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First person to review… Well I’ll jump right in! I just recieved this today with my order from scott @ Yunnan Sourcing and it was beautiful. It has filled my cupboard with a sweet cacao aroma. The disk is mostly black with golden “zebra” stripes. It smells of dark cacao and a red grapes. I picked off a generous amount to flash steep in my gaiwan. It can apart easily and smoothly which I enjoyed. Upon brewing, the scent became scrumptious. It smelled of dark fudge and maple syrup. I rinsed the leaves and prepared to consume. I poured out a cup with excitement to taste the delectable brew. The flavor was somewhat disappointing. This is a very decent Dian hong and especially good for the price, but the aroma is misleading. It tastes very bold and robust. The initial flavor is almost identical to Assam. Its a very rustic wood smoke flavor. Its almost difficult to get down with the expectation of a desert flavor. I still enjoyed it thoroughly. Its has a sweetened coffee like flavor. The sweetness does present itself but only until after a few steepings. The flavor of maple sugar and currant fill your senses as a an aftertaste. The liquor is a crimson ruby color and continues this way well into steeping. This is a great value Dian Hong, and its interesting to get black tea in cake form. Yunnan Sourcing never disappoints.

The aesthetic value of this cake alone would make anyone swoon. I opened the wrapper to revale a beautiful downy disk. Long silver furry buds make up this fantastic tea. I brewed it in my gaiwan with slightly hotter water than I would with Bai hao yin zhen. The dry leaves have an intense aroma of stone fruit, honey, and cyprus. I broke a small chunk off and brewed. The taste is almost identical to Silver needle except for the intensity. It has the same honey and hay taste but more in depth. The flavors are brought out and maximized. The dry leaves have the scent of honey, sugar, hay and with a spicy undertone. I can hint at lychee and peppercorn. The aftertaste is phenomenal with a sweetness that lingers long after drinking. Unlike silver needle I’m able to steep this repeatedly with a consistent palatableness. The liquor is light golden copper with hairs lining it. A truly magnificent brew, I only wish I could taste it once it has aged for some time.

I had a little trouble with this tea; I usually brew with less leaves. When I brewed this I had to add more in the pot after a few steepings. I opened the pack to be greeted with the scent of plums, dates and slight undertone of early morning grass. The leaves are very large and range from a dark muddy green to silver and citrine colored. I also spotted several large dark red stems. I brewed this sheng in my yixing with boiling water. The aroma of tobacco, shale and bamboo creeped from my pot. The taste at first was very bland and had a slight menthol tinge. I realized I would be needing more leaves, so I filled my pot up. After I added my leaves the taste was much better! I achieved an explosive sharp sheng! I especially love sheng that makes you shudder and coats your mouth with a cooling intake. I could note the taste of bitter greens, light smoke and bok choy. These bitter flavors were replaced with an aftertaste of apricot, maple and pepper. After each steeping, the sweet flavors took over and shrouded the sharp. It had a consistent sheng menthol sip every steep. The qi of this brew was very strange. The entire drinking process I noted no presence and could not feel any overtaking of qi. After I finished drinking and was cleaning up then the qi took over and was very powerful. This was a very interesting and educational tea session.

Thank you Kevin for supplying this beautiful brew. The scent from opening the package was very unexpected. It is a very vibrant floral spice. When I usually use the word floral, scents like Jasmine, orchid, cherry blossoms come to mind. In this situation, this is not the case. Scents of Hibiscus and Rose dominant with undertones of vegetal and kale. I brewed the forest green spirals in my gaiwan. The dry leaves were very downy and variety of colors from a deep green to white and gold. The liquor is a topaz yellow and iridescent. The aroma of green peppercorns and summer grass filled my tea room. This was a very unexpected green tea for me. Its brew tastes sweet and with a tinge of zest. I can note apple blossom and spinach. Its a very fresh and sharp taste. I loved the diversity of this tea. When it is steeped the wet leaves even look like a vibrant seaweed salad. My only complaint is I attempted to treat it as a oolong and steep it excessively. Sadly, this brew grows very bitter. I love this tea and I’m sad that the company is closing.

I found this tea on a whim, and I’m glad that I discovered it. Once I opened the package I knew it was going to be delicious. The initial scent was of a sweet honey with a slight spice. The spice was somewhere between smoke, paprika and cardamon. The little nuggets are a forest green and dull crimson. They were soft and fresh. I was surprised by the sheer size of each one these small bundles. I brewed this tea a little too strong and since I have tweaked my amounts. I used my new Yixing pot as my brewing vessel. The initial washing aroma was explosive. The scents of honey orchid, cream and pine smoke filled my tea room. The liquor brews a robust bronze. This truly is a golden Oolong. My first steep invoked flavors of sweet nectar and honey suckle with an undertone of roasted wood. The brew slowly becomes more and more spiced as it steeps. Once I was at my fourth steep the honey suckle flavor had been replaced by an almost roasted mate taste. The wet leaves filled my room with an aromatic sweetness and continued to release a pleasurable aroma. After I was in late steeping they began to smell of brown sugar oatmeal and grains. This tea is very exquisite and you cant beat it with its price. I am very happy to have discovered this tea.

This is delicious! I absolutely love this tea! The leaves are slightly lower grade but still a typical japanese green. The small spines are emerald green and with small gold specks. The brew is a pale jade and refracts light well. The brew tastes of sweet honey butter! There are undertones of vegetable, nectar, oils and a very slight citrus tang. The wet leaves smell of algae, spinach, fresh grass and spring! This is a quality japanese green. The only problem with this tea is its price. The company I bought it from has it priced extremely high so I can only afford it within small doses. I also would rather spend my money elsewhere so this is the last of this tea that I will be buying.

The price for this was a little high but you get a nice quantity as well. This should have lead me to believe the quality of the tea. This oolong is not horrible but it is nothing all too great either. I use it as my everyday oolong. It has a very nice floral aroma and brews a brilliant green. The image pictured on the website does not even come close to matching. The tea is tightly rolled with stems in every few bundles. It is a brilliant emerald green with forest green spottings. The leaves unfurl into crumbled green masses. Few bundles are whole leaves, mostly broken up. The taste is grassy with a hint on granite. It starts out nice and sweet but leaves a bitter taste that is hard to place. I try cleansing the tea a few times before ingesting and that seems to help. If you want a large quantity and don’t mind budging on quality, this is the oolong for you.

This was a very strange tasting for me. I previously brewed this and I remember it being a delicious experience. This time around it wasn’t as enticing. The dry leaves have a beautiful appearance. With full twisted stems and leaves, this forest green tea had me hooked. It was speckled with blonde tips and silver hairs. With its aging it had deepened and became a darker colour. I was very excited to steep this in my sheng Yixing. I used less grams because of the size of the leaves. Upon being steeped, the aroma of spinach and wet sage filled the air. There were undertones of lychee and artichoke inside the pot. I began my first round and the flavor was very nulled. The only consistent prominence with this brew was the sheng mouth feel. It had a very dominant menthol sheng flavor each steep. Other than that flavor though, it was mostly a faint grassy taste. I could hint at a light earth taste but otherwise it was nill. This brew was flat and I had no more success each steep. The qi was rather weakened. The soup was still pleasurable but the flavor was very lacking.