Yunnan Sourcing

mmmmm thank you terri! delicious malty goodness right here folks. This is the autumn 2015 version and it makes me happy. a little sweetness in the back half of the sip, but otherwise a really smooth, malty blend, with hints of cacao.

spring 2016 version of this – delicious.

oh Terri…my lovely tea sister. thank you for sharing this one with me. I love this one quite a bit. I’m currently sipping on this while reading on the balcony. It looks like i finished up enough of work this morning that i get to visit our friend on his birthday. This means at least one game + baby time AND i’ll get fed :) tomorrow we’re also going out for Summerlicious here in toronto and we’re going to try out a brazilian restaurant so that will be something to look forward to after what i imagine is going to be a crappy day of work lol

Not enough sipdowns today but at least i’m now under where i started after the drop off from variatea and cavocorax last night haha

mmmm such a good delicious malty cup of YUM. i have nothing much else to say except this just got me through 3 hours of really really focused work lol

Another offering from the BBB Box from Terri I wanted to try this one along side the other from Yunnan sourcing to see how it compares. This one? I love even more. it’s cocoa-y and malty and sweet and delicious. oh happy day..it’s friday. thank god.

thanks for sharing this one with me Terri. This was another one from earlier this morning when i had to get up faaaar too early for work. Which is finally done so now i can take 5 mins to catch up on tea writing and drinking lol :)

Another tea from Terri via our BBB Box. I really do love that we’re still managing to do this even after nearly a year :) its nice having friends to share in new tea experiences :) I like this one, though it falls into that generic category of teas that i will enjoy while i have them, but not feel the need to restock or make permanent in my cupboard. it’s a smooth brew, i love these leaves and the taste is really nice. just not knock your socks off :)

Another sample size I ordered from Yunnan sourcing. I broke out 10 grams to brew tonight. The dry lea has a cedar/pine aroma to it. I gave a quick rinse to open it up a bit and drank the first infusion as it was a bit light due to the quick steep I am starting on the second. It has a nice almost stone-fruit aroma to it. The brew has a bit darker brew than a younger tea. Nice aromatic a touch of bitter that quickly fades to a honey clover type sweet. A little bit of punch to this one probably due to the older tree leaf. Nice aromatic a little hit of the bitter that dances around for a second and then goes sweet. Being close to Jingmai but without the citrus aspect that they bring to the brew. Nice.

correct, but nothing incredible….

Really interesting and quite original

First infusion : a taste of strong black chocolate, of stable , and a smell of fire.
second : quite the same taste, a bit more bitter (but it may be due to the infusion)
third : quite more bitter.
Quite a good tea, not incredible or amazing, but really pleasant and reconforting.

First off, I’ve really wanted to try this tea for awhile! YS offers 2 options:
1 – the entire basket of tea, 450 Grams of tea, which looks so awesome, what a great presentation, but which would probably last my entire life, not to mention that I probably already have enough tea for 7 lifetimes…
2 – a sample…a 100gram sample, that is! That’s a huge sample!

Granted, it is not an incredibly expensive tea, but as much as I want that basket of tea, I also only want it if I’m going to drink it. So I started looking around to see if anybody had some.
This sample has a history, possibly more of a history than I know about, but what I do know is that it traveled from TeaExplorer’s cupboard to Boychik’s cupboard to Stephanie, & then to me!

I’ve been drinking it for about 3 hours, a couple of cups here & there. Visually it resembles a Shu puerh in shades of mahogony & brown. The dry aroma is of bamboo shot, hominy, & molasses. When I warmed up the leaf I smelled an earthy boston brown bread & buttered grits.

I gave it a rinse & started steeping. Immediately the flavor is sweet , kind of hominy-like, & has that minty ‘fresh’ quality. This continues into a few steepings, while the flavors of cedar & molasses arise. This is a lot like a Shu, but it’s also different in that it is sweeter, & the flavor profile is slightly different. There were a few cups that were creamy textured. Flavors I’ve picked out include cedar, bamboo shoots, sorghum, water chestnut, & that minty fresh quality. Right now it’s like a sweet spring water with a menthol after feel. I think I can get quite a few more steeps out of it, but that is all for tonight.
Thanks to everyone who passed this tea on, so that I got a chance to sample it :)

This was my first session of the day, using 5G + 4oz (rinse) X 15/30/45/ etc
I warmed up the leaf in the hot little teapot & the aroma was heavenly, immediately conjuring up images of Maltomeal drizzled with a really fragrant honey.
I could breath that in all day. Why do I love that aroma so much? It’s not like I was a real fan of maltomeal…

Anyway, the tea was predictably delicious. The leaves are tiny & tender, & they released their flavors fairly quickly, so that this session peaked out much faster than others, but the cups were rich with malt & honey initially, then a more flavor of earth & leather, with a slight bitterness. Definitely better in the first cups.

This smells soooo smoky. I wasn’t sure if I’d like it or not. It was one of those teas that I had a hard time getting past my nose. At 30 seconds, there is a savory smoke but not too strong. Similarly at 60 and 90 seconds, the background darkness is there and while there is a bit more smoke, it isn’t nearly as strong as the scent would indicate. It still never got to be really good for me – too much smoke. But very happy to be able to try it though the awesome generosity of boychik!

I’ve been working my way through these YS teas in gongfu sessions since most of the time previously I tried them using Western style steeping.

I suspect my tastebuds have changed somewhat, maybe due to this low grade ongoing digestion upset that’s been hanging around for months now. I still love this tea. It’s not my favorite from YS, but it’s up there. Still yeasty, but less so with more of a sour note slipping in that I’ve noticed with other teas of the same flavor profile of late. Not as full seeming as it was previously.

I like the second steeping of 1 minute the best when doing this gongfu style.

Having this one again this afternoon. Still supremely yum. Bready, yeasty, baked good scents, sweet and molasses-y. Leaving it to steep in my little glass pot so I’m probably at about 15-20 minutes of leaf in water by the time I’m at the last cup. Not a bit of dryness or bitterness – just an increased sweetness. That’s what I love about these teas.

Another great one, courtesy of boychik. Bready at 1 minute, deeply bready and yeasty as the strength increases at 1:30. There will be an order with YS… Oh, yes. There will be an order.

This very hay-smelling when dry. Steeped, this is just plain yum. I did it for 1 minute, 1:30 and 2 minutes. Then I left it in the cup for about 5 minutes. All steeps were deep and rich and malty with cocoa. Thanks for sharing boychik!

These pretty, downy, medium large, slightly copper tinged golden buds, smell of smoke insense, cocoa, fruit, and powdered sugar.

They are pretty resilient beings as even with my modified version of gongfu ( I use less leaf (about 2 TSP of these fluffy light leaves)) they are still flavourful after 9 steeps (60,50,60,90,120,180,240,300, 360s).

The liquor of this tea was mostly a green tinged gold with a grey green ring, that became redder and browner in later steeps.

The broth smelled originally spicy with wood smoke insence, very faint leather,and cocoa and plum. Later it moves towards sweet creamy and fruity before returning to savoury tones.

Flavour notes that I have found so far are: roasted smoke insence, leathery spice, a hint off aged cedar, hints of alfalfa, clover nectar, honey, cream, plum and occasionally plum/strawberry, hint of bitter cocoa, upper tones of malt, a warm sweet floral note, and a savoury vegetal note. Middle steeps were mostly, cream, fruit, and nectar, with leathery notes present in early and later steeps. Cocoa is very faint but it does counterbalance the sweet tones and provides some depth.

The broth is thick and creamy and the aftertaste was sweet and lingering.

This is a nice, giving and soft tea. Its resilience makes it ideal for gongfu brewing.

Thanks boychik for sharing!

This was kindly sent to me by a fellow Steepster that saw it in my wish list.
I got out 9 grams of this in the Gaiwan and gave a 5 second rinse. The wet leaf was a mix of asparagus and green beans with a little snow pea in there. It brewed up very light almost like a white tea with a very pale green to it. This is juicy, slightly bitter and a kind of caramel hit with a little smoke touch in there. it has a very nice aroma to it and is very easy to drink. After a failure with another tea earlier today this has been a welcome cup. It goes on the shopping list for sure. A very nice blend of teas.

It’s official. I love me some sheng.

Received as a sample and wishing I now had a cake in my hands.

Dry and wet leaves smell really floral and smoky. Flavor wise, 98% of the smoke goes away. Instead you get this gorgeous honeydew melon fruitiness. I’m on infusion 4 and it’s gotten sweeter with each.

Tiny, tiny, tiny bit of bitterness/tanin. That usual “camphor” that comes through. Floral notes. Buttery smoothness. Enchanting aroma. All good here.

Just a wonderful sheng.

I left a review on this tea a couple of months ago. This morning I brewed it while throwing out the first 5 rinses/steeps: 10S, 10S, 15S, 20S, 25S. What a difference!

Infusion #6 -30s Buttery , smooth. No mushroom or smoke flavour. There’s a heavy sweetness that clings to the tongue. Is this ever good!

Infusion #7 – 35s More of the same but it seems to keep getting better. I should have steeped like this before with this tea!

Had this tea early this morning. Gave it a quick rinse and then brewed for 10 sec. Dry it has a hay smell to it. I had about 3 small cups of this early this morning and can’t think of much to say about it. It’s not smokey or mushroomy. It does have the light pu-erh taste to it (maybe it would have been stronger if I brewed it longer.) . There was a honey sweetness that was light too and would hang on the tongue. I never noticed a good energy rush with this one. I didn’t pick up any fruity or floral notes either but I plan on having some more later.