2015 Yunnan Sourcing "Wa Long Village" Yi Wu Old Arbor Raw

Bouquet: Within its dry stage there is a very lovely forest dark honey layer to it plus a good amount of pine needles. After steaming heat kissed those arbor leaves its whole body language turns more and more into a very vegetable one filled with artichokes, steaming chestnuts further followed by avocado and eggplant.

Liquor: The actual taste walks again a more or less different path! This fellow definitely got some bitterness to it if you let him to much space to develop it. Starting from this fine layer of tartness it builds up another layer of forest honey within a mix of beeswax. The rest clears up with every sip you do within herbal floral notes of gentian, dandelion, marigold with further hints of camomile and sunflower seeds. While the other half is concentrating more onto subtle fruity and sweet nuances of Korean pear with a certain perfume bitterness to it and sweet tiny hints of bourbon vanilla creme. Within the aftertaste a very nice cooling menthol peppermint like effect sets in.

This is definitely a decision of personal preferences! I am 100% sure some might love this raw Sheng with all its 5 stars they are possible able to give but for me personally I missed something. It really got some nice rudiments and also lovely aspects but I missed those great moments – you know those moments when your eyes are wide open and you think “Oh my god this is soooo good!” – Like those moments where you’re absolutely amazed! Anyway the best way to build your own opinion is to try a sample ~ Cheers

Quite the tea… some nice woodsy notes going on with that steamed vegetable taste that settled but not aged raw puerh gives off.

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Worth trying and I now that I know how easy going this is, I will have to compare to the 2015 Bang Dong : )

I bought this sample randomly when I decided I wanted to try one of Yunnan Sourcing’s higher-end offerings. The dry leaf had a slightly “green” straw aroma. After a rinse, I was mostly smelling sweet straw.

It started out with mostly straw in the first steep, but from the second steep, the sweetness really kicked in. First it got a bit cakey, then the flavor got a little bit higher, tasting almost fruity.

Steeps 4-8 were the best for this tea. Enough bitterness to give it a backbone, backed up by sweet vanilla and a bit of a mineral note. It was decadently thick with a mouth-coating effect. I started to feel some steady qi as a rising warmth in my chest. The huigan was powerful and lingering, all but begging to be slowly sipped and savored.

The tea started to give out just a touch by the seventh steep. It lost a good amount of the thickness it had possessed, and the pleasant bitterness mostly dissipated. There was still a lot to like about the subsequent three steeps. Some good straw sweetness re-emerged, and the finish was more of a clean woodiness than vanilla. It lasted through around 11 or 12 steeps – probably would have gone longer if my sample wasn’t totally loose.

I enjoyed this one quite a bit. A fitting tea for my 300th Steepster note!