Yunnan Sourcing

ru yao dragon teapot, gongfucha

Dry leaves: musty. Slightly floral.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDGKByhp4-j/

Wet leaves: honey, spices and pepper
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDGK4wwp4wN/

Light steep: I taste/smell; light honey, spices and pepper. Slight wood, minerals and metallic.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDGK0CQJ4wF/

Medium steep: I taste/smell; medium honey, spices, bitterness and pepper. Light wood, minerals and metallic.

Heavy steep: again, I taste/smell; medium honey, spices, bitterness and pepper. Light wood, minerals and metallic.

All in all this tea is great however it’s a tad weird thus why I rate a 99. I suggest you try for yourself.

Bonus photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDGJ0sip4-K/

This was a fairly nice sheng. There was some bitterness buy not much. There was a little tobacco in the first infusion but none in the second. It seems to have lost the taste of apricots but still had some sweetness to it. Overall this was good. Didn’t get much qi off of it, maybe a little. There was a certain amount of astringency to this tea.

I steeped this ten times in a 120ml gaiwan with 8.8 g leaf and 190 degree water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min.

A nice medium compact 7g chunk goes into my (very new, very low profile & very sexy) 100ml gaiwan, quick rinse and the first steep I can smell TCP from the amber liquor, so yes to camphor notes 100%.

There was always a nice aged raisin taste throughout the session, sweet and just right. The dry storage was nicely done to bring out the right taste, it didnt have any sour or varnished notes, and was quite simple in it flavour, but a good one.

Later I pushed it a bit and did get slightly sour notes but nothing offputting, just enough to make me want to smack my lips a bit.

Nice cha qi, I feel relaxed but focused mind.

It was only those two notes I really got. Some floral but nothing that I could recognise or gush over (I am comparing to some pretty amazing Oolong here though, so i dont know if sheng could ever compare), but the two notes did it nicely. Perfect if you just want a good aged fruit flavour – a lot nicer than some others I have tried in this price range, which is $58/400g, im at the 12th steep in two hours, such an easy drinker. The sweet raisin did change into something a bit more sour but it is still quite drinkable.

did 5/7/10/15/20/25 secs etc

this tea has aged nicely sitting in a basket in grandma’s living room! so lovely

for my 500TH tasting note, i am pleased to announce that water temperature has a big role in bitterness for sheng and fermentation for shou. my new theory works perfectly for me:

“turning off the kettle shortly after the water begins to rumble, that this water temp (about 90c-100c) is perfect for puerh for me. With raw (sheng),there is little bitterness. with ripe (shou), the earth/fermentation taste is not as strong”.

this tea normally has a somewhat strong earth/fermentation taste. but my new way works nice with this tea

2012 Nan Jian “Certified Organic Mini Brick” Ripe Pu-erh tea * 100 grams

Ru yao dragon teapot gongfucha:

Dry leaves: musty
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDLqxgdp4zH/

Wet leaves: strong earth/fermentation.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDLrpG3J413/

I rinsed one long rinse and let leaves sit for a while

Light steep: I taste/smell; Light earth/fermentation, minerals, wood, forest floor and autumn leaves.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDLrl7OJ41v/

Medium steep: I taste/smell; medium earth/fermentation, forest floor, autumn leaves, mud, minerals and wood. Slight camphor and metallic tastes.

Heavy steep: I taste/smell; heavy earth/fermentation, forest floor and autumn leaves. Medium mud and minerals and wood. Light camphor and metallic. Slight pine taste too

All in all this is a yummy tea. I rate a 100 and suggest you try it.

http://yunnansourcing.com/en/nan-jian-tea-factory/1464-2012-nan-jian-certified-organic-mini-brick-ripe-pu-erh-tea-100-grams.html

Bonus photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDLqocFJ4y1/

I think I tried a sample of someone’s Jin Jun Mei once, and fell in love. So, I splurged and got me some.

Does not disappoint. One of my favorites pretty much ever.

This was a good tea. Not particularly complex, but not bad in much of any way. First few steeps had an increasing mouth-drying effect, but this waned in the later steeps as the sweeter flavors came to the fore. The first steeps itself was quite sweet. Reminded me of brown sugar or maple perhaps. Throughout, the tea had honey notes, and in the mid-steeps these were accompanied by a lightly smoky tobacco flavor. The smoke was more apparent in the nose than the taste. Could feel the sweetness coating the mouth, especially in the early steeps. Even though I oversteeped a few times and the leaves were totally loose, I didn’t really get much of any bitterness out of this, even when it was mouth-drying.

I brewed this one up with 6g in a 100ml Gaiwan at a bout 200f. I gave two rinses….one at about 100f then another at 140f then let it sit for a bit. I have just started trying this rinse method and have gotten better results than my usual rinses with brew temp water. First off I would like to say that I have not been having a very successful exploration of shengs, this being my first year drinking them. My biggest problem has been the astringency of the younger shengs and the price of the older ones. I have found a few that I like but none that have blown me away…yet. That being said I went into this cake without much confidence as I noticed some reviews from people saying that this one was too bitter for them. I have learned during the sheng voyage of the last year that reviews should be taken with a grain of salt as not everyone is brewing the tea optimally and or have a different palate. A bitter review can mean over brewing sometimes. I feel this was the case with this tea. I REALLY enjoyed this session. The smell of the wet leaf is nostalgic and sweet. The kind of smell that takes you back to somewhere but not quite sure where. The tea has a wonderful viscous mouthfeel with a great returning sweetness. I can say that there are definitely bitter notes in this tea. But this was the first tea that gave me that AHA moment in reference to not understanding when others say a tea has a pleasant bitterness and not astringent. That was this tea. This type of bitterness is not unpleasant and actually makes the sweet notes even better. The leaves were very big as well as the stems so I am feeling this was from an older tree. I ran out of water before really reaching the end of the leaves. I was water logged after 1 liter of tea consumption so I bowed out gracefully with one last steep of about 2 min and it was still delicious. This is a great sheng to me and I imagine it will get even better but hopefully it doesn’t lose some of the character that makes it enjoyable to drink now. So the lesson learned was don’t go by reviews only when searching for a tea. Brew it up your way and see how your taste buds receive it. I think this is a great tea and would recommend it but as I said, try it for yourself and see if it fits your palate.

Decided to drink this sample because I saw some other people reviewing this tea recently. The leaves for this tea looked very nice. The dry leaves had a sweet aroma, and after a rinse they smelled like sweet spices to me, perhaps cloves/nutmeg. This tea seemed to take off pretty quickly, as the first steep was very thick and sweet, with a mostly floral character. After that, some intense vegetal notes mixed with the floral flavor for quite a few steeps. Slight bitterness which didn’t last particularly long. The body of this tea was pretty intense throughout. The tea also yielded many lighter floral steeps at the end. This was a pretty interesting one, and glad that I got to sample it.

I’m not really into the esoteric stuff but made me nice and relaxed and mellow and happy so you could say it has good “chi”/energy. I’ve been thinking about the Chi concept lately as many people use this word and I’ve noticed much more body effects/psychotropic effects now that I’m getting into pu’er and better tea in general. Perhaps I’ll try an L-theanine pill from NOW (brand) and see if that’s the major contributor.

Thank you Mr Mopar for this sample. I don’t know if it was me or the sample but this one started off with a sour note. There was not too much bitterness to it. I did develop that young sheng apricot sweetness in the later steeps once the sour note was history. Maybe this one would have been better at 190 degrees instead of at a full boil but I was using my Anta Pottery Clay Boiler which doesn’t do variable temperature at all. Once the sour note was history this was a fairly nice sheng. I probably won’t be motivated to buy this one but I’m glad to have sampled it.

I steeped this ten times in a 120ml gaiwan with 8.3g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min.

Essentially powdered tea leaves. These guys are everything I dislike about mini tuos. While the leaf quality and size was better than generic garbage-grade tuos that most tea shops not specializing in puer sell, these are still very hard to get a good cup out of. The leaves are just so small and fragmented that any heat at all instantly brings out a sharp bitterness. I normally enjoy bitterness/astringency in a young sheng, but this is far too much with very little else to offer. I think only one of several tries have given me steeps that were enjoyable, so I haven’t found myself returning to these.

With that said, these are still much better than what I’ve found from other non-puer shops. If convenience trumps all they aren’t a bad idea, just be careful to steep at lower temps than normal. I would stick to the shou mini tuos from Yunnan Sourcing however as the bitterness there is less of an issue. I need to find my notes of which specifically, but there is a 5 g mini shou tuo from YS that I actually enjoy more than many cakes offered much more expensively.

Fairly good/decent cheap little cake. Not a shou that stands out as particularly memorable, but nothing negative to say about it either. I think this is a good learning cake for someone new to shou, as it’s small and has hints of several common shou flavors without anything too overwhelming. You don’t get too many steeps out of it, but at the price that’s a fair trade off.

At least I think this one is a YS tea – its sold out anyway.

Which is a shame because I want more of it.

Its so nice, wonderfully complex, and such a perfect balance between old woods and young leaves, something I liken to decent oolongs.

There is a nice tingling to my tongue, but it isnt bitter. There is some fruit in there, but also a very milky body and even some peppery spice. I’ve had purple leaf before that I just though didnt work, but it does here. The aroma of the leaves is gorgeous, deep boiled fruit instead of bright apricot. Its more old and wise tasting, my brain just thinks forests and buddhist temples and mist and nature. lovely

Ive just drank a load of steeps back to back because I am enjoying it so much. It gets a little twang when pushed, but nothing like the repave I drank last night, for instance.

There are some notes I have no idea what they are due to the complexity, but the way these coat the mouth is really something, and they are good notes, whatever they are.

Thanks Rui for being able to try this tea!

i did not know this tea was wet stored… i can’t really pinpoint the wet stored tea taste

now i love this tea with the love i have for 2013 yunnan sourcing “autumn ye sheng”

when i really concentrate, this tea has a smokeyness to it :)

ru yao dragon teapot gongfucha:

Dry leaves: lightly musty
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDGVsiKJ432/

Wet leaves: fruity and spicy
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDGWcNNJ45o/

Light steep: I taste/smell; light and smooth metallic, minerals, honey and spices. Slight smokey (either campfire or BBQ.)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BDGWVTaJ45Z/

Medium steep: I taste/smell; medium metallic, minerals, honey and spices. Light and smooth smokey. Light bitterness.

Heavy steep: I taste/smell; medium to strong minerals, metallic, honey and spices. Light and smooth smokey. Light bitterness.

All in all an amazing tea! I recommend this tea.

bonus photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDGVn1Gp43o/

A cool spring morning like today’s requires a good shu puer. This Jingmai definitely fits the bill for it is strong and bold. No real fermentation taste but it tends to become a little astringent when overleafed or brewed too long. The tea soup is dark and thick. This is not an overly sweet shu but it is smooth. It is not full of the “chocolate” notes we often look for in our ripe puer but the taste always appeals to me. The richness and depth of the material allows for many resteeps. I know from past experience that I can take this one for 10-12 rounds of brewing. These Gu Ming Xiang productions are worth owning and I owe thanks to Scott at Yunnan Sourcing for introducing me to them.

I admit I have very limited experience with raw puerh, but to me it was easy to tell this is the most aged one I’ve had yet. The color of the liquor was much darker than younger raws I’ve tried, and the aroma off the wet leaves reminded me more of ripe puerhs I’ve had than of other raw ones. The taste was mostly leather and wood, with some bitter notes up front. Most infusions were sweet, though it was almost exclusively on the back end of a sip, like in the back of the mouth and the aftertaste. Very smooth throughout. The woody flavor I tasted in most of these steeps was not the moist, forest-floor flavor of shou puerh, but a more aromatic and dry wood flavor. The tea became more drying as the session went on as well. An interesting tea, tastes much older than the date it was pressed.