2010 Yunnan Sourcing Jing Gu Yang Ta

This tea is still available from Yunnan Sourcing. On their site they offer some good background on this tea that comes from 60-350 year old wild trees.

Had an interesting experience with this tea, a sample sent by Hobbes a few months back. The qi was such that one doubted that it could possibly have came from the leaves- a profoundly powerful movement throughout the mind. So lets sit down and boil water in the ceramic brazer, and see if this tea can charge the mind like it did days before...

The dry leaves are rich, fruity, and tangy. Sweet frosted sugary smells have notes dwelling in a forested puerh tea base. The leaves are very down covered smallish-medium type that show many light white-green leaves in the mix with medium-greens. These leaves are put in a warm pot and rinsed.

The first infusion pours a slightly pale-cloudy opaque yellow. A subdued woody creamy initial flavour presents itself first with a very light, sweet, plum finish. There is almost a granola taste to this tea. A slight tingling of the lips occurs from drinking this tea- these lips soon become sticky. Inside the mouth it covers the cheeks and upper throat nicely. The aftertaste is of muted bubble gum florals and lingers nicely for quite some time. Woody tastes surface as well supplying ample depth to this light tea. This muted woody taste seems to underlay most of the profile of this tea. The qi immediately warms the body and is felt bearing down in the the lower body.

The second infusion is of woody bark tastes with creamy, fruity, floral sweetness in its initial taste. The flavour is complicated and full of enough depth but gives way to a plumy-gummy sugary returning sweetness that is felt gloopy in the mouth. The aftertaste is an extension of these plum-gum floral tastes which end up liking to linger for a while in the sticky mouthfeel that is mainly found on the tongue and lips. The qi starts off more on the mild side here- moderately warming the body.

The third and fourth infusions have a more woody-creamy initial taste with relatively less fruity taste but still lots of sweetness. The fruit notes return more in the aftertaste accompanying those nice long plum-gum florals and hiding wood notes. There is a noticed bitterness in the aftertaste as well. The mouthfeel is full even in the upper throat still pasty and gloopy.

The fifth infusion turns a corner and now offers a mild woody, barely sweet initial taste with mild woody returning sweetness. The subdued fruit flavours are pushed to the aftertaste and are muted by a plain woody taste. The qi is so mild it is almost unnoticeable here.

The sixth infusion has a mild creamy-woody initial taste that now turns more bland than sweet before turning to into wood again. The mouthfeel is thin here and coats mainly the front of the mouth- it has lost most of its stickiness.

The next handful of infusions pretty much just have a bland, bitter wood taste that sometimes shows hints of plum or chokecherries. Although the qi of this tea is barely noticed in the body it shakes the mind strongly. Later in the session the full effect of the qi has taken control of one's mind and puts it under a spell of twitchy, jittery, buzzing energy.

This tea was put to the test again a few days later- the same strong but slow evolving, mindshaking, chaqi seems to develop.

Link to Hobbes (The Half-Dipper) Tasting Notes

Peace