2009 You Le Zhi Chun

Giving little dry leaf aroma, this tea unfurls slowly and begins in an incredibly mild manner. I stuck with a safe five grams, but again found myself wondering if I should crank up the leaf volume for what proved to be a very subtle tea. By the fifth or sixth steeps, when this tea finally began to push out its full essence, what came through was heavy on the bean-based oligosaccharides, fresh wood chips (think balsam, birch, and hemlock), and high floral herbs a la lavender-scented cotton, laundry detergent, and foxglove. All very enjoyable, but reserved and distant. An underlying strong wet moss and earthen floor pushed up from beneath.

Most notable for me in both this tea and the Bu Lang was the intense parching nature of the finish. That cottony, dry wood, sand, and hot moisture-less air experience has been a new kind of exit in puerh for me. It’s not the most pleasant, as it rasps at the throat and leaves me thirsty, not quenched. In a way, it also lets the classically enjoyable lingering and swelling finish evaporate more quickly.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=336

Opened this tea tonight, a free sample that has been waiting nearly a year for its debut.

Started with 3.5 gram in a small gaiwan (75mL), flash rinsed then sat 1 minute before first infusion of about 10 seconds, at 205 degrees. The first infusion is delicate, light, probably could have been longer—a little fruity, a little sweet, a little floral. Very nice. 2nd infusion 20 seconds, a little more earthy along with the same floral, fruity, sweet, anise. Strong bitterness comes out in the 3rd infusion, lost track of the infusion time, but can confirm that the infusion was quite dark yellow, and that the bitterness receded appropriately with a 2 fold dilution, and the sweet and strong anise/floral/fruity flavors returned.

A 4th infusion, about 15 seconds—this really needs very short infusions still due to higher than my usual leaf-to-water ratios, because the sample bit of beeng was rather large—and the typical young sheng profile is back.

A few more infusions later, it is clear that this is a nice young sheng, but it requires careful attention to keep the bitterness down to the low level I prefer.

2015 Sheng Olympics(?)/Sipdown

In the depths of the tea stash, I had discovered this one hiding, awaiting it’s turn in the tea line. I have finally organized the teas in categories/type via samples, sipdown stashes, tea swaps, and cakes/larger quantities. After measuring out the full amount of tea, I have a good 2-ish years of tea to drink down! Two years controlling myself from buying anything else in large quantities. I’m calling it “A Practice in Humility;” which will, in time, allow me to appreciate what I have and make use of it. :)

Anyway, I sampled the rest of the tea early this morning prior to anything else. My wife was concerned as to why I was getting out of bed around 6:30 a.m., when I had gone to bed so late. Besides the fact that I cannot sleep as well as I used to, I wanted a cup of tea…

Notes: Smoky, leather, slightly mouth drying, and a touch of bitterness (toward the beginning of the session. It smoothed out around the 4th infusion). This tea was “smoky” in the sense that it reminded me of a “smoker’s jacket,” rather than smoked meat (lapsang souchong, for an example). The smokiness, in time, had died down, but it was strong until the 6th-7th infusion.

This tea right here is the one the made me realize each season has so many different elements that can change its production versus the next few years or the past few. The 2015 was so deep in flavor for a young tea and the 2005 was so loud in its taste that this one seems to be some kind of punk who thinks he is ll that but isn’t.

$90+ for a cake… surely it says something if the 2015 cost more than its older cousin who has some hairs on its chest, or so you would think.

The mouth dryness is still quite strong and the lasting flavor in the mouth is nice, but its nowhere near as good as the other You Le productions that were featured and I hate saying it… but dang this one just isn’t worth it ; maybe that means yet as it could change.

Glad to have had the three to compare though because it really opened up my understanding that pu’erh is just like oolong in the sense that each year may have someone new processing it, or maybe the temperatures were different, possibly the climate was off, just so many things that can differ before storage, aged, water….tea has a lot to configure in what makes it what it is.

2015 Sheng Olympics

This tea was a bit disappointing. I used about half the sample in my tiny gaiwan at 90C. First couple of infusions were pretty good. It had a full mouth feel and was a bit astringent. There was only a touch of bitterness. A little fruity.

Lost my notes again. Tea drunk.

it started bitter, then went into a sweeter taste, some stonefruit & menthol (camphor?) classic shengy taste, and then seemed to somehow get more viscous as the steeps went on. Or the taste left a bit so I felt the viscosity. Idk.

Now im well past steep 10 and ive lost the count. Its still got a young leaf taste but also sweet and pleasant. Its nice.

I defo preferred the others out of the YS selection, my fave being the 2015.

its nice though, been enjoying it all day.

Working my way through these Sheng Olympics samples. :) Same as usual, 7g in a 4oz gaiwan, water roughly 90C, short → longer steeps. For this one I had to keep the steeps pretty short and the water a little cooler in order to mitigate the astringency and bitterness, but was rewarded for my persistance with a thick, sweet huigan. After the first couple of steeps it had the intensity of a fresh sheng, I wouldn’t have guessed that these leaves are from 2009. Not many distinct floral or vegetal notes, to my palate at least. Not bad for drinking right now, but I suspect this one will get better with age.

One more offering from Dag Wedin. This is a Raw Puerh, with beautiful large budsets, & a tangy spicy aroma! I went ahead & used the entire 7G sample in my yixing, combining 2 pours at a time in my favorite cups (or at least one of my favorite, there are so many).

Green beans, orange peel bitterness, fresh eucalyptus, & some kind of floral, a thick sensation, cannabis after-aroma, accompanied by a great tea buzz, the wonderful head clearing kind. I really believe teas such as this are beneficial for allergies, & this will be a pleasant head-space for my taichi class tonight.
Thanks Dag!

Finally came around to trying out this cake. Been sitting i my cupboard for over a year ^^
But my tradition of sipping sheng whenver i watch the big bang theory is going strong!

I used 5.5grams in a 90ml celadon gaiwan.
wash/10s/15s/25s/30s/30s

Mild smoth start. This is a young sheng, still the flavour is very clean and has some complexity to it. Yet i found i have to steep it for 25-30s to get that small bite of bitter i enjoy with shengs. I might have to purchase an older sheng in the near future. I do love the insanely powerful shengs that just explodes with flavour! The ones where you can do multiple 10s steepings and no longer unless you want it very bitter.

Got my eyes on the 2002 Yong Pin Hao yiwu sheng. Tried a sample a while back and was impressed!

Another thought just struck me. Why dont i drink more sheng and good mao-cha. Everytime i do i think “wow this is good tea” I think the world of sheng will be my next project since i feel just about done exploring yunnan tea.
More assams, taiwan black tea, korean green and Sheng will be this years main attractions. Perhaps i will manage to get a hold of some japanese white as well!

I hope 2014 will be a good year for tea!