2010 Yunnan Sourcing Ge Deng Raw 

Having tried many YS pu-erh productions from about 2017 onwards, I was also curious about some of their earlier teas that are still in stock. Many seem quite expensive. This one feels almost too cheap, but I am not sure what is the sourced material here.

In any case, I found the tea to be quite nice, but I would barely call it semi-aged in its current state 12 years after production. It has a lot of sweetness and a floral character. There is nevertheless good bitterness and pungency, and a super smooth mouthfeel. The cha qi seemed somewhat caffeine heavy for my liking.

Dry leaf aroma is nutty and it reminds me of honey and orange blossoms. After the rinse, the smell is mineral and very elegant in a sense, with hints of cognac, lemongrass, and sage.

The first steep starts mild, mineral and grassy with a honey flavour. Second is more bitter, herbaceous and sweet overall. The aftertaste is floral and yeasty, but there is also a nutty almond flavour.

The Yunnan tour has made it to a pretty hip pit-stop…

Region 3/4: Yiwu / Mengla county. Location 1/2: Ge Deng mountain (Mengla county)

Well… a few disclaimers first: 1) my sample was the bing-hole. A challenge to brew – what I could break off had many broken leaves that got bitter very quickly, and what I couldn’t break off led to an ultra-compressed chunk of tea that very slowly gave up its flavors. 2) It’s seven years old. Could be suffering from those awkward puerh adolescent years where it has lost its bright, youthful flavors but hasn’t developed its rich, mature flavors.

OK. That said, the flavors, from arrival to aftertaste, were all fairly muted and short-lived. That’s about all I can say. Nothing unpleasant, but nothing that grabbed my attention. Also, although this fit in my price parameters for my little Yunnan tour experiment (~$50-$60/cake), it is worth noting that these Yiwu cakes are only 250g rather than 400g like the other regions. For what should be a substantial jump in quality given the price differential, I just didn’t see it.

Frankly, it does remind me of a couple of other (granted, cheap) Yiwu teas I have had, but I will save my review of the Yiwu region until after I have my second sample from the area.

Anyway, I have just enough leaf left for a quick session in a 60ml gaiwan rather than the yixing pot I have been using. I will update the review if something develops out of this.
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Dry leaf: straw, sweet herb (faint spearmint), dark honey, baking spices. In preheated vessel – dark wild honey, green leaf, chocolate notes.

Smell: ashy, bitter green herb, hints of floral (lily), dried parsley

Taste: straw; old, cheap chocolate; dried date, dried herb (parsley again), some hints of ashiness that come and go. Aftertaste has short-lived honeysuckle and light dried fruit sweetness. Hints of artificial grape and bitter cherry. All of the flavors are fairly muted.

Dry – Honey, bittersweet notes of green stems or unripe tomato, hay, faint peach.
Wet – Thick, Honey, the fruity spectrum of cocoa, reduced orchard fruits (apples/pears… kinda), bitter green notes.
Liquor – Dull gold to Orange Gold.

Initial steeps Are bittersweet and have a somewhat savory base with apparent thickness. There are some warmed up white fruits/orchard fruit notes (poached pear?) and a darker-richer note that slightly resembles cocoa notes, there’s a pungency to it, but it feels hidden.

Mid steeps Steeps 3+ The leaves open up and the previous notes are still there, but feels more robust body that also has astringency developing. The initial notes are still bittersweet with a hint of something savory and moving on to sweeter and more complex notes, it sort of reminds me of some ManZhuan notes, that weird but very pleasant ’green’+ cocoa note. It is a mix of a green bitter note and the thicker richer bittersweet from cocoa.

Final Steeps It balances a bit more after a few more steeps, the body is still very good by the 6th steep, but you can tell it is thinning and developing a bit more astringency. Then at steeps 7-8th there’s a ‘collapse’ where the tea seems to only offer mostly bitterness and astringency.

Final Notes
Very good tea, this is definitely age well, it has good taste now, but it has that something that holds a bit of a promise, is not the astringency or the bitterness is a good balance between the two. I’ll rest it a bit more and re-try it in a few months to see in anything changes. No score now, but will update it as soon as I retry it.