2013 yunnan sourcing "Ye Xin" Raw Pu-erh

The dry leafe aroma is nice kinda sweet and vegetal with a subtle fruity scent,
Wet leafe aroma is similar but stronger,it smells slighlty fruity like
a Plum or something, sweet and kinda funky, smells interesting.
The tea soup is excellent with no cloudyness or muddled effect,
no leaf particles or anything.
The taste is very nice very smooth and mellow almost velvety mouthfeel. The flavor is Sweet and fruity with a slight almost vegetal/floral note and something else. No astringency with but a little bit of a bitter.
The fruity taste to me reminiscent of Peach and a bit floral as well almost even perfumey but not quite and not in a bad way at all.
That one thing tho,that taste or scent or something that i just can’t put my finger on, a very slight subtle note of i just don’t know what,I’m gonna say Musk maybe? i’m just not sure.
Anyways it was very good and had a Very nice Qi, it is a feel good tea and very pleasant to drink. it don’t taste the way it smells.

This sample has been lying around unsealed my tupperware pumidor for over 1 year. I’m not the biggest fan of blends, as I am sort of a purist. I also don’t purchase autumn harvests, but here we are.

The leaves came apart from the bing chunk without much effort. It’s practically maocha. They have a strong dried apricot and peach fragrance after the rinse. The leaves are quite long and thick and some are still slightly olive toned. The tea liquor is a deep gold with an orange-like hue. Very clear.

First few steeps are much fruiter in the front than I expected — some honey, wood notes, and quince jam. At first, this seemed like it would be a sweet autumn tea (yawn), but by the 5th or so steep there is healthy, refreshing bitterness that rings in the back the tongue and lingers for a while. I liked where this is going.

There isn’t much body at all. Instead, the tea has good qi and a remarkable warming affect I feel coming from my solar plexus. It’s a dynamic little tea.

Dry – Sweet, nutty(corn), some mellow floral notes, thick-cream, peach/apricot/apples.
Wet – Sweet, fruity, sweet-corn, thick/buttery, berries/apricot, musky melon(sweet woody notes/raisins).
Liquor – Pale Gold color with mostly sweet scent.

Initial Steeps are very mellow with sweet and nutty notes. It has a very apparent smoothness up front that becomes very thick as it goes down. To me it has a savory base when is going down and returns to the sweeter side one it washes away bringing the fruit notes to the front.

Middle Steeps (4-7) Are very similar in taste still with no real ‘collapse’ in taste which usually happens around the 5-6 steep in most young Sheng. The liquor is still very smooth and maintained most of its characters with only a slightly less thick body and some astringency forming (started as full but feels medium bodied now).

Final Steeps The liquor is still fairly smooth with some cumulative astringency and some ‘ghostly’ notes from what was very apparent in the initial steeps.

Final Notes
I liked this tea, I feel like it holds up pretty damn well, but to be fair that has to do with the fact that the tea is not that complex to begin with, it has very good notes but in terns of complexity I would say this one is very easy going and straight foward, although the wet leaves hints of a bit more complexity.

I found it to be a calming Sheng with no aggressive Cha Qi and good thick body, I loved how it was satisfying to drink a Sheng during Winter. Also, even though I felt like it was getting thinner past the 6-7 steep, allowing it to rest for a few hours allowed me to get 3 more thick steeps, granted they were mostly flat sweet with ghostly notes of fruit.

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Brilliantly clean and brisk, this young sheng displays a light golden color and notes of apricot and citrus. Bold flavors of dried apricot and fresh tobacco dominate the palate with hints of tangerine and a brisk astringency that seems to bounce flavors around your mouth playfully creatings an uncommonly long finish that highlights the “raisin” aspect of the tobacco notes. Multiple steepings are possible and the astringency tapers off along with this. I was most pleased with this sample from Yunnan Sourcing.

I thought I already had this tea but the package was sealed so it was a nice surprise. I brewed a couple of cups this morning and I seem to get a spicey edge from this one. There’s a bit of that apricot taste . Smooth, not bitter, a light sweetness. This seems to be a pretty good young sheng.

A nice fairly easy to drink young sheng. It brews a pale gold, the liquor is very nice, thick and hearty through numerous infusions. The flavor is good, basic, a little floral and sweet, but some sourness is pervasive. This is a nice quality tea, good but not great, and is priced fairly at $28.

Really interesting and quite original