91 Tasting Notes
This is a nice tea.
Nose; strong gardenia, plumeria, slight cinnamon, sour cherries, juniper, mango, ginger, slight compost.
Palate; lighter than nose, plumeria, ginger, tart plum, slight cinnamon, kumquat, kiwi fruit, nice throat.
Preparation
Love this one!
Nose; buttered wheat toast, honey ( yum ), lychee, very " warm ", slight rosewood, light orchid, light grass.
Palate; Allspice, lychee, osmanthus, round, slight ginger, mandarin orange, slight grass.
Preparation
While my experience has been very good with tea from YS, once in a while one misses the mark for me. All of this is so subjective though YMMV.
Nose; honey, malt, freshly baked bread, plums, wet leaves.
Palate; slightly bitter, plums, slightly tannic — astringent, malt, cocoa at back of palate, was unusual and had a very dry mouth feel. I did not like that aspect.
Preparation
OK, so maybe I am just too much of a tea snob, just too critical, but here I am, so I guess I will keep going…
By and large I have not found the JK teas up to snuff, my experience has been better with Whispering Pines, Verdant, and especially Yunnan Sourcing.
Nose; lightly roasted nori, seashore.
Palate; not much there, slightly sweet, oatmeal, brown sugar.
This is not your typical Zheng shan. Almost no smokiness, unfortunately, I did not care much for it…
Nose; Honey, malt, ginger, lemon peel, Darjeeling.
Palate; honey, slight yam, lemon, bitter, seemed kind of disjointed to me.
Preparation
Once again, this is a tea that can be really exceptional or just meh…this one was in the meh category for me.
Nose; light osmanthus, spices, wheat grass, light honey, woody note.
Palate; sweet spices ( oddly this one was more cinnamon like that the rui gui from the same source ), light honey, sweet apple, dates, not much mineral note.
Preparation
To start, I found the Rou Gui from YS to be much nicer.
Nose; mineral, roasted vegetables and grains. The roasted notes pretty much obscured what else was there, though later steepings revealed the spice flavors.
Palate; light and delicate, roasted barley, sweet spice showed up later…
Not bad, just not great.
Preparation
I found this one really fascinating.
Nose; I got a definite really good cigar note, now I used to smoke cigars so for me this was more nostalgic than off putting, be warned…sweet potato, leather, earth, toasted grain.
Palate; nice full mouth, slight cigar again — so unusual, molasses, malt, sweet potato, a light floral note.