2009 Yunnan Sourcing "Ai Lao Jue Se" Raw Pu-erh Tea

Tea type
Pu'erh Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Floral, Honey, Sweet, Thick
Sold in
Bulk, Loose Leaf
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Togo
Average preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 0 min, 15 sec 4 g 2 oz / 55 ml

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4 Tasting Notes View all

  • “Got back to my collection of samples with this. I’m getting a lot of tobacco and smoke and something else I can’t name. Not a great combination of these flavors, so I’m hoping to try it again with...” Read full tasting note
    79
  • “From the Puerh+ TTB box Heeey this isn’t bad at all. Pretty standard sheng and pretty mellow. Was hoping for a little more OOMPH since it’s an older leaf, but alas. It’s a very forgiving tea. No...” Read full tasting note
    80
  • “From the Puerh Plus TTB #2 I really enjoyed this tea. The flavor is a good mix of straw and spice with hints of tropical fruit and just enough astringency. The texture is velvety in the first...” Read full tasting note
    91
  • “Very hard to make this one bitter. Very gentle flavors, but could still feel the power of this tea.” Read full tasting note
    83

From Yunnan Sourcing

Ai Lao Jue Se (哀牢绝色) aka “Ai Lao Rare Beauty” is the eighth tea created under the new Yunnan Sourcing / Rui Cao Xiang label. This label is a co-project between Yunnan Sourcing “Yun Zhi Yuan” (云之源) and our Korean counter-part “Rui Cao Xiang” (瑞草香). This tea is made entirely from high altitude Ai Lao mountain tea. The Ai Lao mountains peak out at about 3200 meters, making them second only to Wu Liang Shan as the highest mountains in Simao prefecture. The Ai Lao mountain range is in the county of Jingdong which borders Chu Xiong prefecture. This tea is grown in the area of Ai Lao known as Wang Jia village (王家村) at an altitude of 2200 meters making this some of the highest altitude pu-erh in existence. The trees are healthy 200 year old trees growing naturally on steep hillsides and ridges. These tea gardens are arguably some of the remotest tea gardens in all of Yunnan. Lack of roads and access has kept the environment of this area in good condition, mao cha prices are significantly lower than comparable Banna teas, making this an affordable yet.

The tea itself is aromatic with hints of orchid aroma (兰香), and a strong mouth-feel. This tea (in its young age) is more subtle than the Wu Liang Lan Xiang cake with less bitterness and a stronger aroma. The leaves are fatter and more burly than the Wu Liang tea. It features lots of hairy buds that make it somewhat resemble its close neighbor Jinggu mountain teas. Honey and grass essences are present in this thick soupy tea!

This tea was compressed in a small tea factory near Kunming where stone presses were used. Low temperature “baking” was used to dry these cakes after the compression process thus preserving their integrity! In total just 160 kilograms of this tea has been produced.

Net Weight: 357 grams per cake (7 cakes per bamboo leaf tong)
Compression date: August 1st, 2009
Harvest time: Late March 2009
Harvest Area: Wang Jia village of Jingdong county, Simao Prefecture
Total Production amount: 448 cakes

About Yunnan Sourcing View company

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4 Tasting Notes

79
47 tasting notes

Got back to my collection of samples with this. I’m getting a lot of tobacco and smoke and something else I can’t name. Not a great combination of these flavors, so I’m hoping to try it again with a lower temperature. Still enjoyed it enough to finish the session. I also like the loose compression and whole leaf, it fills the gaiwan nicely.

Preparation
4 g 2 OZ / 60 ML

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80
200 tasting notes

From the Puerh+ TTB box

Heeey this isn’t bad at all. Pretty standard sheng and pretty mellow. Was hoping for a little more OOMPH since it’s an older leaf, but alas. It’s a very forgiving tea. No cha qi tonight, at least not that I’m getting from it.

Not bad. Not wonderful. Good enough for gongfu.

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 5 g 0 OZ / 0 ML

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91
314 tasting notes

From the Puerh Plus TTB #2

I really enjoyed this tea. The flavor is a good mix of straw and spice with hints of tropical fruit and just enough astringency. The texture is velvety in the first couple of steeps, but the growing astringency gave it more bite in later steeps.

The best feature may be the finish, which smoothly extended the taste for what seemed like several minutes. Not much cha qi, but some was noticeable.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 g 2 OZ / 59 ML
Zennenn

Agreed, this sheng is delicious.

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83
485 tasting notes

Very hard to make this one bitter. Very gentle flavors, but could still feel the power of this tea.

Flavors: Floral, Honey, Sweet, Thick

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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