Yunnan Sourcing

When I ordered this tea I also ordered the lower grade “premium” and indeed there is no comparison. In all ways this is the absolute best TKY I have ever had. The scent is of the dry leaves is incredible, floral, buttery, not at all like any other TKY I’ve ever had. tea was prepared in 200ml yixing(like) pot using just enough of the tightly rolled leaf to cover the bottom of the pot. I make a habit of drinking even the initial flash infusion of expensive teas and even a 10 second initial cleansing infusion the intensity of the tea is more pronounced than most teas get from much longer infusions… After the second infusion an intense awareness of everything going on around me subsequent infusions up to and including the final infusion after allowing the leaves to sit overnight was still enjoyable. I easily got a liter plus of tea of tea through 15 infusions from the yixing out of these leaves making the tea, while seemingly expensive, a great value in my book. I will be getting more of this. It’s hard for me to think about a better tea. But there’s always tomorrow…

This tea pretty much underwhelms me. Basically it tastes like a run of the mill black tea with very little of the characteristics one might expect from a shu. The leaf material consists of smaller leaves that smell like I mentioned before, black tea. I will give this tea cudos for brewing up a wonderfully clean, clear and reddish beautiful cup. But here’s the thing if I want a cup of black tea I’ll brew some black tea… If I want some shu I won’t brew this tea.

Opening the pouch and selecting five grams, a gentle sandalwood and citrus stem aroma rise. The first scent off the rinsed leaf is briny, green, and pushes towards delicate paler fruits: plum, apricot, pear, and pineapple. The first two steeps are rather light, but by the third, the excellent quality of this tea has revealed itself, mouthfeel. A silky, glossy, smooth coating texture runs over the tongue, holds in the back of the mouth, and then swells and steams a while longer. A slight ethereal hint of spearmint or wintergreen alights on the roof of the mouth. Lacking that raucous, dry parching sensation that both the Bu Lang and the You Le had, I revel in the delightful heaviness of this tea.

The flavors are solid and delightful in fresh, ripe, light fruit, but for me, this tea takes it home with a thick, coating, almost syrupy rich soup. The texture shows itself as a warm pleasing, gentle, and calm grip of theanine settles over me. I could linger on this sensation, the delicate flavor and the rich texture of this tea until all time has been lost.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=344

Giving little dry leaf aroma, this tea unfurls slowly and begins in an incredibly mild manner. I stuck with a safe five grams, but again found myself wondering if I should crank up the leaf volume for what proved to be a very subtle tea. By the fifth or sixth steeps, when this tea finally began to push out its full essence, what came through was heavy on the bean-based oligosaccharides, fresh wood chips (think balsam, birch, and hemlock), and high floral herbs a la lavender-scented cotton, laundry detergent, and foxglove. All very enjoyable, but reserved and distant. An underlying strong wet moss and earthen floor pushed up from beneath.

Most notable for me in both this tea and the Bu Lang was the intense parching nature of the finish. That cottony, dry wood, sand, and hot moisture-less air experience has been a new kind of exit in puerh for me. It’s not the most pleasant, as it rasps at the throat and leaves me thirsty, not quenched. In a way, it also lets the classically enjoyable lingering and swelling finish evaporate more quickly.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=336

I revisited this tea, today, for no apparent reason, and thought to my self…why am I wasting time drinking bad tea? Off to the compost with you…

This tea is just downright perplexing to me. I’m having trouble gathering my thoughts about it. The dry leaf, rinse, and first steep aromas are all quiet, sullen, and distant, pushing through a hint of spice, mushroom, and moss. Flavor? Flavor? I’m looking for it. I’m searching.

In the next gaiwan over, I’ve got the session of Wu Liang from yesterday. I give it a brief reinvigorating rinse to bring it back up to temperature and then pull off a minute-long 12th steep. I felt embarrassed for the Bu Lang cake when I put my nose to the cup of Wu Liang and then loudly slurped a big sip; it was still loaded with flavor, texture, bitterness and aroma.

Moving back to the tea at hand, crickets are chirping. As it opens, it releases a distinct and surprising, wet, moldy basement on me. Aside from some slight date sugar and mulling spice character, I have little positive to say about this tea. It ends parching in an odd cottony sensation. This tea gave me a weird, bad headache.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=329

Revisiting this tea this morning, after a long period of having a brutal head cold and having been on the road before that, it’s my first session back at the tea table in over a week. It’s also the first time I’ve had this tea since tasting the other three 2009 Yunnan Sourcing cake samples I have. This one is far and away the winner for me. I can’t get over how fragrantly and wonderfully the aroma and flavors come across. I still think the body is a little lacking in comparison to the Ban Zhang Chun Qing, but the fresh, fruity, floral characters of this tea are unparalleled in my experience. Grateful to have ordered a whole cake from JAS eTea.

Easily the most outstanding character of this particular cake is the dry leaf and cupped aroma. It has a strong red currant and fresh cherry tomato scent. Incredibly “red” and vegetable-like. Not in a starchy way, but somewhere between green plant stems and fruit. Much as many garden-fresh tomatoes would smell like if heated just slightly. In the flavor, this translates to a lightly sweet herbal and delicate floral character, with marked pungency. Perhaps the Lan Xiang (orchid aroma) the producers are referring to?

From the forward flavor notes on, this tea is a little flatter. There is detectable astringency towards the finish, but it’s missing a certain bitterness balance and lingering swell. Longer steeps develop a curt, punchy upfront bitterness that’s somewhat unpleasant. Considering this sample employed fantastically large leaves, I may begin to sense that teas with mostly large leaves are able to put off fantastic aromas and front flavors, but lack a certain roundedness in the finish. This tea has endurance for its youth however, as it crosses the ten steep mark without much noticeable loss in depth.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=323

After trying several Pu-erh’s throughout Seattle I decided to purchase a tea cake at uwajimaya. I chose this cake only because it had been imported by a local distributor. This was also the most affordable choice. I’ve been using the same 400g for about a year now and I am very very pleased with the ingredients longevity per steep. It is becoming deeper and more rich with time. I drink this on a daily basis prior to meditation, reading, or study. Very impressed for the price. Very good or a “Wild Arbor” based tea.

I love this tea like little boys love throwing snowballs. I don’t even know how to describe it, but it’s dark without being heavy and tastes like a fruit, not a specific fruit, but in a way that makes me feel like I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a fruit out there somewhere that tastes like this. And the later infusions become sweet and caramel-like and wonderful.

This is a very nice sheng pu’erh. Aggressive, though not overly so. Probably not a good “starter” tea, but for those who’ve been drinking pu’erh for awhile, this one should work nicely.

There is something so pure about raw puerh, the least processed tea of all, simply sun dried and compressed, not even pan fried like longjing, but allowed to remain “alive” with tiny microbes that facilitate fermentation and constant change. What I love about the idea of raw bamboo puerh is the contradiction of that purity with the elaborate process of making charcoal, packing the bamboo sections, steaming them, cutting away the bamboo, etc. This is tea dialectics! Simply complex. Fire and water. Heaven and earth.

As I understand it, there are a couple of different ways to make bamboo puerh: One is to roll or knead the fresh tea leaves, directly fill the bamboo tube, and oven bake; the other is to first sun dry the leaves, then steam them on rice, and compress the leaves into the bamboo while baking over fire. I think this tea was processed the second way.

I have only ever had the Wuyi Mountain bamboo tea from Norbu, which is subtle and very mild. This Dai tea (the Dai are one of China’s ethnic minorities) is an interesting comparison. First the tea tubes are much larger — two and a half inches in diameter. And the tea is much more tightly compressed; it was difficult to break off a chunk and, consequently, I crushed some of the leaves. I rinsed the tea twice to open it up, which it did nicely. The first tastes were of the familiar purity of green puerh, predominantly vegetal, no camphor. In the next infusions, floral notes appear (mushroomy magnolia perhaps) against a definite smoky background (pace the YS description). What I’m calling smokiness is very subtle and quiet pleasant and recessive — different from up-front roasted; others may call it woody but it was smokey to me. It adds further complexity. The spent leaves are amazingly whole; the smell of the leaves in the pot is more flowery than other shengs I’ve had.

I think the Dai simply put this tea in a bowl with hot water rather than prepare it in a pot and transfer to cups. I will brew and drink directly from a gaiwan next time, to try to emulate the Dai. Tea dialectics put me in touch with people I don’t even know. I can travel with tea if I concentrate. I can become very old and also very young. Raw bamboo puerh is particular good and helping me do this.

Opened this tea tonight, a free sample that has been waiting nearly a year for its debut.

Started with 3.5 gram in a small gaiwan (75mL), flash rinsed then sat 1 minute before first infusion of about 10 seconds, at 205 degrees. The first infusion is delicate, light, probably could have been longer—a little fruity, a little sweet, a little floral. Very nice. 2nd infusion 20 seconds, a little more earthy along with the same floral, fruity, sweet, anise. Strong bitterness comes out in the 3rd infusion, lost track of the infusion time, but can confirm that the infusion was quite dark yellow, and that the bitterness receded appropriately with a 2 fold dilution, and the sweet and strong anise/floral/fruity flavors returned.

A 4th infusion, about 15 seconds—this really needs very short infusions still due to higher than my usual leaf-to-water ratios, because the sample bit of beeng was rather large—and the typical young sheng profile is back.

A few more infusions later, it is clear that this is a nice young sheng, but it requires careful attention to keep the bitterness down to the low level I prefer.

I have had this tea lying around for a little while so it may not have been at it’s peak. Having said that, I loved it. The first infusion was quite subtle but it was the following infusions where this tea came into it’s own The second and third infusion displayed hints of spice and a pronounced fruitiness. The absolute standout was the body of this tea (although thickness seems more appropriate). By the fifth infusion it was a little spent. Most surprising is that it was a big hit with my eleven and thirteen year old boys too!

…If you had served me this tea and told me that it was Earl Grey
- then you would have FOOLED me!

’Cause it reminds me of the Earl … Kinda. I would had looked at the reddish liquid, bittersweet smell and gone “Oh, Earl grey is it?”. But a moment later or so I would had stopped, frowned, and stared at you with a confused look in my face.

“What is that nutty flavor” I would have asked you.
“What nutty flavor?”
“That Dirt/Nuttyness in the aroma”…

And then I would sip at the tea and my eyes would go big as I swallowed because I would think something in the line of :“Uhm… sweet black tea… Nutty…. And whats that TINGLE in the back of the troat!? I know this feeling! IT’S POISON!!!!”

Snort

But It’s just me who overreact. ‘Cause I am too silly (and don’t you all know it.)
Then I would sip again and talk about the flavors. Chocolat, bergamot, tobacco, nut and a earthy aftertaste.

Sweet and bitter taste.

Hmm… I like it.
But for the wrong reasons. I like it because this tea reminds me of MARLBORRO.
Don’t know why, maybe I was brainwashed before anything with cigarrets was banned from TV. Oh, don’t get me wrong – I don’t smoke. It’s just that I can imagine a Marlborro Guy in a bar drinking this tea. (Smirk).

I leave you with that image.

Hapily bumping the rating on this tea!

This time ’round I went for 9g in 190ml using the same seasoned shi piao style zi ni pot. Single rinse had 10 second total contact time (the general rate of pour for this pot) with water right off a boil. Only paid attention to four infusions before delving into just drinking alongside my dinner and winging temps and times after that. Tack 10 seconds onto these for total contact times: 25sec-99C, 30sec-98C, 35sec-96C, 40sec-94C, subsequent infusions a patchwork up to a couple minutes with 90C-100C water…

Fragrance is basic slightly earthen leaf litter and bark with a slight olive oil underlying note. Aroma heady wet humus and wet mossy rocks (not really earthy or musty, but there are parallels) and some dry bamboo. A good amount of bran comes out in the aroma on both the leaves and liquor. Liquor starts reddish and gets progressively darker brown until the untimed seventh infusion.

Much more crisp and coppery than last time brewing. Great body, lingering rice sweetness, and woody notes similar, but more of that sweetness and much more of a savory impression. Bamboo shoot or marsh grass vegetal notes peep through in the aftertaste. Crisp and refreshing despite thick mouthfeel and generally very warming bodily effect.

Later infusions I had with meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Very odd pairing, but by golly did they go well together! Heavy food and hearty tea with cool crisp air coming in from outside makes for a very nice experience.

Hooray for second chances.

Had a nice but less-than-wonderful round of brewings with this tea the other day. I’m going to redo this tea with a bit higher concentration.
Used 7g in 200ml water in a shi piao style zi ni clay pot that’s been pretty well seasoned with shu puerh.

Big body, mildly sweet, tacky. Nice, full presence and steadfast rich wood and leaf litter character, but there really isn’t a ton to distinguish this cake from other good Menghai shu bingchas. I know shu cha doesn’t gain much of anything beyond a few years to a decade, but it’s sad to consider it just mellowing out to a pleasant tea that’s nice to have with meals. Tasty, but it isn’t something I’d necessarily serve to guests, as there isn’t very dynamic an expression of flavors.

I know I can get more out of this, as I’ve been brewing it since February 2009. If something else doesn’t catch my eye/tastebuds late tonight, I’ll be revisiting this.

This is one of the best lighter fermentation ripe puerh that I’ve had yet. A lighter sweet and mellow blend with a very enjoyable rolling smoothness with each sip, where the silky texture is complemented with lighter slightly malty notes in the background. Absolutely no traces of harshness or earthiness/mustiness in this wonderful blend. A very wonderful puerh that I’ve already bought an entire tong of which is the first time I have done so and I have not ruled out going back for a second or third tong.

Yum

Really tasty, approachable, and durable.
Can’t really justify rating this any higher since I just don’t feel it has the range of character necessary for me to stick this alongside teas I have the highest regard for, but boy does it taste good. Not much to add to the vendor’s description, though…

Used 2g with 60ml water in a small glazed ceramic gaiwan. Used 90 degree C water and it cooled to 83 degrees C by the 4th infusion, reheating for the 5th and 6th. Steep times followed 30, 45, 60, 150, 180, 210 seconds, followed by a steep a couple seconds shy of the 20 minute mark.

Up front it is floral and toasty. Chocolate, honey, a touch of caramel, and toasted marshmallow in the flavor with cinnamon, table grapes, allspice berries, and a mix of tropical and annual wildflowers melded together in the aroma and nose. Very very smooth. I accidentally let the 6th infusion go for 20 minutes and it’s still very tasty and not particularly different from the earlier infusions. This is really reminiscent of Taiwanese Oriental Beauty (Bai Hao Oolong) but with more cocoa. Rich, buttery body and slight sweet-crisp mouthwatering impression similar to the effect of eating grapes after a tiny bit of chocolate covered caramel.
Soothing and quick to disappear from my cup.

Just had the softest expression I’ve experienced from this tea thus far. 6.6g in a gaiwan holding about 100mL using water just shy of a boil. Single rinse and untimed infusions starting around 15 seconds and building to about 45 seconds on the sixth infusion.

Not nearly as sweet as I’ve had, but very thick and very smooth. Rich, dark gold infusion with good transparency. Light pollen-like liquor aroma with just a hint of white peach. The tea itself didn’t exhibit it, but the emptied cup carried the wonderful perfumey aroma of Da Hong Pao as I have come to expect the tea to present. Alas, I was sharing this with a couple folks and it was very tasty but very different from what I’ve experienced.

Based on the brewing round we did, I wouldn’t choose this tea to age but enjoy now (okay, this is partly me easing my conscience for blasting through two cakes in such a short time). Should still be very interesting down the line, though.

Shoot, I’m thinking this tea won’t get the chance to age much in my hands! I keep getting these random cravings for this specific tea… maybe I’ll just have to buy a whole tong and hide it somewhere that I can’t access very well.
This time I feel I sort of hit a sweet spot for the first infusion, though durability of subsequent infusions suffered a bit.

Used a lighter concentration with my trusty old, larger Duan Ni clay Shi Piao pot I’ve seasoned well enough to change the color of. 5g in 210ml water with a single rinse at 88 degrees C immediately poured off. Pour time is about 15 seconds. Infusions progressed: 45sec-87C, 45sec-83C, 45sec-78C, 1min10sec-87C, 1min15sec-85C, 2min30sec-80C. Sixth infusion still had staying power, but most of the complexity had leveled out and any brews after it would probably be just a bunch of the same diminishing to the ether. O’course, I really couldn’t take a seventh cup in this instance. I know Lu Yu’s tea was heavier, whisked tea, but I felt much the same way tonight.

Very close expression to the first time I played with this tea, but incorporating the toasty, cocoa-and-spice characteristics I got at high concentrations. Strange, since this is the lowest concentration I’ve brewed this at… This tea seems to really want to please the more frugal tea drinkers who don’t want to expend a lot of energy on controlling the parameters.
Grape-sweet, orchid-floral, celery-astringent, toasted French white oak woodiness (as expressed in a dry Chardonnay), steamed cauliflower vegetal note, cassia-spiciness, rose-afteraroma, peppered roast beef savory, with a wet granite mineral quality. Later infusions become more minerally and 3rd infusion onward carries a pleasant long-lasting light astringency across most of the tongue and throat. By the third infusion I’d sort of developed a sweat from the savory-spiciness even though it’s pretty cool tonight.
Once again, very yummy and satisfying. I had a churning stomach and three cups of this and a couple pieces of sprouted wheat toast took care of it (probably not as well as a shu puerh, but I had a craving).

Hmm, I think I’m starting to beat this bush to death… Better put this tea away for a while.

Tried preparing this differently after seasoning three yixing pots with it.
7g in 150ml using a shi piao style qing hui ni pot and 9g in 170ml using a fang gu style zhi ma duan ni pot and 11g in 170ml using a fang gu style “dragon kiln” burnt duan ni pot.
I’m used to raised concentration and short steeps increasing the complexity, but I got much smaller range in these. A lot more chocolate notes and roasty florals. Aroma, nose, and aftertaste/afteraroma is strikingly similar to Da Hong Pao!