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5.5g, 90 mL ZZZ

wet leaf: sweet, very light retired smoke

1. bitter medicinal that melts away. something like burnt rubber that was also in the Jing Chang Hao recently, and clove-like note in aftertaste. Peaceful and stilling, nice tea for a rainy Thanksgiving in solitude

2. medicinal sour. some warmth. light floral edge, and a lingering bitterness. Leaves are the greenest of the aged Yiwus I’ve had recently, so maybe also needs the most time to settle. Some lingering aftertaste, but lighter than those ones.

3. strong taste and thinner texture than the others. Hawthorn candy flakes note that seems to crop up in some aged Yiwus.

4. similar.

5. leafy taste. Mugged and topped up with extra hot water after a few hours for a pleasantly sweet cup.

Lots of good aspects are present that need some coaxing. Maybe DTH’s Fujian storage is not as intense as TW dry that the other Yiwus I have went through. With age should be more receptive to pushing and make the nicer aspects more obvious. Fairly relaxing, and maybe not the best choice for getting work done.

I bought the tea bag version of three of Ha Yun’s offerings because 1. I didn’t want to pony up for full bags of each and figured they’d probably use the same material and 2. i wanted to support someone who seems like a cooler version of me lol. The bag was $10 for 10 teabags and would’ve made a cute gift to someone but I wanted to try them myself lol. Leaves aren’t crushed like Lipton fannings, but also not fully intact, with a mix of full leaves and some crushed bits.

I don’t really know what I expected but it drinks like pretty normal nice-ish hongcha. Chocolate-y aroma, sweet, not too malty. The bags themselves are supposedly 1.5g/bag and say to steep at 90-100C for 2-3 min in 250 mL of water. I drank it the day before and heeded the 2 min. 90C guidance, but today did way longer at 100C after getting stuck on an awful Comcast call. Tea was fine, not much bitterness that i recall, just flavors a bit more muddled. Good to know going forward for grandpa steeps that so little tea is sufficient.

stomach needed a break from puer…

5.8g, 90 mL ZZZ

dry leaf: sharp in a cleaning solution way…

wet: seaweed, light smoke, woody

rinsed once. Tried to make it quick, but unfortunately only can do so much. I’m sure it would’ve been nice, but also did not feel comfortable drinking the rinse of something older than I am.

1st: thick, a bit smoky, vegetal. sour, bitter, some sweet finish reminding me of chinese bakery sweets. more vegetal than usual graham cracker tinged sweetness of roasted oolongs. Leaf still seemed a bit green in the pot, so wonder if it’s just bc wasn’t as heavily roasted.

2. straightforward woody medicinal

3 +4 : long steeps were pretty light, maybe some core plum

thermos’d the rest for two hours and that was an ok woody semi-plummy cup more in line with the usual aged oo profile. Is it good? I guess. I never feel like these are especially worth the money, since at $2.33/g this session was only a dollar cheaper than my favorite sandwich in Boston. I guess this is my version of starbucks and avocado toast to get flamed for

5.5g, 90 mL ZZZ

wet: fruity, smoke, tart, medicinal

1. smoke, plum, floral, berries, bitter underlying. salivating

2. a bit more green. Slight bitter, but sweet ending. A bit of tartness and aftertaste in throat

3. good texture, gripping. some bitterness and sour.

4. thinner, greenish bitter dull taste w floral edges

5. broadly smoky, some sweet in finish

6-8. leaf-y taste like usual.

I moved my sample to my 30c hotbox and that seems to have enhanced it a bit. I still don’t think this tea speaks to me in particular, but maybe I need to stop hate drinking it expecting it to radically change since it wasn’t cheap…

5.5g, 135 mL zini

wet: medicinal, sweet, nutty

1. sweet, creamy, slight underlying bitter medicinal

2. similar. core warmth

3. slight sour note. Can see why people describe it as plummy

4 + 5: similar

moved to thermos after, since 4 and 5 were long steeps but not extracting much. after a few hours had a nice cup: grainy rice (maybe red bean paste adjacent?) sweetness, plum finish. Filled again and left it overnight but the second cup wasn’t as good.

This is pretty good, and for much cheaper than aged oolongs, scratches the same itch. While the same price as the 90s Baolan, this gives more of a dessert tea vibe. The Baolan is more woody and darker. I like both for different reasons and would be happy to own more of either, assuming the Baolan is restocked.

While fairly gentle upfront, caffeine is definitely still there. I drank around 4 PM and finished the thermos around 9 PM and then couldn’t fall asleep until after 3 AM and didn’t feel too great the next day.

5.6g, 90 ml ZZZ

wet leaf: sweet, toasty, smoke, vegetal, sour

1st: ginger aroma? straw taste, soft bitter. Candy sweet fills the mouth after and sits in throat. Stilling, downing

2nd: ginger, sour, straw again. some warmth

3rd: more bland. mushroom finish.

4th: nice texture still. medicinal, mushroom-y, and floral finish

5: mushroom, some bitter in finish

6. medicinal

7. sweet water

mugged it after and it was still nice tea water.

I think some of the nice texture has to do with water as my Brita filter really needs changing but I’ve been lazy. For whatever reason, teas have a better texture now. Credit where it’s due however— this tea is very engaging, and I don’t say that lightly. Unfortunately, the price point about matches. Hou De posted this as a 400g cake, but I think it’s a 357g, since mine came in at 330g. At any rate, at around the same price/g (~$1.30) as the BYH 04 Yiwu, I much prefer this. Need to try the DTH 04 Yiwu again and see how it stacks up, since none of these are particularly cheap.

Learned from my mistakes brewing the OWT DHP yesterday. Again, used the TWL 70 ml thin gaiwan since it cools almost immediately and this one isn’t roasted enough to do well with a ton of heat.

5.7g, boiling. quick steeps, mostly 5-10s. Got 5 decent steeps before it faded and i moved it to a mug. Some floral notes, cocoa powder, not as vegetal with the decreased heat. Probably the best session with this tea for me so far, but I guess that’s not saying much.

6g in TWL 70 ml thin gaiwan, which was kind of a mistake lol. used boiling water, and steeped for too long. 1st steep was meant to be a rinse, and was nice, medium dark fruity whatever. 2nd was much too bitter, but I still drank it. Decent sweetness in background. Moved to a mug and was happy enough with it.

Edit: updating this. after some digging, I’m pretty sure this is the Jing Chang as the smoky note appears to be unusual across other CYHs, but notable for this one.

5.5g, 90 mL ZZZ, filtered tap

wet leaf: wood, medicinal, retired smoke

overall: wood, smoke, medicinal, bitter, leaf sap, and something like tires. Without a label, I would’ve pegged this for a really nice Xiaguan but less obviously BBQ than XG can be. Again, a nice floral in aftertaste like other CYHs, but bitter lingers a bit too. Caffeinating, some focusing and not particularly uncomfortable compared to last week’s SZCQ but was still pretty hungry after.

This was acquired in a sample swap with a tea friend but I can’t find any mentions of an 05 Jiang Cheng pressing by CYH online. I saw listings for the 05 jing chang hao, and there’s apparently an 07 Jiang Cheng, but then again, CYH pressings aren’t well documented online, at least in english that I could find.

6.1g, 130 mL zini, mixed water

wet: wood, smoke, sour, berries, medicinal

1. bitter upfront. somewhat thinner than expected, maybe ratio too low? bright sweetness in finish. dry wood, medicinal

2. similar. maybe a water issue miscalculating, or ratio is really throwing me off compared to previous times trying. fruity finish in throat and on breath

3. kind of dull. not unpalatably bad, but not terribly attention catching. too many variables switched up: pot, ratio, water. ended up moving to a mug after because I wasn’t too happy with it this time.

Mattcha quips somewhere that shah reviews teas more favorably when he owns them. I hope this is not the case for me, but this is generally a common cognitive bias and I probably have the same issue lol. I don’t think I’ll end up caking this.