Yunnan Sourcing's Long Mei Green Tea

Yunnan Sourcing's Description
Zhenyuan a high altitude area of Simao produces this high quality delicate green tea. Picked twice a year in a 2 day period when the buds and leafs are young and small. The taste is light and fruity with slight nuttiness.

My thoughts
When I think of Yunnan Sourcing, my mind immediately goes to puerh and dianhong, and while they certainly specialize in those two, they have some wonderful green and white teas as well. I will admit that the lighter teas in my collection tend to take a back seat to the darker stuff, but that's just my personal preference. This is a tea I received in last month's tea club. I've said it before, but I love YS's tea club. It nearly always contains teas that I otherwise wouldn't order, but always end up loving.

Dry leaves - The leaves are long and twisted, and vary between a flat green and a shiny silver. At first glance, it almost looks like a white tea due to the amount of silvery color present here. The aroma is light and fruity with a hint of fresh hay.

Brewing parameters - 175F, 30s first, +10s after

Tasting notes- Fresh hay, fruity, almond, vegetal, lightly astringent

This tea begins with a very light and smooth fruitiness that brings you the feeling of summer, which is quickly followed by notes of fresh hay and almond. Just the slightest touch of dryness hits the back of the mouth late in the sip, but it's not nearly as aggressive as some green teas can be.

Later steeps lose some of the fruitiness and the hay notes become a bit more muddled into a general vegetal grassy taste, but the almond flavor really comes to the front of the profile. A bit more astringency has come to the plate as well, balancing out the sweetness of the fruit and smoothness of the almond.

This would be a great tea for spring and summer, as the crisp, lightly fruity taste could really complement the warming sunny weather. Of course, it's still great now if you need a brief break from the permanent cold gray muck of January. Is it spring yet?

You can buy this tea from Yunnan Sourcing here and here.

Yunnan Sourcing's 2006 Nan Jian Wu Liang Mountain Raw Puerh

Yunnan Sourcing's Description
This is purely first flush of spring 2006 tea leaves from the Wu Liang mountains in Jing Dong county of Simao.  High altitude tea leaves were plucked and processed in the traditional manner and then pressed into these lovely 200 gram tea cakes.

My thoughts
My puerh stash is pretty heavily skewed towards the ripe end of the puerh spectrum. Not that I dislike raw puerh, but I find that many of them are fairly plain until they get some age behind them, and the more age the have behind them, the more the cost prohibits me from buying them. This one was an exception: a 200g cake will run you just over $20. That price point for a cake that's about 9 years old, plus the bonus of being from Wu Liang Mountain, means that I already know this is going to be a great tea.

The leaves in this cake are from Wu Liang Mountain in northern Pu'er prefecture, but the cake was pressed by Nan Jian Tea Factory in southern Dali prefecture, about 100 miles north of the source.

Dry leaves - The cake has a bronze-green sheen with plenty of lighter tips mixed in. The aroma has a nice florality on top of the green pungency of a sheng, but it definitely has an aged feel to it. The vegetal bite is mostly gone and replaced with a pleasant sweet aroma. This one is pretty tightly packed, so it will take a bit of work to separate the leaves from the rest of the cake.

Brewing parameters - 212F, 2 x 10s rinse, <5s steeps at first, increase as necessary.

Steeps 1 and 2: As with any sheng, the first couple steeps are still a bit rough as it calms down. There is a fair amount of bitterness and astringency right off the bat, but the flavors underneath promise that this will be a good one indeed.

Steeps 3-6: The dryness and bitterness fade away quickly, leaving me with a smooth, sweet, floral tea. It's more of a general floral taste as I can't really pick out any specific aromas or tastes from the broth. There is a definite aged flavor to this one as well, not a prominent aged feel yet, but it's certainly there. A nice pleasant kuwei bitterness has taken hold as well, and gives the flavors a bit of depth.

Steeps 7-10: The tea really hits its peak here. The smoothness is striking, almost buttery, and the florality is just wonderful. The soup has steadily increased in sweetness with each steep, and has really brought out the floral flavors with each successive brew.

Steeps 11-15: While most puerhs have faded by this point, this one is still going strong. The sweet aged floral tones are fantastic, and it only continues to get smoother as time goes on. The aroma is almost like a dried spring bouquet.

This is a great budget sheng, and certainly worth your money. It's a good tea to drink now, but I think this one will really hit its prime in another 5-10 years or so, after it's had a bit longer to mellow out.

You can buy this tea from Yunnan Sourcing here and here.

Puerh Shop's 2013 Zenpuer 1306 Menghai Ripe Puerh

Puerh Shop's Description
A new ripe Pu-erh tea made by using pure Menghai raw materials, no off taste, rich enough tasting profile is the key for a long term storage and enjoyment. Ripe and expressive, with explosive pear and lychee flavors mingling harmoniously as they swoop into the polished finish.

My thoughts
While on my hunt for Black Friday sales, I stumbled across a new-to-me tea shop simply called Puerh Shop, located just a few hours from me in Troy, Michigan. They have a puerh selection rivaling Yunnan Sourcing and prices to match, so I figured I'd order a couple of the cakes they had on sale. This is a 250g cake, which cost me a whopping $10.

Dry leaves - It's a fairly average looking cake, nothing really standout about it. The aroma is one of a pungent earthy sweetness with a bit of spiciness to make it interesting.

Brewing parameters - 212F, 2 x 10s rinse, 5-15s per steep adding time as necessary. Pretty much standard for a puerh.

Tasting notes - Smooth, sweet, earthy, cedar, persimmon, spicy

First thing I notice is the complete lack of fermented taste. I mean, there is literally no flat or fishy off-taste from the fermentation whatsoever, which is unusual for a shou that's only 2 years old. Second, this shou is sweet! A wonderful sweet earthiness hits me right off the bat, and lingers long after the sip.

Steeps 2-4 are starting to bring out the individual flavors, though they're still a bit muddled. The sweetness is just amazing, and easily rivals Crimson Lotus' '08 Bulang in that area. A hint of fruitiness is beginning to rear its face behind the sweet earthiness, but it's too early to tell what it is just yet. A mild cedar spiciness is mingling with the flavors as well.

Steeps 5-8 are where this shou really shines. The fruitness has taken me a few cups to pin down what it is, because it's been quite a while since I've eaten one: persimmons! Spefically, Hachiya persimmons, the kind that need to be practically a liquid before you eat them. I don't really notice any pear or lychee like the description states, but the sweet honeyed flavor of the persimmon more than makes up for that. The earthiness has mellowed out and let the fruitiness take hold.

Steeps 9-12 keep a similar flavor profile to the previous bunch, but have mellowed out significantly. The liquid is still extremely smooth and sweet, and the persimmon flavor hasn't let up yet. Steeps 13+ struggle to keep the flavor going, but I'm not stopping until I've wrung every last bit of flavor from these leaves.

This one really did surprise me. For ten bucks, I expected a shou that tasted like ten bucks. This one tastes like it should cost 4-5 times more than what it actually does.

You can buy this tea from Puerh Shop here: http://www.puerhshop.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=13_14&products_id=1898

Yunnan Sourcing's Imperial Pure Bud Black Tea

Yunnan Sourcing's Description
An incredible premium pure bud black tea. Made from the highest quality high altitude material from Ning'Er county of Simao. Only young bud sprouts are picked and then expertly processed into this delicate and textured Imperial grade black tea!

My thoughts
Yass! More dianhong! This beautiful tea came with last month's tea club, and I was excited for it because this tea has been on my wishlist for some time now. In my book, you just can't go wrong with a malty, chocolatey tea, especially not one from Simao district.

Dry leaves - This tea is gorgeous. Easily one of the prettiest dianhongs I've ever seen. The fuzzy leaves are a rich, bright golden yellow, and curled slightly to make a soft, cushiony pile in the teapot. They smell of malt and cocoa, richer than a typical fengqing dianhong; just from the smell I can tell that this would make a great dessert tea.

Brewing parameters - 200F, 5s first, +3s after. Most black teas I brew western style, but dianhongs are strictly brewed gongfu style. Just my preference.

Tasting notes - Dark chocolate, malt, sugarcane, sweet, raisin

Everything about this tea is delicious. The aroma is a rich, sweet, and malty with a touch of dark chocolate, and the color is a beautiful dark amber hue. For the first couple steeps, the maltiness is the most prominent flavor, followed closely by dark chocolate and raw sugarcane. As the fuzzy leaves release their trichomes, it imparts a tingly mouthfeel. It's certainly not astringent, but the tingle is quite enjoyable.

In steeps 3-6, the chocolate comes quickly to the forefront and joins hands with the malt. The sweetness is still quite strong, and begins to bring the mild taste of dark raisins as an afterthought. I drink a fair amount of various dianhongs, and I can say with some certainty that this is one of the most richly flavored chocolatey dianhongs I've had the pleasure of drinking so far.

Steeps 7-12 are still extremely sweet and mellower than earlier. At this point, it's beginning to remind me of the mu shu hong cha black I reviewed last month. That one skipped the chocolate entirely, but with that addition it probably would have tasted quite similar to this tea now. The raisin element is still subtle, but it is also accompanied by a slight fruity florality that I can't really place.

This is a wonderful tea, and I can't recommend it enough. It's definitely one of my favorite dianhongs in my stash, and is a great tea to impress company or just to drink yourself

You can buy this tea from Yunnan Sourcing here and here.

Yunnan Sourcing's 2013 YS "Jing Mai Mountain" Wild Arbor Raw Puerh

Yunnan Sourcing's Description
Entirely hand-picked and processed at every stage makes this an awesome tea with perfect profile and aging possibilities.  Tea trees are between 80 and 150 years old growing naturally without the use of artificial fertilizers or pesticides!

My thoughts
Continuing on the puerh binge I've been on lately. I received a sample of this sheng in an earlier monthly plan from Yunnan Sourcing. I love when tea vendors offer a varied selection in the monthly tea clubs because oftentimes it ends up being a tea you would never have tried otherwise. Case in point, this gem. This is YS's own brand of puerh, which I have found can quite easily stand up to anything the big Chinese tea manufacturers make.

These leaves originate from Mangjing village at the foothills of Jingmai Mountain in southwestern Yunnan.

Dry leaves - It looks pretty much like you'd expect from a sheng with a bit of age behind it: more of a brownish-greyish-green than the bright silvery green of a new sheng. The aroma though is what sets this apart. Amidst the typical green pungency, there is the almost unmistakable smell of cherry blossoms. It's a very light floral stonefruity aroma, definitely none of that nasty cherry cough syrup smell.

Brewing parameters - 212F, 2 x 10s rinses, then <5s steeps at first, adjusting time as needed.

Tasting notes - Smooth, cherry blossom, kuwei bitterness, white grapes, mild astringency

Steeps 1-3: This sheng starts off not nearly as pungent as I expected. Wild-growing leaves can have a pretty wicked vegetal bite to them, but this is much mellower. The sweet cherry blossom aspect carries over nicely to the broth, and permeates the taste from start to finish. There is a very slight astringency that hangs around after the sip, but again it's not as strong as I expected from wild leaves.

Steeps 4-7: The astringency is gone already, leaving me with a smooth, sweet, cherry-infused soup. The mild bitterness is a little more prevalent here, but it's certainly not overwhelming; it's balanced very nicely with the sweetness. A bit more fruitiness is starting to crop up here, but I can't really place what it is yet.

Steeps 8-11: White grapes! That's what that fruitiness is. The grape component is quite a bit more prominent here, but sweet cherries are still the primary flavor. The broth is quite sweet now, overpowering the bitterness and is extremely smooth, with an almost lubricating mouthfeel.

Steeps 12+: Most of the individual flavors have faded by this point, but it's still a very sweet, smooth tea. I stopped at 15 steeps, but I'm confident I could have pulled at least another 5 from these before they gave out completely.

For only being two years old, this is a great tea. I could see this aging into something really special a few years down the line, and would certainly be a great addition to anyone's raw puerh collection.

You can buy this tea from Yunnan Sourcing here and here.

Yunnan Sourcing's Tribute Grade Pure Bud Bi Luo Chun White Tea

Yunnan Sourcing's Description
Pure buds picked in the earliest spring harvest. The buds are small and uniform in size and shape. The tea is processed much like white tea and is incredibly aromatic and fresh with hints of sugarcane and fruit, but with a thick vegetal sweetness that enlivens the mouth and throat.

My thoughts
I was looking through past posts here and noticed a distinct lack of white tea. For whatever reason, I don't drink very much white tea even though I like it just as well as any other type. I do tend to keep a lot fewer white (and green) teas on hand as compared to black and puerh, simply due to the fact that they don't keep fresh nearly as long as other types. This is one I received in YS's tea club last month.

I'm not entirely sure what "tribute grade" means, but I assume it's a grade of tea that falls somewhere in between one you'd offer to a king or emperor as a sign of respect, and one you'd serve to Galactus so he doesn't eat your planet. Either way, I'm guessing that this tea will be a good one.

Dry leaves - The fuzzy leaves are fairly uniform in size and color, and twisted into loose curls. The silvery-green leaves emit a wonderful sweet vegetal/fruity aroma.

Brewing parameters - 176F, 8s first, +4s after. Continuing with the gong fu trend I've been in here.

Tasting notes - Sweet, sugarcane, fruity, cooked spinach, buttery, rose

Steeps 1-3 start off with a very thick, sweet, buttery mouthfeel with notes of cane sugar and fresh fruit. You know the smell of a farmer's market in the late spring when everyone's selling apples and pears and peaches? That's the fruitiness of this tea. It's not so much the taste of fruit as it is the aroma of the fruit that comes across in this tea. I have no idea if that made any sense or not, but screw it I'm going with it.

Steeps 4-7 are lighter and more vegetal and less sweet, with hints of cooked spinach taking the lead now. The fruitiness is still there and hasn't changed much from earlier steeps, but it is joined by a mild rose florality that really balances the tea out.

By steeps 8-11, the thick buttery mouthfeel has faded entirely and is mostly just a sweet lightly fruity and floral broth.

Overall, this is an excellent white tea, and certainly more flavorful that many other white teas I've had. The fruitiness in this tea is what really sets it apart for me, and it is definitely worth your time if you're a fan of lighter teas.

You can buy this tea from Yunnan Sourcing here and here.

Yunnan Sourcing's Old Arbor Mu Shu Hong Cha Black Tea

Yunnan Sourcing's Description
Tea infusion is grassy and slightly sweet taste with a pleasant bitterness and slightly astringent sensation that generally gives a very balanced taste. Strong fleshy leaves and stems with large tea buds allows brew this tea a huge amount of time!

My thoughts
I've been on a real Yunnan binge lately. Blacks, greens, puers, whites...I really have yet to find a tea from Yunnan that I dislike. I received a big box-o-leaves from YS last week, and I've been itching to dive into the many different dianhong teas they offer there. This one is the first from the pile of black teas to make it into my cup. YS states that this tea is made with the assamica variety, from the same leaves that are normally used to make their mu shu line of raw puer.

Dry leaves - They look like a fairly typical dianhong: dark flat black with lots of golden tips, all twisted into a loose pile. The aroma is an interesting one though. Dry, the leaves smell almost like a fresh bai mu dan white tea, with just a bit of grainy malt thrown in for good measure.

Brewing parameters - 200F, 10s first, +5s after. These leaves just screamed gongfu style to me, and while I'm sure they'll perform just fine when brewed western style as well, quick steep times worked wonderfully here.

Tasting notes - Malt, rock sugar, leafy, peony, mellow, clean

This is quite an interesting brew. The soup is naturally very sweet with a smooth, almost oily, mouthfeel. Malt is the foremost flavor, but it's not as pungent as many other dianhongs are, and is balanced nicely with a clean leafy vegetal element that reminds me a lot of a bai mu dan white. There is just a touch of savory graham cracker that hides beneath the graininess.

Steeps 4-8 are a bit more mellow and balanced. The maltiness faded a bit and is much more balanced with the mild leafy flavor. A lovely peony florality has cropped up that again, really makes this reminescent of a malty bai mu dan. At this point, it is truly a well-balanced tea. No one single flavor dominates, and even the lingering aftertaste is a sweet malty floral delight. Steeps 9-onwards are much like earlier steeps, but a bit more subdued and still wonderfully sweet.

And did I mention the qi? After two cups, this brew had me almost lightheaded and giddy. Despite the name of the blog, there are very few teas that can actually affect me like this one did.

This tea certainly stands unique among the plethora of other dianhongs available, and is a great choice for anyone looking to dive deeper into the world of Yunnan black teas.

You can buy this tea from Yunnan Sourcing here: http://www.yunnansourcing.us/store/index.php?id_product=615&controller=product

Yunnan Sourcing's 2015 "Ying Shan Hong" Purple Black Tea with Snow Chrysanthemums

Yunnan Sourcing's Description
Our "Ying Shan Hong" cake is a blend of Wild Purple Black tea and Snow Chrysanthemums from Spring 2015. The taste is floral and sweet with a thick burgundy red tea soup that soothes the mouth and throat with a layer of tea and flower oils and tannins.

Hello little man.
I WILL DESTROY YOU!

My thoughts
I received a 100g cake of this tea a couple months back in one of YS's monthly tea plans. I'm still a bit wary around tea blends with herbal/fruity additions (probably from all the crap blends I drank back in my Teavana days), so I didn't know what to expect from this one. I love purple varietal black teas, but I had never even heard of Snow Chrysanthemums before.

So I did some digging. Googling "snow chrysanthemum" turns up a hundred places where you can buy the dried flowers, but none gave a Latin name to go with them. The tea's page in YS says they're a Rhododendron, but the flower structure is definitely something from the Asteraceae family, which doesn't include Rhododendrons. I was finally able to find a Chinese site that labeled them as  Coreopsis tinctoria, and this looks to be correct to me. So the mysteriously labeled Snow Chrysanthemum is not actually a Chrysanthemum or a Rhododendron, but a Tickseed that is actually native to North and Central America, but is well established and naturalized throughout much of China as well.

Dry leaves - The leaves are packed into a round cake, but break apart fairly easily. The aroma is quite floral, but not anything like a green oolong. The flowers give off a very pungent autumnal scent, much like the common Chrysanthemums you see everywhere this time of year. Maybe that's where the common name comes from. The florality mingles quite well with the malty/plum aroma of the purple black tea.

Brewing parameters - 200F, 60s first, +30s after

Tasting notes - Sweet, floral spice, dried plums, autumn leaves

This is seriously like autumn in a cup. The tea liquor is a rich burgundy-orange color almost exactly the shade of the maple tree outside my window right now. The spicy florality blends perfectly with the dried plum taste unique to purple teas. It has an incredibly silky, almost oily, mouthfeel that coats the mouth and throat. I'm not sure if that's the result of the Coreopsis flowers, but it's certainly one of the smoothest teas I've ever had.

Subsequent steeps don't change much, but the leaves and flowers are certainly generous and keep on giving even after 8 steeps. The floral component becomes a bit weaker after about 5 steeps, but the tea leaves keep giving that wonderful dried plum and malt flavor. YS doesn't specify which variety of purple tea these leaves are made from (Ye Sheng is my guess), but they have one of the strongest fruity tastes I've found in a black tea.

This tea is beginning to open my eyes to good herbal blended teas again. I hope to find more as good as this one. You can buy this tea from Yunnan Sourcing here: http://yunnansourcing.com/en/2015/3545-2015-yunnan-sourcing-ying-shan-hong-purple-black-tea-and-snow-chrysanthemum.html

Verdant Tea's Golden Fleece Black Tea

Verdant's Description
Golden Fleece gets it's name to honor the soft, rich texture experience of tasting this incredible small-harvest tea. Golden Fleece is hand-picked from wild growth Yunnan Da Bai (Camellia taliensis) tea bushes over forty years old. The biodiversity of the growing region and deeper roots means a more complex flavor and aroma. Only the large tender buds are harvested. The down from the buds infuses into every cup, yielding a uniquely thick mouthfeel.

My thoughts
My second order from Verdant just got in yesterday. The wait between when you order tea and when it gets to your door is always the worst, especially when there are a couple teas that you know you'll enjoy in that box. This was one of those teas for me. I love Chinese black teas, especially the golden needle/golden bud varieties. This tea is sourced by Wang Yanxin and sold through Verdant. Their website says that this tea was grown in Lincang region in Yunnan, but the bag itself claims it is from Qingdao in Shandong province, so I'm not exactly sure where this tea actually comes from.

Dry leaves - The fuzzy leaves range from a bright sunny yellow to a dark rich gold, with a few dark tips thrown in for variety. The aroma has a very light floral/wheat/potato scent with just a touch of malt. Completely different than what I was expecting. Any thoughts I still had that this would be a typical golden needle black tea just went flying right out the window.

Brewing parameters - 200F,5s first, +3s after.

Tasting notes - Smooth, brown sugar, rose, saffron, graham cracker, sweet potato, banana, malt, honey

Yeah, this is most certainly not your normal golden needle. The first sip is quite unlike anything I've ever had before, with an incredibly silky, sweet florality of rose and brown sugar are right at the forefront. I was so enthralled by the amazing start that I nearly missed the rest of the sip. Mild sweet potato, sweet graham cracker, creamy banana, spicy saffron...this tea is really something special. It's not just a unique black tea, I've truly never had anything quite like this one before.

Steeps 2 and 3 are even sweeter than the first. The flavor profile has shifted somewhat, favoring the graham cracker and sweet potato elements now. I can detect hints of vanilla and malt towards the end of the sip now as well, and it finishes with a nice lingering honey sweetness.

Steeps 4 and 5 are beginning to look more like a black tea now. Flavors have shifted again to favor the sweet potato, malt and honey. I'm still not getting any cocoa at all, which I kind of expected from the start with this being from China. There is still just a twinge of that rose aroma right at the start of the sip, but it quickly disappears in the silky, mellow bliss that follows. I actually went to a total of 9 steeps with this tea, but after #5 it didn't really change much.

This is a tea you almost need to experience in a vacuum to really enjoy to its fullest. It is certainly one of the most subtle and nuanced black teas I've ever tried, and I'll likely need to do a few more brewing sessions to really get the full effect of what these leaves have to offer.

Being that this is a very small harvest wild-grown tea, I imagine that supplies are quite limited. Do yourself a favor, go to Verdant's site, and buy some of this tea right now before it's gone.

You can buy this extraordinary tea from Verdant here: http://verdanttea.com/teas/golden-fleece/

Yunnan Sourcing's 2007 CNNP 7581 Ripe Puerh Tea

Yunnan Sourcing's Description
The classic 7581 Ripe Puerh recipe from Kunming Tea Factory (aka CNNP). This is a 2007 production comprised entirely of fermented Menghai area large-leaf varietal puerh. The brewed tea is sweet and smooth. The color of the tea liquor is a deep red wine hue. A very enjoyable tea with just the right amount of aging.

My thoughts
It's taken me a while to really get into ripe puerh. The first couple I tried were just bleh, and they kind of put me off of the whole brand for a while. Luckily, got my hands on a couple much tastier varieties, and shou has quickly become one of my favorite kinds of tea. The Kunming and Menghai Tea Factories produce some of the best shou cha I've had so far.

At first I was confused what the numbers in the name meant, as all of CNNP's teas have a seemingly random 4-digit number. So I did a bit of digging and found the reasoning behind the numbers. The first two numbers represent the year that this specific recipe was created (1975). The third number is the grade or size of the leaves, smaller number means smaller leaves and buds. This brick is an 8, so it is made with larger leaves. The fourth and final number denoted the factory it was made in, 1 is for the Kunming Tea Factory, 2 is for Menghai TF. So the 7581 in the name tells us that this tea is produced with a larger-leaf variety from the Kunming Tea Factory, with a recipe started in 1975. Yup, I did all that to simply restate YS's description. But hey, I learned something, so it was worth it.

Dry leaves - The leaves have a nice smooth earthy camphorous scent. No trace of fishiness at all means this tea has lost most or all of it's post-fermentation funk that plagues very young shou. They are fairly tightly compressed, but do break apart easily with a bit of work.

Brewing parameters - 212F, 2 x 10s rinse, <10s steeps at first, adjust accordingly thereafter. Puerh is such a forgiving tea when it comes to brewing that you can steep it almost any way and it'll still taste good. I prefer to keep my steeps nice and short so I can get as many cups out of the leaves as I can.

Tasting notes - Smooth, camphorous, oak, pine, eucalyptus, woodsy

Steeps 1-4: This tea begins with a nice smooth, thick mouthfeel. It is earthy and somewhat camphorous, with definite tones of wood. Dry pine is the most prominent to me, but oak is present too. There is no detectable astringency or fermented taste, which is a huge plus in my book. These steeps were all under 10 seconds.

Steeps 5-8: Here's where it really begins to get tasty. The camphorous element has faded somewhat, and an earthy sweetness is starting to take over. The woodsy components are becoming somewhat muddled, but I can taste a hint of eucalyptus starting to show it's face. The mouthfeel is much less thick that the earlier steeps as well. These steeps were up to 20 seconds, erring on the shorter side.

Steeps 9-12: It almost primarily a sweet, earthy, woodsy brew now. Extremely smooth, very clear, and a very quick aftertaste. Just a hint of eucalyptus, then it's gone again. It doesn't have any of the mouth-coating thickness it had earlier. These steeps ranged from 30 seconds to 3 minutes.

Steeps 13-15: These leaves don't have much more to give, but I'll be damned if I throw them out before I've wrung every last bit of goodness from them. It's mostly a dark, clear sweet liquid at this point. Very little woodsiness is still present. These steeps were much longer, with #15 going for about half an hour.

This is a very good ripe puerh, and a great starting point for anyone looking to get into shou. The CNNP factories consistently make great puerh, and if you can get your hands on some bricks with a few years behind them, or age them yourself if you're more patient than me, you'll have a very solid tea. It is very affordable option as well, running $24-$26 for a full 250g cake.

You can buy this tea from Yunnan Sourcing's US site here, or from their international site here.

What-Cha's Yunnan Graceful Purple 'Zi Juan' Purple Varietal Green Tea

What-Cha's Description
A brilliant and rare tea produced from purple varietal tea plants, with a smoky aroma and taste combined with a wonderful smooth texture.

My thoughts
I love me some Chinese green tea. There are so many different parts of the world that grow good green tea, but I always come back to China when I want a really good green. This is one I've had my eye on for a while, and purple varietal teas always intrigue me. This one is made from the Zi Juan varietal (a.k.a. Purple Beauty), which is a man-made cultivar, as opposed to the other two purple varieties (Ye Sheng and Zi Cha) that are both naturally occurring mutations.

Dry leaves - The leaves are rolled lengthwise into long points and look like a dark silver needle white tea. The aroma is definitely unique, with a smoky, earthy, vegetal pungency being at the forefront. It almost reminds me of a very young sheng puerh, but without the bite. I've had young shengs that made me sneeze from the pungency, and this wasn't nearly that strong.

Brewing parameters - 175F, 60s first, +20s after. What-Cha recommends a longer steeping time of 2-3 minutes, but I can't bring myself to steep a green for that long. I've ruined too many greens by oversteeping.

Tasting notes - Pungent, vegetal, smoky, green wood, astringent

Is this a sheng? The ever-so-slightly-purple-tinted soup gives off a pungent bitey vegetal aroma that immediately brings me to a very young sheng. Not at all what I was expecting from a green tea. The taste is similar, starting off with a vegetal bite, drifting into a mild smokiness, and finishing with an earthy, green wood, and legume blend. It does have slight hints of the soybean/grassiness that I typically associate with green teas from Yunnan, but those hints are mostly overpowered by the tangy vegetal pungency.

The second steep has mellowed out somewhat, but it is still a very sheng-like brew. I can detect very slight notes of green grapes or something fruity in the finish as well. Steeps #3-6 are mostly the same, with the sheng qualities taking the lead. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm drinking a green tea, and not a puerh.

For a green tea, this is certainly one of the most distinctly flavored brews I've tried. If you handed me this tea without telling me what it was, I'd almost certainly say it was a young sheng, and I'd probably even argue that point. This tea is worth trying simply because of its uniqueness, though it may not appeal to everyone due to its odd piquant aroma and flavor profile.

You can buy this tea at What-Cha here: http://what-cha.com/sale/china-yunnan-graceful-purple-zi-juan-purple-varietal-green-tea/