Yunnan Tips

Greetings all.

These days the boyfriend and I are watching a BBC series about China. We tend to do one episode per evening while eating (Dining table? What’s that? Ooooh, you mean the cat playground!) and the episode we watched yesterday was primarily about the Yunnan province. Although tea wasn’t mentioned more than briefly. Mostly it was about nature and a wee bit about anthropology as well. Quite an interesting series, actually. The first episode we watched was about how they grow tiny little rice fields terraced up and down mountains and with little walk-ways so narrow that it looked like if you lost your footing and fell, you would be lucky if you got out of it with only a broken leg. Amazing how adaptable the human species is! And how inventive. O.o

Anyway, inspired by that first mentioned episode, I thought I should drink some Yunnan tea today and it just so happens that I’ve got a sample of this one which the very kind Ssajami shared with me recently.

While I was steeping it I found myself assailed by a strong caramel-y aroma. Especially while pouring my cup. It’s was unbelievable and for a moment I wondered if I had actually managed to pick something caramel flavoured instead of what I thought I had taken. But as the sample tin that this is in is a small pale grean Adagio sample tin and as the tin the Caramel is in is a large, brown Kusmi tin, I didn’t think this very likely. So apparently this tea just have a strong note of caramel in the aroma. That’s new to me. I’ve never noticed this sort of note in a Yunnan before.

So when I tasted it, I was expecting something with a slightly sticky flavour and absolutely dripping with caramel. But it wasn’t. Instead I got something that from sip one was more nutty than anything else. Walnuts in particular. I can just visualise them in my head as I’m drinking it. The note is so strong that this would be a poor base for something walnut flavoured, because it would just be impossible to tell a difference.

If I didn’t know any better, I would think it WAS flavoured!

How very pleasant to happen upon a Yunnan black that doesn’t taste like hay, but like walnuts. This is definitely preferable.

It’s not completely unusual though. It is in fact still very recognisable as a Yunnan due that unmistakable spicy, pepper-y, prickly note in it and it’s all smoooooooooth too.

Very nice tea this. Thanks for sharing, Ssajami.

ETA by the way of the unrelated kind! Finally have the real ring, a photograph of which can be seen here. http://pics.livejournal.com/iarnvidia/pic/0000121b

One of the advantages of being a tea-nut is that it is easy to buy me birthday presents. For my last birthday, I got a gift certificate to the local (and sadly, only) tea shop. My tea cupboard is now overflowing and I am also slowly taking over another shelf in the kitchen.

Gift certificates are awesome! It gave me an opportunity to purchase some teas that I had never felt justified to purchase before -like the really expensive ones :)
Like this tea. – 2oz of this tea cost me what I usually spend on a full lb. Ahh…but I’d been wanting to try this for while, so I got a small bag.

I guess my main expectation was that it be so very good as to justify it’s high price.

The verdict? It’s good, no doubt about it. It is gentler than the Yunnans I’ve had before and less sweet. but a solid slightly-malty cup.

But it is not THAT good, not good enough to actually pay such a high price again. I like their regular (and much lower priced) Yunnan much better.

So how to rate this. Taste-wise, it really should get a high-ish rating, but the taste-price ratio is way off, which, I think, warrants a lower rating….

At first when I opened the package and took a whiff, I thought “okay, another unremarkable refill for my dianghong gong fu tin”. I kinda chuckle thinking back to that first impression now.

This tea brews an impressively dark, bold, rich and full bodied liquor that is incredibly smooth and mellow. How smooth? Like a glass of warmed Remy Martin XO (not quite a Louis XIII), half-way through the swallowing process it actually vanishes from your mouth. Really that smooth and zero astringency, to the point where I felt like I was swallowing liquid aromatic air as it washed down the back of the mouth.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have strong flavor or aromas. No grass or straw, Palais des Thes says truffles, but I would characterize it more like cocoa-leather. Absolutely as smooth as can be, this is better than many jinya dianhongs I’ve tried before. This is something I will be restocking for sure.

Here’s the bonus. For a black tea it has incredible patience. The second western-style steeping was just as good, rich, and full bodied as the first, no joke. A third started to even reveal some toasted wood and apple tree bark, but I stopped there because I could feel some astringency appearing in the third infusion. If you like the apple/cider/woody side, I have found some short 45-60 second infusions with a higher leaf-water ratio works well to accentuate those, but I love the rich/dark/smooth brew so I just keep doing it that way.