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“I think I pulled this sample out of the Puerh TTB. I wasn’t a huge fan of it. The leaves had a relatively light hay aroma to them. Once I brewed it up, the main flavor I got was hay with a touch...” Read full tasting note
“Initial nose off the hot wet leaves is burly, with aromatic wood and a more subtle smoked character that fades directly into a very subtle and not-ouf-of-place cologne-like perfume. As the leaves...” Read full tasting note
“I actually did this two days ago so I am doing it again tonight. I am pretty sure I grabbed this from Jasetea after roaming their website. A Yunnan Sourcing tea from 2009 and sold out on the YS...” Read full tasting note
Rui Cao Xiang You Le Zhi Chun “Spring of You Le” ( 攸乐之春 ) 2009 Raw Pu-erh Tea Cake is the second tea cake 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 a Korean counter-part “Rui Cao Xiang” (瑞草香). During our extensive travels and mao cha tastings in Banna during the Spring of 2009 they came across this exquisite first flush maocha. It is entirely first flush of spring 2009 maocha from 100 to 200 year old trees on You Le Mountain in Xishuangbanna.
You Le Mountain (aka Ji Nuo mountain 基诺山) is situated east of Jing Hong city about halfway between Jing Hong and Yi Wu. The tea was picked and processed entirely by hand by the growers themselves in the the village of Long Pa (龙怕). The tea is tippy and healthy and is covered with downy silver fur. The raw material is almost entirely intact leaf and bud sets and so stone-compression was used to preserve the natural beauty of this tea.
The brew itself is full and round. The very characteristic You Le taste is present, fragrant with some floral notes…sweet and full in the mouth but with a vegetal bitterness present. An excellent single-estate Long Pa tea!
Just 100 kilograms produced in total!
Net Weight: 357 grams per cake
Compression date: June 4th, 2009
Harvest time: March 2009
Harvest Area: Long Pa village of You Le mountain, Jing Hong Shi, Xishuangbanna prefecture, Yunnan province, China
Total Production amount: 280 cakes
Company description not available.
I think I pulled this sample out of the Puerh TTB. I wasn’t a huge fan of it. The leaves had a relatively light hay aroma to them. Once I brewed it up, the main flavor I got was hay with a touch of bitterness. The bitterness grew as the session continued, though I never found it particularly unpleasant. The unpleasant part of this tea for me was the finish which developed by about steep number three and lasted the whole rest of the time I spent with it. It was something funky – maybe mushroom or wet bark. I don’t mind some of these foresty flavors generally, but they were off in this tea. Maybe it’s at an awkward age or something, but this one just wasn’t for me.
Flavors: Bitter, Hay
Initial nose off the hot wet leaves is burly, with aromatic wood and a more subtle smoked character that fades directly into a very subtle and not-ouf-of-place cologne-like perfume. As the leaves cool, this settles into a musky sweetness with hints of the initial aroma. There aren’t any sour notes to this tea, which I often find and dislike in a lot of early-middle-aged teas around 2009/2010. I also feel like the way this tea is going to age is apparent, as if its on the cusp of going somewhere really nice. The current enjoyability of this tea, and the pleasantness of the early aged character made me excited enough to purchase a cake of this for some aging. Should be a nice show over the next few years.
PS Thanks to mrmopar for this sample. Learned a lot through a trade we made.
I actually did this two days ago so I am doing it again tonight.
I am pretty sure I grabbed this from Jasetea after roaming their website. A Yunnan Sourcing tea from 2009 and sold out on the YS sites.
I got all the shake and little pieces from inside the wrapper to brew with. I think it was about 12 grams and in the gaiwan to steep.
I rinsed it and let it sit about an hour before brewing to open the leaf up a bit.
This one is just about to get into the darker gold/copper color.
The brew was done in 3/3/3 sec brews. It sips light and goes quickly into a full thick almost oily coating with a nice good bitter punch to it. It gives some sweet but it is a while after sipping and the bitter subsides before this comes to front.
This one is turning into a good strong tea in its middle age. I will be interested into seeing how this ages in the future.
Flavors: Bitter, Hay, Sweet, Thick
Interesting. I enjoy thickness and oiliness in a green liquor more and more, for shu. Definitely growing on me. It’s a nice alternative to a thick,oily black tea. One doesn’t want to be limited.
On another note, the more I drink puerhs, the more I agree with your sentiment that shu is more enjoyable than shen. You can definitely appreciate the flavor and the process much more, not to mention that, although shen benefits from aging just as shu does, it really doesn’t seem like it would “improve” on itself, if you know what I mean.
