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“Purchased a bunch of younger raw puerh tea (mostly samples) from Yunnan Sourcing USA, to explore my idea that this style of tea might be something I could really like. So far, I have done one...” Read full tasting note
This is a first flush of spring 2023 harvested tea!
You Le Mountain (aka Ji Nuo mountain 基诺山) is situated east of Jing Hong city about halfway between Jing Hong and Yi Wu. The tea was picked and processed entirely by hand by the growers themselves in a protected area (国有林) near the village of Sheng Niu (生牛). The tea is tippy and healthy and is covered with downy silver fur. The raw material is almost entirely intact leaf and bud sets and so stone-compression was used to preserve the natural beauty of this tea.
The brew itself is full and round. The very characteristic You Le taste is present, fragrant with some floral notes, sweet and full in the mouth but with a vegetal bitterness present. An excellent single-estate You Le tea! Just 65 kilograms produced in total!
Net Weight: 250 grams per cake (7 cakes per bamboo leaf tong)
Harvest/Pressing Time: April 2023 (July 15th 2023 pressing)
Harvest Area: Ya Nuo village of You Le mountain, Jing Hong Shi, Xi Shuang Banna prefecture of Yunnan
Total Production amount: 50 Kilograms
This tea has been tested in a certified laboratory for 404 pesticides, and is within the EU MRL limits set for those 404 pesticide residues. For a full list of the 404 pesticides we tested for and more information about MRL testing and the EU Food and Safety commission click on this link.
Wrapper design created by Scott Wilson using Dall-e
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Yunnan SourcingPurchased a bunch of younger raw puerh tea (mostly samples) from Yunnan Sourcing USA, to explore my idea that this style of tea might be something I could really like.
So far, I have done one session each with a 2022 Xiaguan Te Ji Tuo, YS USA’s 2023 Ai Lao “Secret Garden” raw puerh, and this “You Le Shan” tea. All of these teas I stubbornly brew using my “western style” technique. Initially I am using 185° water w/a 30 sec rinse, 1-min first steep, 2-min second steep, and 3-min third steep for each tea. As I get a feel for each tea, I can adjust the brewing parameters a bit, but this initial technique has worked out well for each tea so far.
The first tea which inspired me to write a review is this one, because of the remarkably sweet and unusual scent of the dry leaves in the sample pouch. Very cotton candy sweet-like, fruity, and floral scent pops out from the pouch, which I love.
This tea and and the other YS USA tea made me feel a bit “tea drunk,” a sensation which I have not yet noticed from the Xiaguan tea. Also, both YS USA teas are a noticeably smoother ride than the Xiaguan, while clearly sharing a similar character.
This is where I am stuck, now, however, as perhaps due to my inexperienced raw puerh taste buds I have some difficulty distinguishing the nuances in taste between these different varieties of raw puerh. They all seem to have pleasant fruity/floral characters with some touch of a bitter edge, but not overwhelmingly so. Kind of a dried apricot fruitiness, with some indistinct (to me) florals, and some hay/grassy notes. All-in-all pretty enjoyable. The Xiaguan did have a minty aspect to it that I don’t find in the YS USA teas, so there is that as far as a difference. I’ll tentatively give this tea a score of “80,” but definitely need to explore it a bit more to try and better understand its character.
Update: After a little more time with this tea, I’ll dial my initial “80” rating down to a 75. The tea is really smooth with some slight woody notes, but mostly in a fruity zone with notes of persimmons, having also a bit of a vegetal bite to it. And the faintest glimmers of spice, mainly cinnamon/anise notes but way in the background.
I can tell that it is a quality tea, and certainly interesting, but probably will not be a repurchase for me. I suppose this might be where aging comes into play, and perhaps this tea may evolve more interesting flavors over the years, etc. But I really don’t have much of an appetite for heavier/redder teas that are closer to a ripe in flavor. Once in a while I might enjoy these types of teas, but I would usually prefer great teas that are on the greener side.
Well, bumped my rating back up to 80. My 25g sample is almost gone, but this tea seems to be growing on me. A nice, lazy Sunday today so I brewed this one up three times instead of two. The third time I brewed for 5 minutes western style, and I was surprised to find that the third steep actually outshined the first two steeps. The tea seemed to be a bit more lively and I felt I connected with it a little more. Since it worked really well with a third steep, I went ahead and brewed it a fourth time (at 6 minutes), which was also pretty good, but dropped off a bit maybe from the third steep.
Still not ready to give this tea a top rating, though, as I feel it doesn’t really have any “hooks” that really stand out to me. I guess it seems perhaps like a basic raw pu-erh with no frills for the most part. But I am intrigued by its stamina. I’m thinking the next time I brew this I’ll go ahead and brew for 4 or 5 minutes on the first steep, rather than the cautious 2-minute steep I’ve been using, and take it from there. I’m only looking for 2 or 3 good steeps from a tea at the most on my typical day. I take enough trips to the bathroom as it is, and four or five steeps with my 16-ounce mug will really be overdoing it!