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finishing zipin bing hole sample to chase away the bugs after holiday travel. ended up being a bit too strong though and felt a little dizzy after.

5.3g, 90 mL ZZZ, mixed water

wet: smoky, vegetal, sweet, BBQ, mint

1. smoky, bitter, resolves to sweet floral finish but still a bit pond water tasting

2. medicinal

3. lingering fruity note but upfront pill like bitterness

was distracted after but steeped a couple more times before the tea was mostly dead. some warmth, but this was after a turbulent morning flight and was already sort of nauseous to start.

5.7g, 90 mL ZZZ

wet leaf: berries, campfire smoke, BBQ, inky sweet

1. spices. woody, fruity in throat. spaced out heady. some underlying bitterness

2. dark, medicinal, smoke, woody, grassy. something sour incense like lingering sweetness in throat

3. greener in taste. mushroom-y finish

4. indistinct woody

5. softly sweet. mugged

I like this tea, though longevity leaves something to be desired across a lot of my BYH teas. Split a partial cake with a tea friend and haven’t seen more full cakes offered by TWL since the initial offering in March. Though given the cost (1.30/g after shipping), I would not go out of my way to buy more.

5.7g, 135 mL zini.

wet leaf: medicinal, barnyard, smoke

1. root beer sweetness. sugary aftertaste, some plum

2. woody bland, a little sweet

3-5. similar

nothing too exciting, but for 13c/g can’t complain. KL’s heichas are mostly background teas and not worth devoting time to brew with care.

4.1g, 135 mL zini

smells a bit musty and minty

1. medicinal, menthol. that and TeaDB’s leather shoes a la Payless comment is 100% fitting

2. woody, same payless leather shoe undertone and a bit chocolate-y

3. payless chocolate milk. brown sugary aftertaste. cozy.

had to stop since i was pretty sick and felt awful. short changed myself here and need to stop being tempted by my best teas when I’m sick.

5.4g, 90 mL ZZZ

in line w/ trad storage history, there’s visible frost on the leaves, though maybe not to Yee on extent. rinsed a bit longer because the spout clogged from the broken bits.

wet leaf: woody, aroma carries a bit of cheesy funk that some of the Yee on teas also have. some toad skin texture.

1: shou-like color, a welcome change from the lighter than expected brews of the past few days. good texture. root taste, some beet and bitterness. Quick light sweetness after

2: sweet, some generic root-y taste. cozy

3: good texture. flat taste w slight bitter edge. some cooling in finish

4 and 5: similar

6: herbal taste. mugged it after

given that most teas are not liquid assets, preference obviously matters in building a collection since a lot of modern hobbyists seem like hoarders. While I don’t find this tea especially compelling, that’s due to personal preference. And plenty would disagree it seems, since this tea has sold out several times on Hou De’s site. Unlikely to cake this.

5.5g, 90 mL ZZZ

wet leaf: sweet, very light retired smoke

1. bitter medicinal that melts away. something like burnt rubber that was also in the Jing Chang Hao recently, and clove-like note in aftertaste. Peaceful and stilling, nice tea for a rainy Thanksgiving in solitude

2. medicinal sour. some warmth. light floral edge, and a lingering bitterness. Leaves are the greenest of the aged Yiwus I’ve had recently, so maybe also needs the most time to settle. Some lingering aftertaste, but lighter than those ones.

3. strong taste and thinner texture than the others. Hawthorn candy flakes note that seems to crop up in some aged Yiwus.

4. similar.

5. leafy taste. Mugged and topped up with extra hot water after a few hours for a pleasantly sweet cup.

Lots of good aspects are present that need some coaxing. Maybe DTH’s Fujian storage is not as intense as TW dry that the other Yiwus I have went through. With age should be more receptive to pushing and make the nicer aspects more obvious. Fairly relaxing, and maybe not the best choice for getting work done.

I bought the tea bag version of three of Ha Yun’s offerings because 1. I didn’t want to pony up for full bags of each and figured they’d probably use the same material and 2. i wanted to support someone who seems like a cooler version of me lol. The bag was $10 for 10 teabags and would’ve made a cute gift to someone but I wanted to try them myself lol. Leaves aren’t crushed like Lipton fannings, but also not fully intact, with a mix of full leaves and some crushed bits.

I don’t really know what I expected but it drinks like pretty normal nice-ish hongcha. Chocolate-y aroma, sweet, not too malty. The bags themselves are supposedly 1.5g/bag and say to steep at 90-100C for 2-3 min in 250 mL of water. I drank it the day before and heeded the 2 min. 90C guidance, but today did way longer at 100C after getting stuck on an awful Comcast call. Tea was fine, not much bitterness that i recall, just flavors a bit more muddled. Good to know going forward for grandpa steeps that so little tea is sufficient.

stomach needed a break from puer…

5.8g, 90 mL ZZZ

dry leaf: sharp in a cleaning solution way…

wet: seaweed, light smoke, woody

rinsed once. Tried to make it quick, but unfortunately only can do so much. I’m sure it would’ve been nice, but also did not feel comfortable drinking the rinse of something older than I am.

1st: thick, a bit smoky, vegetal. sour, bitter, some sweet finish reminding me of chinese bakery sweets. more vegetal than usual graham cracker tinged sweetness of roasted oolongs. Leaf still seemed a bit green in the pot, so wonder if it’s just bc wasn’t as heavily roasted.

2. straightforward woody medicinal

3 +4 : long steeps were pretty light, maybe some core plum

thermos’d the rest for two hours and that was an ok woody semi-plummy cup more in line with the usual aged oo profile. Is it good? I guess. I never feel like these are especially worth the money, since at $2.33/g this session was only a dollar cheaper than my favorite sandwich in Boston. I guess this is my version of starbucks and avocado toast to get flamed for

5.5g, 90 mL ZZZ

wet: fruity, smoke, tart, medicinal

1. smoke, plum, floral, berries, bitter underlying. salivating

2. a bit more green. Slight bitter, but sweet ending. A bit of tartness and aftertaste in throat

3. good texture, gripping. some bitterness and sour.

4. thinner, greenish bitter dull taste w floral edges

5. broadly smoky, some sweet in finish

6-8. leaf-y taste like usual.

I moved my sample to my 30c hotbox and that seems to have enhanced it a bit. I still don’t think this tea speaks to me in particular, but maybe I need to stop hate drinking it expecting it to radically change since it wasn’t cheap…

5.5g, 135 mL zini

wet: medicinal, sweet, nutty

1. sweet, creamy, slight underlying bitter medicinal

2. similar. core warmth

3. slight sour note. Can see why people describe it as plummy

4 + 5: similar

moved to thermos after, since 4 and 5 were long steeps but not extracting much. after a few hours had a nice cup: grainy rice (maybe red bean paste adjacent?) sweetness, plum finish. Filled again and left it overnight but the second cup wasn’t as good.

This is pretty good, and for much cheaper than aged oolongs, scratches the same itch. While the same price as the 90s Baolan, this gives more of a dessert tea vibe. The Baolan is more woody and darker. I like both for different reasons and would be happy to own more of either, assuming the Baolan is restocked.

While fairly gentle upfront, caffeine is definitely still there. I drank around 4 PM and finished the thermos around 9 PM and then couldn’t fall asleep until after 3 AM and didn’t feel too great the next day.