Yunnan Sourcing

This one is pretty good, very dark liquid, very smooth slight earthy sweet taste, with some woody notes maybe even hints of cinnamon. This one is just full of flavor, good for everyday drinking.
This one would be for someone new to puerhs, it is very enjoyable with offensive flavors.
The aroma is decent too, only a slight fish scent at the beginning, not too bad, i like it :)

Gong-fu in a celadon gaiwan.

Took up an old habit of brewing sheng whenever i watch The big bang theory. :)
wash/wash/15/15/20/20/30/30 etc

First infusions were light and lemony. @ 30s the infusions started showing their strenght. Some astringancy and a fuller body. This is a mediocre quality sheng, good for every day use. Must do longer steepings to get good strong flavours that i like.

I have about 2 more brewings left of the generous 25g sample from YS, will give it another try next week :)

This young sheng has a nicely balanced demeanor, gives strong astringency and a tannic impression with aromas of oat straw, and chlorophyll. It has a strong character to my taste, one which says it will age well. I agree that it has slight smoky notes on its lengthy finish, but do not get the honey notes mentioned. It would be nice to see where this tea goes with time. Right now, I say not outstanding but good.

Enjoying this cup of tea & a sweet slow morning :)
It’s been a while since I’ve done a taste comparison, but I have several black bi luos in my collection now, maybe 4 of them.
Funny, but without even lining them up, I can tell you that this one would most likely rank # 4, simply because the other 3 are more golden, sweeter, creamier, with an aroma of honey. Comparing those other 3 ( from WP, YS, & Tribute) would probably not be easy, on the other hand!

That is not to say that this isn’t tasty, because it is! Like other black gold teas, it features malty chocolatey goodness, along with qualities of earth, leather, & a dark crusted bread.
This is the sipdown of my Autumn 2013 supply, but I believe I have a small bag of the Spring 2014 waiting in the wings :)
Happy Sunday Everyone!

I’m enjoying this one in bed, first cup of the day. Nothing fancy, but a good yunnan black, & I’m a sucker for novel shapes, as long as the tea tastes good.
It feels good to just relax a bit, as I’ve been on the go all week, & starting Monday life as I have known it for the last several years (we’re talking laid back pajama wearing tea drinking gardening cooking eating harp playing & teaching bliss) will suddenly change.
I’ve done it before…I can do this…a little extra $$$ will be nice!
The hardest part will be leaving the house at 6:00am.
I’ll need tea
Lots of tea!

This is only the 2nd tea I’ve had all day! It’s never good to drink too much tea (or other liquids) before playing a wedding, & once the wedding was over I took my harp home, changed out of my fancy pants, & came to Tony’s. I don’t have a scale here, so I went with 1 Tb of tea to a 10oz or so mug (I honestly have no idea how big these mugs are). The first steep was 1 minute & it was creamy & nice. The 2nd steep, which I’m on now, is 2 minutes, & it is even nicer :)
I’m going for one more steep, at 5 minutes, to enjoy while we watch the baseball game, which is just starting!

Another tea I enjoyed this morning, a little malt & a hint of chocolate. I’ve drank a lot of tea since then, so that’s all I got, this time.

I brewed a pot of this last night. It was very good. Pretty much what you expect a good Dian Hong to be. I’ll have to get to know this one better with a gong fu session…

This is a very good pu’er. The Yunnan Sourcing site states something about an “off” taste, but that must have been at the time it came into his possession.

Anyway, we consider this our house brew, at least I do. It has a very strong, black tea like quality, hints of astringency, sweetness, and “wildness.” The cha-qi is very high and though this can be brewed for a long time, it is probably most enjoyable Chinese style, something like 30s/1m/1m/1m/2m.

I’ve had this tea for over a year and a half. It hasn’t changed as much as some of the others. It has a consistent quality from cup to cup.

Earthy, mushroomy pu-er. For the life of me I cannot detect any citrus taste to it, though the idea of aging in a mandarin peel is interesting.
Not a lot of cha-qi to this one. Maybe a good starter for introducing folks to pu-er.

Had this over the course of the last two days. It has been a good cup to come home to after the cold weather. This tea seems to be lightly fermented. It gives an oak type note with sweetness and a touch of bitterness but not in an unpleasant way. I think the high bud count in this will make it sweeter in the future. I don’t quite get the molasses in it but this has been a good tea and it re-steeps very well. A good buy for a younger shou to age. 15 grams in the Yixing started with a 10 second steep and added 5 to each from there. Pretty solid cake.

I received my Yunnan Sourcing order on Wednesday. I just couldn’t resist the sale they had at the end of December. This is the first tea I decided to try. The leaves were very thin compared to their length. The shape was more needle-like than any other Dian Hong I’ve had. The colors ranged from golden to brown with some olive-toned ones as well. I brewed this one western style to see what a strong cup of this would be like. The texture is smooth, the flavor is well-rounded. The things I don’t like so much about this tea: the tannins are drying the back of my throat a bit, and the aftertaste isn’t great. I have a strong preference for teas with long sweet finishes, and this unfortunately doesn’t quite deliver.

This is a rich & Malty cup.

I originally ordered this tea because it has the words ‘fu shou’ in its name, bringing to mind my beloved Anxi Fo Shou, but it is not that tea, & & I figured that would be the case, but a girl’s gotta try, right?

Regardless, it is still an interesting tea, rich & malty, and a little sweet. I still haven’t got my steeping parameters worked out, but I’ve only drank it a few times. The first time I used a little too much leaf, this time I could have used a bit more, as it’s a little on the thin side. Like Goldilocks, next time it will hopefully be just right :)

Today is day 2 of the fish tank redo. Yesterday we drained & cleaned the tank, moving all the fish to a smaller tank. Today we’ll set it back up. Tony leaves for KC tomorrow, which will give the water a chance to settle & then we’ll start adding fish again.

I need to take a break from gongfu steeping today, & just drink some cups of tea! This one sounded intriguing to me, so I picked up a little in my Yunnan Sourcing order, which arrived this week! I’m not sure how to describe it, other than to say that in my exhuberance, I probably overleafed a bit, so there’s a low bitterness (which I actually don’t mind), a sweet slightly burnt caramelized taste, & the mouth of it reminds me of that canned sweetened condensed milk, for some reason.
A terrible review, I’m sure, but it’s actually a tasty tea!
One more reason why I avoid the ‘rating’ button.

short steeps 5/5/10/10/15 produced light yellow green broth, no bitterness, very smooth. enjoyed it a lot. Thank you TeaExplorer for your generous sample. on my shopping list

This is very floral in aroma and wet leaves. It is soft and fruity and very easy to drink with a nice sweetness to it. This is not one of those young shengs that says Bam I am here but a whisper that says I am here to tickle those taste buds. A very nice young sheng. I think a Yunnan Sourcing order is in the near future.

Used my new 140ml yixing for this tasting and I anticipated a good tasting but alas I screwed up. I used 3 gm tea for the preparation and steeped initially for 20 seconds at 190F and got a limpid tea. I let the next steep go for 30 seconds and it was better but not quite right, still a little thin. I guess I need a little more tes say 5 gm. There was no cinnamon or robust florals as in other Rou Guis I’ve try, so back to the lab, hope its not the tea as it was a sample and I would hope you give out a sample to attract not repel.

Tiny leaf with a dry aroma of usual malt. Steeped 3gm in 110 yixing the flavors were clean and honest with the prerequisite malt and honey without its sweetness and a slight bitterness at the end. I could taste a hint of Pu Erh and wonder if this leaf is used in Pu Erh production since it is a Simao. I used very short steeps in the beginning which had good mouth feel. It lasted to about 8 brews and then petered out.

As for my taste, not bad for a sample, and it is in the Yunnan vein so it is better than most red teas but its no Qing Pin.

I like this one a lot more than I expected to! I’ve made it gong fu style style and am on something like my 5th steep and it’s still going strong. Chocolaty, sweet, malty, not hay-y like I was expecting. This is a great cup. Thanks Terri Harplady!

Ok, way cool. A super portable TGY that I can take with me on weekend trips. Don’t have to worry about it being crushed. Heck just carry it in your pocket. Go to the waffle house ask for a cup of hot water and drop my tuo cha in, voila, satisfying TGY at your waiting lips. Its not super flavorful top notch tea but definitely better than a tea bag. I let the first steep go for one minute and the second, third steeps for about 40 seconds.