Yunnan Sourcing

This is a wonderful, sweet raw pu-erh that really reminds me of butternut squash or pumpkin. The fragrance of the steeped and hydrated leaves is like a cozy fall evening. I did oversteep this at first, as I tend to do with raws/shengs, but lowering the steep time significantly helped a lot to make it completely non-bitter.

I bought a cake of this about 3 years ago, and it has improved since then! I love the mild briskness, and the maltiness on the tongue. Slightly floral scent, too. The cake was easy to pry apart, though the leaves were fragile and prone to shattering. Still for sale at YS, though at $30/250g it’s perhaps not the value previously reported — though it has improved, so perhaps it is actually still a value? It is surely potent. I brewed (western) 5g in 8 oz boiling spring water for a mere 15 sec each for three infusions, and 30 sec for the 4th, and the liquor has deepened from golden amber at start to golden brown on the 4th, with no drop in flavor or aroma yet. If anything, the aroma of honey has intensified, and the malty flavor is persisting. This is surprisingly good tea! I’ll rate it at 83 and have hopes that more aging will provide continued pleasure! Nice aftertaste, too!

Got a few cakes of this 2022 material a couple yr ago and found it to be underwhelming at first. Now it’s aged 2 more years (70°F, 62% RH) and I am enjoying it! Serial infusions of 5g in 8oz boiling spring water for 30s, 45s, 60s, 2-1/2 min and 5 min, using a stainless infusion basket. The light green leaves are large, fuzzy, and the cake pulled apart easily. The first steeping was very mild and smooth, pale yellow, sweet but watery, revealing olive green leaves. Third steeping was more flavorful and coated the mouth nicely, with the floral and grassy notes promised by the YS description. Last steeping was after the leaves had sat out overnight, and todays brew was wonderfully potent, golden yellow in color, with now a little bitterness — and sweetness becoming more pronounced as the tea cooled. Yes, I do feel a little guilty for drinking the threatened C. taliensis species, but hope it will stimulate increased cultivation of the plant. I look forward to finding how this tea continues to develop with more ageing. YS is now selling a 2024 harvest, so I can recommend it for tea explorers! I’ll give my 2022 cakes a rating of 80, but note that I have very limited experience with white teas.

Not a veteran Oolong drinker by any means, but this was quite an experience.

First brew: 5g + 80ml @ 203 F for 30 sec.

Heavy floral notes sweetly colored with peach and mango infused honey that dances on the tongue

Grassy flavor, and astringent. Perhaps I need to brew at a lower temperature or less time?
Aroma is grassy with white flowers, although by the 4th infusion it’s more … autumn leaves, perhaps.

Infusion 1: 85C, 60s
Infusion 2: 85C, 10s
Infusion 3: 95C, 10s
Infusion 4: 80C, 12s

(spring 2024) I like the peachy flavor, but I wish there were more of it, relative to bitterness. Maybe I need to adjust brew time / quantity.
Infusion 1: 85C, 180s
Infusion 2: 85C, 40s
Infusion 3: 90C 90s
Infusion 4: 100C 120s

Ok, and the earthy aroma is nice, but not much flavor. Perhaps I need to use more leaves, or steep differently.
Infusion 1: 95C, 30s
Infusion 2: 98C, 20s
Infusion 3: 98C, 20s

(Spring 2024) This is a nice black tea with a lovely, almost glazed carrot flavor. Most flavor was gone by third infusion, though. Perhaps next time I’ll use more leaves: I could use more flavor / complexity.

Infusion 1: 50s
Infusion 2: 20s
Infusion 3: 20s

I guess I expected more. But this 25 year old sheng was smooth, woody, and quite quaffable. I brewed 2.5g in 8 oz boiling water for 30 s, and got 8 nice steepings that produced a deep golden liquor without any fishiness, sourness, astringency or bitterness. But it also didn’t have anything particularly appealing to me. For this price, I would get much more enjoyment from a number of other fine teas. Because of the blandness, I’ll only rate it at 65, and recommend it with indifference. Still for sale by YS.

I received this 2005 shou as a part of a storage comparison tea set from YS. It is a potent tea, both in aroma and flavor. I steeped 5g leaf in 8oz boiling alpine spring water for 10s (after a 10s rinse), repeating for 9 infusions, the final going 30s. Each infusion was dark brown in color, sweet, creamy, smooth and pleasant in taste, with an aroma of sawdust, leather, and leaf litter, with a hint of tea leaf. No fishiness or objectionable flavors, no bitterness or astringency. But certainly no notes of cherry in flavor or aroma, as reported by the vendor and by several other tasters, either. It was a good, basic ripe puer but without anything particularly notable, either good or bad. So I rate it at a solid 70. As of Jan 2025 it is still in stock and for sale as full cakes or smaller samples.

Not too long ago, I tried the Jingmai Raw Pu’erh Cha Gao (aka “tea resin”) from YS, and today I’m giving the ripe pu’erh version a try! Though the raw was good, I immediately liked this one much more. The liquor is very, very smooth with a surprisingly sweet flavour. It’s very honey-like but dark, dense, and golden with a sort of graham cracker adjacent undertone and some expected earthiness. Not like a buckwheat honey, but sort of in that direction. I’ve had a handful of different types of Cha Gao outside of these Yunnan Sourcing offerings, but to be honest, this is probably the best that I’ve tried based on first impression alone.

Plus, the convenience factor is huge here. I know that, as a community, we often turn our nose up at pretty much any form of instant tea. Personally, I think that’s a fault within the community for several reasons, but that’s a discussion for another post. Regardless, if you’re looking for travel friendly tea options then you can’t get a whole lot better than this one. Just make sure to keep it in a labeled bag because it does, admittedly, look a little sketchy to the unfamiliar…

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DFQoEMjS9XS/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY292wlKitk&ab_channel=TommyNewport

Lovely affordable tea. Nice and dark with wonderful licorice notes and good depth of flavor. No need to wait until it tastes like an old library book. It is great right now. My 50/50 by weight blend of this tea plus 2024 Subduer of Dragons is a 100! Been drinking my special blend almost every morning and can’t get over how nicely these teas compliment each other.

Very woody. Not so much the deep sandalwood notes you tend to get from ripe pu-erhs, but strong oak-like flavors. Some smoke. Not very sweet. Maybe slightly nutty. It seems like a lighter version of ripe pu-erh, overall. Interesting and glad I tried this, as it is my first Liu Bao Cha, but not a favorite of mine. I don’t find much in the way of “medicinal” or minty notes as others have mentioned.

This is a really great, strong tea. Fans of sheng puerh owe it to themselves to seek this out. My lukewarm rating of this particular batch is due to the storage. The vendor specifies that it has been stored in Kunming since its pressing, so it’s all very transparent. Personally, I think more traditional storage is the way to go. This is still great stuff, but it’s kind of locked in time, which is unfortunate.

Really liked the idea of this tea, but I just didn’t really care for the flavor. Sadly it’s been a few days since I tried it and can’t remember specifics, but I put it in my swap pile.

This was a nice, savory, thick and smooth ripe pu-erh, which is perhaps expected from a 28 year old shou. The wet leaves smelled of rank, dirty socks, but the brewed tea didn’t. There were notes of forest woods and leather, without bitterness, sourness or fishiness. I got over 10 infusions from 5g of leaf, 125 ml each, in a small porcelain teapot. Successive steeps in boiling alpine spring water ranged from 10 sec to a few minutes, in 20s increments. (5s initial wash) Produced a dark brown soup at first, finishing as a deep amber brew. I bought this several years ago as part of a discontinued sampler, but it can still be bought by individually from YS. Not my favorite, but far from the worst.