Two bits from Yunnan Sourcing: 2011 Ba Da and Chen Yun

Let's have a look at two young teas made by Scott of Yunnan Sourcing I have tasted recently. We'll start with
Ba Da
My previous experience with Ba Da teas was not the best - they were generally pretty woody and tobacco-smokey. Not that some people would not enjoy these features, even I enjoy them from time to time, but my heart generally lies with other areas and tastes.

This tea is pretty consistent with my previous experience with Ba Da. It is probably better than others, but it is still a one-eyed king with a cataract in the land of the blind. I agree with Scott that it tastes of tobacco and pines. The tobacco is tobacco smoke actually - the not-burning tobacco smells quite differently from burning tobacco and both tobaccos are to be found in puerh, which sometimes results in confusion. The smokiness of this tea is sort of similar to certain Mangfei teas, but it is at least a bit ameliorated by the pineiness.

I have read Hobbes' notes recently and wondered about his description of taste. I quite agree about the ripe grass and grassiness in general. Actually, I believe that what I label as tobacco smoke&pines is surprisingly similar to wet ripe grass and that these two ways of description of the taste converge to each other in a way.

I think that fans of "hard" sheng might quite enjoy this tea. I must admit that I enjoy softer, more easily approachable cakes.

Further reading: Half-Dipper
And a surprise (for me, at least)... Me... Ok, it happened, I wrote about this tea already :-/

Chen Yun
This is a blend from Lincang, an area which falls into the category of "percussion areas" (e.g., Ba Da, Bang Dong, Yi Bang), being probably a triangle.

Six years ago when I was drinking several  lower-level Lincang puerh, I wrongly fell under the impression that Lincang is an area producing only hard, smokey teas which were not to my taste. Luckily, I got to better tea since then and now I know that Lincang houses some of the finer teas I've met. And Mengku, a subset of Lincang, is a whole another world too - although most of Mengku teas I've had did not make it past "quite enjoyable",  none of them were bad.

Back to this Chen Yun. Throughout the tasting, I felt that this is a pleasant tea, with a spectrum that fits my tastes, but it is not really powerful, nor outstanding in any way. It was lightly sweet, the "sweet granary" taste I generally enjoy was there, but it felt like it has not unleashed its strenghts yet. Actually, today I visited a tasting of en primeur Bordeaux wine - the feeling was similar in a way - some of these wines were also quite quiet and not yet developed.

I think that if this tea grows stronger with age (which is perfectly possible), it may be quite good. If not... it may be still a pleasant light drink. At $20, it is not an expensive experiment.

Even though this contains more of my favourite tastes than the Shang Chun I've tasted recently, I enjoyed the Shang Chun more for its vibrancy, strength and interesting development between brews.

Further reading: Half-Dipper

2011 YS Shang Chun

One of samples kindly provided by Scott, a welcome companion of my order from Yunnan Sourcing. I recently discovered it in my box of samples - I must have received it few months ago and it has been forgotten since. However, it has been unearthed and tasted yesterday so that I may taste a young tea again.

It is a blend and, according to my wild imagination,  it is more than a sum of its parts - of course, I make no claims about the future of such a young tea, I leave that to more knowledgeable people. I'm glad that Scott has started doing blends as I although I enjoy single-estate teas, good blends may be quite superior to them in means of balance and complexity. I wonder about the regions from which this tea comes... I think that the first several brews were quite like Jinggu and then something like Mangfei has appeared... And I believe that I noticed a taste similar to Pasha-iness in the late aftertaste, but it may be simply a taste common to more regions.

The dry leaves are furry and nice, but that is nothing new with Scott's cakes.

The aroma of wet leaves is grassy and chunky, seems like a very promising young puerh at this stage.

The taste had two rather different phases when I tasted the tea. The first phase was dominantly grassy and floral, very thick, mouth-coating and sweet - an enjoyable sugarcane kind of sweetness. The aftertaste was gently astringent and promoted salivation. The mouthfeel was a real treat after somewhat dull Xiaguan 8653 from 80s, the not-dry-stored version. This tea is very active in mouth and sends waves of energy throughout the body. When drinking Scott's young teas, one could fall under the impression that all the young shengs have this good intense mouthfeel, but try a few young Xiaguans, Menghais, Guanzizais and similar factories and you will quickly see that the reason is rather that Scott picks a very nice material - most young shengs do not have this pleasant mouthfeel.

I nicknamed the second phase of the taste as "Mangfei" phase as it is closest to the Mangfei teas I've had. The green grassiness starts to shapechange to mild tobacco-smoke-iness. I generally do not enjoy this taste too much and I wait until it disappears (and according to my current aging experience with Mangfei, it does age into something more satisfactory). However, in this tea, it is gentle and not overpowering so that even I have no problem enjoying it. And the sugarcane sweetness goes on and on, as well as remains of the floralness from the first phase.

I quite enjoyed drinking this tea; even though it is so young, it gave a calming, harmonizing session I will repeat in near future. The price is sound, no problem here.

The wet leaves say  goodbye!

Further reading: 

Half Dipper

Norber-T

1980s Xiaguan 8653 Traditional characters

We had a look at the dry stored version of this tea in the last post. I thought it wise to try the not-dry stored version as soon as possible. Yesterday, I sat in our living room, played the same music, used the same teapot and all that. However, as people have noticed many times, you can not step into the same river twice.

Dry leaves and liquor:

The dry leaves smelled positively chocolatey.

Wet leaves have raised a flag of suspicion. Where I enjoyed the complex aroma of dry stored version for minutes, here I just put the lid back on the pot and thought "allright, let's have a look at the taste".

The performance in mouth was a disappointment, sadly. The taste alone is not bad, although it is maybe almost too "low" for me - not the complex higher, cleaner tastes found in the dry stored version. It is woody, chocolatey and aged. The liquor is extremely thick, which is good, but I could not find much more. It feels sort of powdery in mouth, which I generally do not enjoy much. I've been waiting for any significant mouth activity, but it just did not come - even the not-that-great Tong Qing Hao felt much better in this aspect. The aftertaste was not that long and not much interesting.

This tea felt low, smooth and calm to me...actually, too smooth and calm, not far from the country of Boring. Especially given the prize and comparing it to the dry stored version, I feel I did not enjoy this tasting sufficiently.

However, I am still not that knowledgeable about aged tea (and given their prices, it is unlikely I will ever be) so I may be missing something important. For example, I could not tell this is the same tea as the dry stored version. It tastes and feels quite different.

Funny how aged tea changes one's tastes and memories of taste - when drinking this tea, I thought "wow, this really tastes like a shu" - so I brewed two different shu puerhs to verify this observation... and found them to be quite different (sadly, one felt more active and enjoyable than this aged Xiaguan).

Anyway, I'm still glad I tried this tea, but if I had to choose between the dry stored version and this version, I would not hesitate a second and chose the dry stored version.

1980s dry stored Xiaguan 8653 traditional characters

I don't think that this cake needs much introduction for those EoT-positive readers, as it looks very appealing at the Essence of tea website. Even though there are cheaper teas in the world, I decided to purchase a sample, as well as the non-dry stored version (which I'll drink and probably write about on Friday) with the purpose to enlighten myself a bit.

Although dry stored, there is some frosting (or it seems so) on the dry leaves:

Dry leaves give a rather ordinary aged aroma, but the realm of wet leaves is a whole another world! It is definitely the most complex aged tea I've tried so far. Apart from agedness, there is heavy dense fruitiness (overripe pears, wild briar?) and more things which affect my mind but I am unable to describe them.

The taste sticks to the agedness mostly, but again, is somehow more complex and more sweet than any of previously tasted aged teas. Even though the tea is dry stored (well, there are various degrees of dry storage), it is not bitter at all. In some aged teas, the taste is only complementary to the energy. In this tea, I enjoy the taste too.

The liquor is dark and very thick, feels great in mouth:

Although the tea is not young, it is still vibrant and energetic. It feels calming and harmonizing at the same time - when I drank it, I felt like bathing in a whirlwind of thick and friendly energy.

It is generally exceptionally clean, pure, coherent and powerful tea, much enjoyed.

Two surprises from Yunnan Sourcing

2009 Hai Lang Hao Yi Wu Zheng Shan

Right ho, the lemon first. After almost a year of waiting and pondering, I decided to buy whole cake - at last I might say. I still remember when I had the three great session with a sample of it. Today, I opened the cake, smelled it and tasted it. Expectations may hurt sometimes...such was my gloom...

The issue is, that this is different tea. It is likely that the sample I received back then was misplaced. I quite well remember how I thought its taste unlike a Yiwu tea, looking and tasting older than 2009... how I read Hobbes's notes on it and felt strangely in disagreement with his notes. It sounded so different.

Now, after reading his notes again and comparing them with this tea, I have to agree. It is not as fruity as many Yiwu cakes - it is much more in the nutty/buttery cluster - a very nice tea, but not that uber-lovely thing I got as a sample. Looking back and remembering the taste, I guess it was some fine Bulang, but god knows which.

Well, let's not cry over spilt tea, it is still a nice tea and I may write about it sometime soon...and rename the original article to Unknown soldier.

2011 Yunnan Sourcing Purple Yi Wu
You may remember my rather excited notes on the 2010 predecessor of this cake. It is still one of my most favourite teas for frequent drinking. It has its limitations, but the taste is still mighty fine when brewed right. When I want a tea with great mouthfeel and intense energy, I'll take something from older trees, true - but I often enjoy this easy-going lovely tea.

Now I was excited to try a younger sibling of the 2010 version. To make the long tasting short - Scott has done it again :) It is very similar. The 2010 version has aged a bit already so it is darker overall (not necessarily better, just different), the good clean and heavy fruitiness is there again, mingling with the "purple taste". I have little idea how these cakes are going to age (although the progress is promising so far), but if they don't deteriorate, I'm a happy man.

2008 Menghai Peacock of Bulang

Although several Menghai peacocks have met fellow bloggers, I could not find any evidence of meeting between them and the Bulang peacock. I thought it strange and since I wanted a Bulang cake as a study material, to watch the aging progression, I gave it a try. The tea is available at Yunnan Sourcing at a modest price of $21 per 400g, it has not risen much since it appeared it on the market.

The cake consists of a blend of various kinds of leaves and is rather heavily pressed. I enjoy a mix of leaves in a cake - it may not be as "clean" and pure as single mountain, single type of leaves teas, but it offers different kind of complexity which I enjoy.

So far, I found two distinct clusters of Bulang teas - one cluster is leathery, woody, often slightly smoky. The second one, my favourite kind of puerh, is not smoky, not much leathery, but heavily, densely sweet, sort of treacle-tasting. To my sadness, teas of the second cluster are not easily obtained. The Menghai Gu Cha is probably the closest thing to it. 

This tea falls into the first cluster, being slightly smoky (smoke from burning wood, rather than tobacco smoke) and green. Although some aging has obviously happened, the tea is still pretty green.

The taste was a pleasant surprise. I generally do not enjoy the first cluster of Bulang too much, my affections lie elsewhere. Nevertheless, in this case, I had to admit that this tea has something good about it. When one drinks so many fancy and premium teas, it is sometimes a pleasure to get back to more normal production. 

This tea tastes leathery and woody, with a bit of camphor and smoke. Thickness and sweetness are sufficient, but nothing to write home about. Not my cup of cake in general, but it works well here. I enjoy  how strong this tea is. From the 3rd brew on, it is bitter, but in a nondisturbing way (for me, at least, I can not imagine anyone not versed in puerh enjoying this tea). 

What I enjoyed the most was the feeling after swallowing the tea - it gave a rather intense cooling feeling (unexpected in a $21 cake) and good energy. I was finishing the tea session while coding my new denoising algorithm called ANKH (adaptive noise killing h-something, got to find something good starting with h)... When I concentrated for a while and then "woke up", I realized that my mouth was "fixated" by the tea (sort of difficult to describe). It may not sound too pleasant, but it was enjoyable in fact. 

Another positive thing was, that in the aftertaste of 3rd and 4th brew, I could find bits of the second Bulang cluster I know. Will this tea become at least slightly like these great second-cluster teas? Well, see you in the future, Marty.

2010 YS Yi Bang

It was a beautiful spring afternoon today. When I pulled out the sample of Scott's Yi Bang from my sample bag, I did not know it would become even more beautiful. Looking it up in my notes from previous times, I see I noted "very interesting, taste once more when having more time". I had two hours available before digging into subsumption architecture of agents so I thought I'd spend them with this tea... and with our new orchid:

Dry leaves smelled quite tender, grassy and honey sweet (the interesting thing is that the honey did not appear in taste).

Wet leaves got me immediately - this is one of "while (true) do sniff();" teas. Lively fruitiness - almost like of certain good specimen of lucha (I've had one wonderful sample from Honza of Chawangshop, I think it is similar, if not the same as Yunnan Sourcing's Jade Pole - certainly looks the same). Except, of course, with more depth.

Now, incidentally, my speakers (or Johnny Cash in them) sing "the taste of love is sweet" - just when I wanted to write about the taste of this Yi  Bang. Well... it is sweet too. As opposed to certain Yi Wu cakes, it is much more than that. Its very fruity and fresh, playful. The fruitiness is really like that of Jade pole lucha, but this tea has more pronounced sugarcane sweetness, thickness and certain "puerh depth". And a bit of sweet grain taste, which I quite like. "This is a proper puerh" says my girlfriend and I can only agree. 

The taste lasts long, hui gan intense and the tea gives very good mouthfeel - although the mouth tickling comes later than usual, it does come. The tea numbed my mouth in a pleasant and relaxing way (so that touching anything with tongue feels funny, but keeping the tongue very acute to taste).

Around the 4th brew, bitterness did come, but it is also pleasant, nondisturbing (at least for me). Also, it transforms to long-term fruity taste. The bitterness lasted till the end of the tea session.

There is really nothing unpleasant about this tea and there are many pleasant aspects. Above the very good taste performance, it feels good and has a great stamina (it lasted almost 2 litres of water while i generally use 1 and a bit). Definitely shows that not all autumnal cakes have to be mediocre and short-lived.

Big thanks to Scott for making such a lovely tea!

Further reading:

Half Dipper's notes

Scott's notes