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I did a big oolong order from Yunnan Sourcing recently and this was the best tea of the bunch. A bit surprising because I’ve struggled with dan congs before and normally shy away from roasted teas.

The roasting on this tea though is subtle and accentuates its honey and fruity flavor. I’m still fine-tuning the brewing, but my experience with it has been amazing. The natural sweetness of this tea is unreal – hard to believe it has no added sweetener. The honey flavor is thick, coating your entire mouth and then finishes with a nice mineral touch. I’m not getting any of the floral flavor that others described. Occasionally, it hits you with a stunning peach flavor that’ll make you swear you were drinking a flavored tea. At present I can only coax it out by cold-steeping the half-spent leaves. I’m sure there’s a way to hot steep it to get even more peach out of it. Currently I’m doing flash steeps with boiling water which works okay. May need to experiment with lower temperatures.

This one makes an awesome cold brew and I can see this being a perennial buy.

Backlog.

Bought this as a shincha this past spring. Being a deep steamed sencha, it needs hotter water to fully express itself. I steeped this for 1m at 175 F followed by a flash 15 second steep with boiling water. The taste is buttery smooth and sweet. The grassy, vegetal, and umami notes are in harmonious balance. Nothing aggressive or overwhelming about this tea. Personally I prefer my senchas to have a tad more grassiness to them but this is still a very pleasant and satisfying cup.

This is an enjoyable tea with a heady aroma of honeycomb and orange blossom. Lots of juicy citrus and floral fruitiness along with a slight tartness. The taste and scent of this tea lives up to its Pomelo & Flower name. It compares favorably to TTC’s Citrus Scented Four Seasons which is quite remarkable considering this one is unflavored. The difference is YS’s is fruitier and thicker while the pomelo scented oolong has a more refined taste. Both are good in their own right, but lately I find myself craving the YS tea more.

I’ve tried many different ways of brewing this tea, and flash steeps at just below boiling seem to bring out the best flavor. Short steeps are key to minimizing bitterness. Packs a nice cha qi/caffeine punch too.

Lovely aroma, refined and delicate jasmine flavor. This is a top shelf jasmine tea that has a very natural taste. It’s not overly perfumey nor fake-tasting like many other varieties of Jasmine tea. The silver needles are in a harmonious balance with the jasmine. It’s the perfect tea for grandpa steeping or cold brewing.

If I had to fault anything, it would be that it doesn’t really distinguish itself from the upper echelon of jasmine teas. Yunnan Sourcing and Verdant’s silver needles taste very similar. Between these three, you could close your eyes and pick any tea and it will still be more or less the same.

Backlog.

I’ve been on a dragon well binge this spring and this is the latest installment. I am a bit unsure about how to rate this tea because my experiences have been very mixed.

In the beginning, the tea was wonderful. Smooth and crisp with a nice body and zero bitterness. Subtle notes of creamed spinach and green bean could be detected along with a classic, soft chestnut. The flavor was well balanced and clean.

But alas the lovely fresh flavor of this tea didn’t last long. Within a few weeks, there was a noticeable drop in flavor. The tea went from sublime and smooth to tasting like chicken soup. Not sure what made it go south so fast, but it seems this one loses its freshness pretty quickly.

I’ve never a met a Bao Zhong I didn’t like – until I tried this one. Picked it up because it was inexpensive and like with most things, got what I paid for.

It’s not a bad tea per se, but it just doesn’t measure up to the other more exquisite versions of this tea that I’ve had. It’s got a generic bao zhong flavor profile – honey and orchid fragrance, buttery body, and light sweetness. However, it’s missing the fresh flowery notes of lilac, hyacinth, and gardenia. Overall I find the taste to be insipid and lacking the sophistication and subtleties of BTT and TTC’s higher grade bao zhongs.

I picked this up up on a whim while ordering from Verdant because it sounded intriguing and I’m glad I did. This is one freaking delicious tea. As a fan of their Laoshan green teas, I consider this an upgrade. It has the characteristic Laoshan flavor but it’s richer and more complex.

The dry leaf has a deep vegetal and nutty aroma. In a heated gaiwan, that changes to a stronger umami like fragrance. The wet leaf smells like fresh steamed green vegetables – spinach, asparagus, and chard. Tea brews up like regular Laoshan green tea, but thicker and fuller bodied. Flavor is creamy, sweet, and lightly floral with a pleasant nuttiness hanging in the background. There’s a grassiness to it reminiscent of Japanese green tea that I love and balanced with an element of fresh green vegetables. It’s also really good cold steeped and amps up floral flavor.

This is easily the best bi luo chun I’ve ever had. I continue to be impressed by Verdant’s green teas. Every single one I’ve tried so far has been nothing short of phenomenal and this was no exception. Their tasting notes for this one were totally on point.

I was hesitant about trying this sample because the thought of coffee and tea together made me recoil. Today I felt a little adventurous and decided to try it out.

The dry aroma is of caramel and hazelnut coffee. When wet, it smells like ground coffee beans. I was expecting the coffee flavor to dominate, but to my surprise this tasted like a nice roasty da hong pao. The coffee flavor is there but not up front and center. You taste the warm toasty jin xuan first and then a little char from the coffee that complements it nicely. Shared it with my better half who thought it was weird at first, but liked it the more she sipped.

Really grateful to have tried this tea as it’s an unusual combination that I would never have picked out for myself. After having this and Watermelon Baozhong, I’m legitimately impressed by Andrew’s mad skills at tea blending. Looking forward to future LP creations.

This was one of the more interesting green teas I’ve tried recently. The leaves are shaped like little snails with streaks of soft, downy white hairs. The first time I steeped it grandpa style with a pinch of buds. The taste was sweet, creamy and minty leaving an unexpected menthol like tingling sensation in the throat. There’s some fruitiness and a hint of astringency towards the end. When gongfu’d, it produces an assertive brew with some pungency, a viscous body and a snap pea vegetal flavor that stays in your mouth.

Steeped this western style a couple of times and found it fairly unremarkable. It tasted a lot better gongfu’d. Smooth and light bodied with notes of tender green beans, vegetable broth, and umami. There’s some marine/seaweed flavor in the background, though not off-putting, that fades after the first couple of steeps. It finishes with a nice peppery aftertaste.

Although I prefer Laoshan and other green teas, this is still a good, approachable Yunnan green tea – just make sure not to overbrew it.