Yunnan Sourcing

Nice, aromatic, sweet.

I love this tea dearly… from the moment I drank the mao cha in the tiny Bu Lang village it came from and now a year later. It’s got tons of texture and thick “hui gan” that stays in the mouth and throat long after drinking it. Age will only make it nicer! There are few teas better than this one. I like “Dong Fang Bu Bai” a little better!

This is what I said about the tea when doing a comparative tasting in March:

Used 1.8 grams of tea in small 40 mL gaiwan
Infusions 160°F/71°C-170°F/77°C
30”, 30” (probably too long, with all the bitterness coming out in the 2nd infusion), 30”
Dry Leaves: flat thin small leaves and fragments, some stems, scent of hay, grass
Liquor, 1st infusion: yellow liquor; thicker body; hay, warm, less camphor, but very similar to the Jade Pole (also a Yunnan green tea from Yunnan Sourcing)
Liquor, 2nd infusion: nutty, dark, vegetal, astringent
Liquor, 3rd infusion: sweet, vegetal, bit nutty, but much less astringent
Wet Leaves: more broken pieces, leaves are quite small, yellow-green,and also mostly buds and small leaves

Tonight used a lot of leaf, water about 170 degrees, filled the gaiwan with leaf and steeped enough infusions to fill the quart thermos with nutty warm lightly sweet tea. Mellow and tasty, but not as good a control of the sweet as I sometimes can get with my chinese green teas—under very difficult performance conditions, of course, with the ‘bulk’ brewing.

To me, this tea tastes and smells like fresh figs. I normally use sweetener, but I didn’t put any in this. It’s sweet, fruity, and a tiny bit spicy.

This is a warm, wonderful puerh. Today I have abused it: took a good chunk of beeng, tossed it in a pot, added boiling water and ignored it for a few minutes, and then rinsed the leaves several times without further ‘steeps’, adding all to a thermos for drinking at work. And it is tolerating with with a warm, rich, mildly sweet flavor, some depth to it with caramel notes.

Will do a proper tasting later, but this is the 2nd brewing, neither under the best conditions, and it is a very forgiving tea.

Another excellent session with this tea: it sat in the small sample bag in the bottom of the tea drawer, and I just happened to pick it up this morning. I wasn’t anticipating a tea log note so didn’t weigh it out, but the small porcelain gaiwan is 1/3 to 1/2 full with the leaves long since fully hydrated. I’m at least 12 and likely 15 steeps into it, and this is so lovely, reminding me a lot of the 2009 Lao ban zhang that is my current touchstone for young sheng. It does take a little care, even 8 or 10 steeps out, because I forgot a steep for at least 5 and maybe a few more minutes a few back, and it was…..unpleasantly bitter. But back to shorter (now 30-60 seconds), and it’s light, delicious, with that anise/herbaceous touch that I love. Mmmmm.

Just ponied up to buy a whole beeng.

I ordered a sample of this tea with my first order from Yunnan sourcing. It is quite interesting. There is a lot of body and depth to this one, some bitterness that can be impressive with overlong steeps, but I brew it short, relatively dilute, and get a very nice cup of tea, with marvelous sweetness as I slurp/inhale, balanced by a depth of the later flavors.

About 1 gram per ounce/30mL of near-boiling water, flash rinsed, then 10 second infusions gradually increasing to a minute or more; this is a tea that can give lots of steeps.

Addendum: I have lost count of steeps, but now am certainly past 12, and it is still lovely.
Addendum 2: I finally got to the bottom of it, somewhere around 20 steeps. YUM.

I did a head-to-head with this tea and a similar tea from Yunnan Sourcing today:

http://www.well.com/user/debunix/recipes/YunnanOBs.html

In the end, both were lovely teas. Oddly enough, given that the BYO was end-of-bag with more broken leaves, it took the 2nd infusion to start showing the spiciness and full flavor that the YSOB gave immediately. The BYO, however, seemed to hold that lovely flavor a little longer, but by the 5th infusion, both are starting to thin out, pretty much done. I have only had one Taiwanese Oriental Beauty, and that was a rose scented version that was quite unlike roses or like these lovely teas. A high quality Taiwanese Oriental Beauty is reputedly quite hard to come by, but these teas are quite satisfying, and not too pricey, so I don’t feel any particular need to try the genuine article.

1.9 grams of tea
about 4 oz water (larger gaiwans, not preheated)

1st 195 degrees, 45 seconds
2nd 185 degrees (too impatient to wait for full reheating), 30 seconds
3rd 175 degrees (ditto), 1 minutes
4th: 195 (more patient this time), 2 minutes
5th: water just off full boil, 1 minute
(stopping because of diminishing marginal returns)

Yunnan Wild Arbor “Oriental Beauty” Oolong from Yunnan Sourcing
Leaves: thin, dark twists, with sweet fruity tea scent
1st infusion: sweet, plummy, floral, with a spiciness that is not there in the BYO
2nd: spicy, fruity, floral
3rd: losing a bit of the spicy and sweet edge, thinner flavor, perhaps dissipating a little faster than the BYO, but really not much to choose between them at this point
4th: 4th: a little thinner, but still quite enjoyable; not holding as well as the BYO
5th: thinner, still a little fruity/spicy
Wet leaves: dark red leaves with hints of green; scent is sweet/tart

I was pleased to discover some of this in a stash in another office, and brewing it up this morning, i was interrupted a few times, so it ended up quite slapdash in my thermos, a little light overall, but even though I know it can be much better when I get it just so, it is still such a wonderful, forgiving tea that hours later in the thermos it is sunny warm welcoming with hay notes more than the fruity notes that predominate earlier. Nothing bitter or unpleasant even under these abusive conditions. Gotta love a tea like that.

I really like this tea. It’s like everything black tea wants to be without the bitterness. Fruity, sweet, tart, yum. It’s flexible about brewing, and has pretty good legs.

The dry leaves are twisted and long and dark, the smell is sweet/fruity/spicy.

I start with my usual ratio of 1 g leaf to 1 oz/30 mL water, brewing gongfu with small gaiwan, water between 180 and 195 degrees, infusions 30" t0 1 minute, and repeat infusions until the flavor is gone.

The liquor is amber to red, medium body, sweet, fruity; the wet leaves more mostly intact, medium to large, and retain the strong fruity scent.

I have also ‘bulk brewed’ this one several times for my thermos to share during a workday afternoon and it’s quite popular with my colleagues.

But now my leaves are sitting in a drying gaiwan, I have no more hot water, and after only 3 infusions, I am pretty sure that there was more there to give. Sigh.

Disclaimer: I have only had one ‘oriental beauty’ tea from TenRen, and that one was rose-scented and just seemed off; I composted rather than drank it.

I bought this dark roast oolong along with the light roast oolong I wrote about yesterday. It starts out smooth on the tongue and finishes on a dry, slightly bitter (but still pleasant) note. It is a solid oolong, but when it comes time to restock, I think I will stick with the light roast version.