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“I think it is a new tea offered by Yunnan Sourcing – and one of the cheapest on their website. I had the one picked in October 2018, merely a month before my tasting. The tea looks, smells and...” Read full tasting note
This is a pure assamic varietal grown in the Huang Shan Mountain area of Mengku county in Lincang prefecture. The tea was picked in early October, fried briefly (kill-green), rolled, allowed to wilt overnight and then dried in the sun the next day. When sun-drying is applied in the final stage as opposed to heat-drying, the result is a black tea that is more subtle when young, but ages very well over the coming years. Younger sun-dried black teas also tend to steep longer and display more character in the middle to later steeps. As they age the complexity and fruit/honey sweetness increases as does the spiced essence!
Our Mengku Sun-Dried Black was grown without the use of pesticides by Mr. Duan and his neighbors.
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Verdant TeaI think it is a new tea offered by Yunnan Sourcing – and one of the cheapest on their website. I had the one picked in October 2018, merely a month before my tasting.
The tea looks, smells and feels good in the bag: huge twisted wiry leaves, very hard and strong. It has an unusual dry aroma of vegetables: carrots, cabbage, raw potatoes…
It steeps well (western style) and fast to a bright red soup. The smell changes somewhat to a smell of vegetable stew with a hint of sweetness. The taste follows the nose: vegetables, a bit of floral sweetness, some sourness and copper, and a long minty and sour aftertaste. The flavors are changing and evolving, and the taste not nearly as rough as I expected based on the size of the leaves and its low price point. This tea re-steeps
fairly well and in the process acquires a pronounced sweetness as if the ever-present carrots had just been roasted.
All-in-all it is a tea with a bit of unusual taste that may grow on the drinker substantially after trying it several times (it surely happened with me before). And I really liked the look and feel of it. Yunnan Sourcing claim that this tea has been grown without pesticides and that it will improve and change flavor with age. I will probably reorder it and store for a year or so to see what happens. I was not swept off my feet by this Assamica but I was certainly intrigued.
Flavors: Carrot, Floral, Metallic, Mint, Pleasantly Sour, Sweet, Vegetable Broth
Actually they had that one last year too. I bought some shorty after they put it on this site spring 2017, wasn’t really a fan when I got it. But I left it alone for a six months or so and the flavor changed a lot. It got nice and smooth, slightly savory but more sweet with a good raisin/dried fruit kind of flavor. Good stuff! Hopefully yours will change over time too
tperez, thank you for the heads up.I will definitely try to age it. This tea did taste promising but somewhat unfinished (as I often feel with young puehr).
It’s strange that it has been offered for at least a year and there was no reviews or even a blank entry on Steepster: does not happen often.
Oh, ok sorry it appears this is not quite the same tea… The one I had is this https://steepster.com/teas/yunnan-sourcing/79718-mengku-wild-arbor-assamica-black-tea-star-spring-2017 Both Mengku assamica blacks and mention “Mr. Duan” in the description, but yours says “Huang Shan Mtn.” and sun dried while mine says “Xiao Hu Sai” and doesn’t specify. I’d be curios to see how they compare