more if it came from the region. So in that sense, I guess this tea is a pretty good deal. But it is on the pricey side.

Woodsy, with hints of cinnamon and fennel, and with good body and a touch of sweetness. You get some of typically roasty/smoky aroma and flavor of raw puerh, but by no means is this anywhere near as smoky as a lapsang or even the typical “Russian caravan” type blend – much, much, less so. Just light touches of the smoke/roast, really. The bright herbal notes give it a nice “medicinal” quality. The tea coats the mouth and lingers with a pleasant aftertaste. Doesn’t seem to cause me the slight stomach discomfort that I’ve noticed from some raw puerh teas.

I know this tea may be quite a bit younger than what would be considered an ideal drinking age, but in my opinion there is no need to wait. Enjoyable right now. One of these days I’ll have to try a well-aged version of this same tea to see the difference.

Purchased a bunch of younger raw puerh tea (mostly samples) from Yunnan Sourcing USA, to explore my idea that this style of tea might be something I could really like.

So far, I have done one session each with a 2022 Xiaguan Te Ji Tuo, YS USA’s 2023 Ai Lao “Secret Garden” raw puerh, and this “You Le Shan” tea. All of these teas I stubbornly brew using my “western style” technique. Initially I am using 185° water w/a 30 sec rinse, 1-min first steep, 2-min second steep, and 3-min third steep for each tea. As I get a feel for each tea, I can adjust the brewing parameters a bit, but this initial technique has worked out well for each tea so far.

The first tea which inspired me to write a review is this one, because of the remarkably sweet and unusual scent of the dry leaves in the sample pouch. Very cotton candy sweet-like, fruity, and floral scent pops out from the pouch, which I love.

This tea and and the other YS USA tea made me feel a bit “tea drunk,” a sensation which I have not yet noticed from the Xiaguan tea. Also, both YS USA teas are a noticeably smoother ride than the Xiaguan, while clearly sharing a similar character.

This is where I am stuck, now, however, as perhaps due to my inexperienced raw puerh taste buds I have some difficulty distinguishing the nuances in taste between these different varieties of raw puerh. They all seem to have pleasant fruity/floral characters with some touch of a bitter edge, but not overwhelmingly so. Kind of a dried apricot fruitiness, with some indistinct (to me) florals, and some hay/grassy notes. All-in-all pretty enjoyable. The Xiaguan did have a minty aspect to it that I don’t find in the YS USA teas, so there is that as far as a difference. I’ll tentatively give this tea a score of “80,” but definitely need to explore it a bit more to try and better understand its character.

Update: After a little more time with this tea, I’ll dial my initial “80” rating down to a 75. The tea is really smooth with some slight woody notes, but mostly in a fruity zone with notes of persimmons, having also a bit of a vegetal bite to it. And the faintest glimmers of spice, mainly cinnamon/anise notes but way in the background.

I can tell that it is a quality tea, and certainly interesting, but probably will not be a repurchase for me. I suppose this might be where aging comes into play, and perhaps this tea may evolve more interesting flavors over the years, etc. But I really don’t have much of an appetite for heavier/redder teas that are closer to a ripe in flavor. Once in a while I might enjoy these types of teas, but I would usually prefer great teas that are on the greener side.

(Spring 2023)

Sipdown

I had purchased 3 – 7g balls of these ($8.50 per set of 3) mostly out of curiosity. I wanted to understand the difference with smoked black tea (Lapsang) and puerh. The first time I smelled this, it reminded me of wood smoke. After allowing the last 7g ball to rest in my puerh storage for nearly a year, I pulled it out to finish the tea. I cannot remember earlier notes from the previous sessions, so based on this last session, I’m making my notes.

Dry: wood smoke

Flavor: Less smoky than you’d think. The element of smoke is there, but it’s not the main role within the flavor profile. You get a mild cigar/tobacco smoke, camphor, & spice (peppery) flavor. The mouthfeel is thin and oily. The qi is strong with this brew and allows your mind to ease into the necessary euphoria one may get with a good cuppa.

Imagine a Silver Needle white tea, but given the characteristic Wu Yi Oolong roast – Full, smooth, yammy, and ever so slightly vegetal.
Spring 2022.
Can’t find any sour notes in this one, but gets astringent with rest or overbrewing. Even just 45s is a bit long for this.

12g from a sample added to a clay pot.

Warm smell was very enticing: baked chocolatey notes in the smell. I was salivating for the brew..

First steep: ripe perfection. Creamy, textured, rich, chocolatey, mildly sweet, with a touch of forest.

Second steep: Bliss! I literally moaned with delight. So thick and creamy and chocolatey and decadent. My god this tea is so good.

Third steep: Again ^. My mouth needed a reset I think to fully experience it in all it’s glory. It was still glorious, but slightly muted because I kind of rushed into the next steep. I did notice a fantastic aftertaste more this time around, too. “Hui Gan”

Fourth steep: pushed it after a little break, and it delivered a fantastic brew. It was more cacao and dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate. More woody and foresty with chocolate around the edges, instead of the other way around.

Fifth steep: pushed it again for about 2 minutes. Pretty good brew that had downplayed versions of all the delicious notes in the earlier tea. It was enjoyable, but definitely the end of the sesh for me.

Great experience! Truly exceptional ripe here.

I bought a cake of this after really enjoying the sample. I cracked open the bing the morning after getting it without letting it rest or anything and it was also very very good. It wasn’t quite as decadent as the sample, so it needs a bit of time to get there. Glad I picked up a cake! (Now hopefully my dry environment doesn’t ruin it)

Because it’s a negative review, I’ll quickly state that this is definitely a good tea if very sweet and malty is pleasing to you. It’s a bit cloying and gross to me, though, hence the negative outcome. The processing technique looks great and the leaves are surely a high quality version of this tea.

Sesh 1:
Generally disappointed with the experience. I don’t really like the super malty and sweet taste that this tea has. It’s not really balanced by anything else, relative to my palate.
It doesn’t have a bready, starchy, baked goods, toasted, or even chocolatey kind of taste like some other blacks. It’s mostly that sweet malty taste, which I find slightly gross to be honest.

Sesh 2:
Letting this sit with some fresh air after opening the vacuum sealed bag did it a lot of good for me. Aromatics are great. More complexity and intrigue to both the smell and taste than the first session. Some of the missing notes started to show up, such as a baked starchiness and possibly a muted chocolatey note. The maltiness may have even diminished a tiny bit, but it was still dominant, especially in the hui gan. So each sip left a somewhat unenjoyable aftertaste in the mouth.

It’s just not for me, which is fine. I won’t get any more of it, but maybe I’ll continue to randomly drink the rest of the 100g bag until it’s gone. It may be that I like a more aged version of Dian Hong, so I’ll randomly come back to it as a very low priority option down the line. Maybe I’ll toss it, maybe I won’t. There are many other blacks that are better than this one to me.

It looks like and smells like a solid green tea, but the flavor is incredibly lacking and bitter. This reminds me of coffee, and is not what I want out of an oolong. It smells of ripe leaves and fresh grass, but the taste is very astringent.

A very interesting pu-erh! Made of whole, rolled leaves that are olive-green once brewed. If I’m decoding the recipe “6515” correctly, they are considered grade 1 leaves, though I’m not entirely sure what that means! Importantly, this tea is highly compressed. “Brick“ is the right description, and in fact if you tap on one side, the entire block resonates and almost rings as a ceramic block might. There are two consequences to this: firstly, it is very difficult to pick apart the tea to withdraw a brewing portion without creating a lot of crumbs and breakage, the leaves are so crisp. But even so, the leaf pieces were pretty big, once infused. Secondly, the tight compaction slows the aging, and this may explain the youthful vigor of the resulting tea. Or, maybe the storage since 2004 was on the dry side.

Youthful vigor! The fragrance was mild and pleasant without perfume, flowery, or fishiness. A bit of mintiness. The liquor packed a punch with slight bitterness, strong astringency (is this called “brisk”?) with mint and camphor, and a lingering aftertaste of green tea and a drying mouthfeel. The sixth steep was much like the first, with progressively longer infusions, starting at 20s, up to 2 min. Enjoyable now as a good morning wake-up brew. But I bet this brick will taste much nicer in another 15 years, if stored humidly.