Yunnan Sourcing

I’m really liking this one a lot, so good :)

It’s rather hot here today, so sheng is called for and this was the sample that came first out of the tin. This is the last of the samples I bought from Yunnan Sourcing, so I can move on to my remaining Zhi Zheng and White2tea samples next.

This tea has not been heavily compressed and is easily pulled apart by hand. The leaves are large and have a lovely silvery furriness to them.

The dry leaf has a light hay and tropical garden aroma. It is heavy without being excessively floral. By way of contrast, the wet leaf smells more of grapes or something vegetal. The liquor surprises with its caramel and chocolate aroma.

The tea carries the chocolate notes through to the tasting and adds nuttiness and some grassy notes. There is a hint of bitterness that develops at the end of the tasting and into the aftertaste which adds a small amount of astringency that develops slowly while the tea pops on the tongue like space dust. The mouthfeel is rounded like a boiled sweet. There seems to be a lot going on with this tea and it becomes smoother with less bitterness developing as the steeps go on. I’m on my 8th steep now and am very happy with this one. I am glad that I have tried it, but I do have to query the price. I am not certain that it provides value for money, but perhaps the tea will age in interesting ways that justify that price tag.

Another Nicole (and possibly boychik) tea! This looks quite similar to the Yi Mei Ren I had earlier today, but the leaves are thinner. Same jet black spindly texture though. Spider legs! Their dry scent is very mild, I think it’s probably because the tea has been in a clear resealable bag for a while, so most of the scent is gone. Smells lightly of honey, malt, and raisin. I brewed for 3 minutes.

The aroma is very chocolaty, which I was not expecting! There’s also quite a bit of malt along with honey, molasses, and raisin notes. As soon as I taste this, I notice that it has that fennel seed-like spice note, and quite a bit of it. It’s interesting because the other two teas I’ve had with a similar flavor are both Yunnan, while this is a Fujian tea. I wonder why that is… Anyway, the flavor is very malty and deep with molasses adding a background richness, but not sweetness. This tea is definitely quite savory. I don’t get as much cocoa as I would expect from the aroma, but it’s there a little bit. I would describe it as roasted cacao nibs.

Definitely an interesting and enjoyable tea. I find myself wanting to go eat some spices until I find out exactly what that herbaceous spice note is!

Also, no one else mentioned the spice in their notes… But I found it extremely obvious. Is that weird or what?

Sipdown (112)!

- Oversteeped
- I am shocked, but I’m actually picking up the cinnamon notes in this!
- I also get a weird vegetal note; my gut says Squash but my head says no
- Cream/Hay
- Thick mouthfeel
- Weird, but ultimately really good

Thanks again 221Tea and Brian!

Kinda wasted my extra time this morning just doing stupid shit on Tumblr when really I wanted to be watching GOT; oh well. At least I got in a few cups of tea including this sample from 221Tea and her hubby Brian!

I’ve been wanting to try it for a while now but couldn’t while I was sick because I was really worried I’d miss out on the subtleties in it. But I feel totally clear and healthy today (it’s a miracle!) so bring it!

This is really nice; it’s gentle and really serene but still has some pretty distinct flavour notes to it. Specifically I picked up cream notes and sweet hay. The tea’s description says “Sweet Cinnamon Spice Aroma” but I really didn’t get that from it. Then again, I brewed it actually using Stacy’s recommended steeping parameters for Doke Silver Needle instead of in short 15 sec. or so infusions so maybe that was the difference. I still have one more cup left. I guess I can save that last cup to try out that way; I don’t typically want seven cups of one tea (and this is supposed to be good for like eight infusions), but maybe it’s worth trying it out just to see the difference in flavour.

Tasted good my way though.

Description also says “very lubricating mouthfeel” which seemed really weird to me, but after drinking it I totally get what they meant. It is weird, but very accurate.

Good morning! Another lovely Yunnan Sourcing tea for me today, I actually got two samples of this one! One was from cookies and one was from my anonymous tea friend. This tea has beautiful leaves. They’re rather large and twisty, almost Taiwanese-looking, and the color is jet black. The dry leaves smell very sweet with fruity and honey notes.

The steeped cup has a sweet smell, but I also detect a sort of caraway/dill aroma along with some roastiness. Yum! This tea definitely has a unique flavor, with a mild rye bread sort of flavor along with caraway and dill seeds. However, there’s also a sweet note present, possibly honey? And there’s a distinct floral note here, though thankfully it doesn’t overpower the other flavors. I wish I were better at identifying floral notes, I’ll just say it’s not overly heady, and it’s somewhat sweet, but not quite as sweet as jasmine. Slightly perfumey but not in an entirely unpleasant way.

Overall, this is definitely a unique tea! Starts out slightly roasty with rye bread and nutty notes, but ends up quite floral with some honey accents. Very yummy! :)

Edit: As it cools, there’s more honey! Om nom nom…

SIPDOWN! (114)

Taking a short break from TTB teas to settle my stomach a bit. So I figured I’d work on some sipdowns in the process! :P

This tea is quite different from what I would consider the “typical” Yunnan tea at this point. I wonder if it’s because this is apparently grown on a mountain? And it’s wilted/fermented longer according to Yunnan Sourcing’s website. Very interesting! This tea has an interesting herbaceous flavor that definitely reminds me of dill. It has some of the malt and breadiness that I would associate with other Yunnan teas as well. There’s also something there that I can’t quite place, maybe a floral? If so, it’s definitely a heady floral like rose or something similar.

This tea is quite tasty and I may consider getting some when I (finally) make a YS order!

This sample is from Nicole. I’m still working on your box, I promise! :P The leaves are very dark and spindly, a look that I associate with Taiwanese blacks. The leaves themselves are very large, and there are a lot of broken pieces too, which I can see being unavoidable with a tea this fragile. There are also some stems included. The dry scent is all honey and pastry with some dried fruits. I steeped for 2 minutes, but I think I could’ve gone for 3.

The brewed tea smells very dark and malty, with cocoa and sweet raisin notes. Very different from the dry leaf! The taste is not super heavy, most likely because of the shorter steep. It is definitely malty, and there’s a nice dark grain note that isn’t quite like bread. There’s something roasty and toasty about it. I definitely get a bit of bittersweet cocoa, and there’s a lovely rich molasses flavor combined with slightly sweet dark dried fruits (cherries, raisins). I definitely taste an herbaceous spice note, and it reminds me of fennel seed. I notice as this tea cools, I get less of the fruitiness and more of the spice.

A very lovely tea! It reminds me in some ways of Full Steam by Hugo, mostly because of that savory spice. I think next time I’ll try 3 minutes and see how it changes.

I bought a sample of this from Yunnansourcing some time back and have been trying to work through my backlog of samples this past week or so. I was quite excited to try an 11 year old sheng. The dry leaf promised much with its hot hay aroma. It smelt good and promised a robust and pleasing experience. Sadly the liquor failed to deliver. It has a nice bitterness at the back of the mouth and in the throat and is quite smooth, but in the end it left me feeling that something was missing. There is a slight smokiness, perhaps a hint of grape, a soupçon of sweetness but really not much more. Perhaps someone with a subtler tongue could plumb the depths of this tea but I found it rather shallow and my feet remained firmly on the bottom of the pool while my head and body remained above water. It is bland and underwhelming, and failed to enthrall me. If I wished to damn it with faint praise, I would describe it as nice. That is all it is.

Another aesthetically pleasing tea from Yunnan Sourcing, this Jasmine Silver Needles White Tea smells and tastes just like fresh jasmine—and well it should! The dried needles are very lightweight and shimmery pale greenish yellow in color. Upon infusion they become more smooth and green and look a bit like stalagmites and stalactites, as some point up from the bottom of the glass pot, while others float at the top pointing down.

A truly beautiful infusion: visually, gustatorially, and olfactorily!