Friday, September 24, 2021

2021 Tea Encounter Yiwu Guoyoulin: Big Qi, Big Size!

The website was late to put up any sort of description of this 2021 Tea Encounter Yiwu Gouyoulin that goes for $141.42 or $0.35/g so I basically tired this free sample only knowing the price and general location as there is lots of Yiwu Guoyoulin with lots of different Yiwu Guoyoulin character.  One thing that I noted was that Tiago pressed this into both 250g and 400g sizes- I applaud the initiative to offer both a small more accessible size and a big ass old school size!  This way everybody is happy… hahahhah…

Okay let’s get into it here…

Dry leaves are a thick obvious layered sweetness with some forest gamey odours in the distance.  The look of the long leaves with the smell of the dry leaf is decidedly Yiwu Gushu.

The first infusion has a gamey foresty taste.  This tastes a lot like boarder tea to me with its very gamey barnyard tastes.  It’s a faint tasting thing with primarily a long barnyard taste with just a slight suggestion of grassy almost melon creamy sweetness.  The sweetness only really hints in the aftertaste.  A barnyard finish is in order here.  I can feel some faint body sensations in the face right off the bat as well as a subtle floating sensation.

The second infusion has a gamey barnyard with a sweet straw-mushroom like grassy taste initially.  The sweetness stretches its legs in the aftertaste amid barnyard and grassy tastes.  The mouthfeeling is watery.  A cup of cooled liquor has an oily and viscus creamy grassy sweetness with long barnyard base taste.

The third infusion has a pungent forest grassy and hay onset with an oily texture over a watery faint mouthfeeling and mid-deep faint throat opening.  There is some faint coolness there and an expanding faint creamy sweetness over the barnyard and forest tasting base layer.  The cool menthol forest taste lingers in the mouth over a faint watery sort of faint sandy mouthfeeling.

The fourth infusion has a straw barnyard onset with a slow underlying emerging sweetness that expands in the mouth and returns alongside menthol cooling notes and the steady barnyard notes.  There is a melon creamy sweet barnyard woody finish minutes later.  The tastes are really clear and pure.  The Qi has lots of little bodyfeeling things going on especially releasing and tingling the neck. 

The 5th is a spicy slightly bitter and astringent woody barnyard condensed onset with an emerging sweet taste that pairs with a strong menthol taste and expands in the mouth.  My empty stomach can feel some astringency here.  There are some spacy Qi feelings which are quite strong now and some neck releasing.  There is a long and strong menthol barnyard sort of faint underlying creamy melon sweetness.  The Qi here is really powerful and pushes my mind into a Spacy floating state!

The 6th infusion has a dense spicy pungent woody barnyard note initially with a lesser sweetness that grows out of this, pairs with the menthol tastes and is a faint creamy under menthol, barnyard, and woody taste.  This Qi is really big here, beating the heart slowly with a Spacy feeling and neck sensations here.  Some face tingling as well.  A stickier mouthfeeling is emerging with some throat mild stimulation happening.

7th is left to cool down and tastes of dense barnyard woody taste with some emerging lesser creamy sweetness that comes with a menthol barnyard coolness.  The aftertaste is a strong menthol barnyard faintly sweet and mainly.  Nice strong spaced out Qi with neck and face bodyfeelings.

The 8th is a watery spicy woody pungent foresty that turns menthol and a bit sweet.  There is a mainly woody barnyard bland taste in the aftertaste with not that much sweetness at all here.  Nice spacy Qi with face numbness.  The mouthfeeling is a faint kind of watery empty with dry edges, teeth, and upper throat.

9th has a almost bitter woody barnyard taste with just edges of faint corn like sweetness.  The aftertaste is a menthol barnyard faint corn sweetness.  Big spacy Qi with facefeelings.

10th infusion has a dense woody barnyard slightly bitter onset with a pear edge of sweetness that comes along with the cooling menthol finish.  There is a pungent cool menthol taste that even trails into the aftertaste with barnyard and dry wood and only harder to grasp edges of pear sweetness now.  The Qi is big and I sigh and feel a useless relaxation wash over me.  The mouthfeel is sort of empty with these dry edges to it.

The 11th infusion has a mainly woody bitter onset with a bit of brackish dirt barnyard underneath that develops a kind of coolness in the mouth.  There is a bland barnyard forest woody aftertaste to it with a menthol edge.  Qi is spacy still.

12th is a bitter woody barnyard menthol experience still.  The flavours are stable throughout the infusions and still give a lot here but the sweetness has completely dropped off now.  Big Qi pushes me into a sweat.  Spacy.

13th is becoming more bitter and woody with still some faint edges of barely sweetness and barnyard with menthol finish.

I mug steep the rest of this out…

The taste is a nice forest deep menthol foresty gushu taste more smooth in the mug and deeper more complex tasting here.  Edges of creamy sweetness are found here over the chalky mouthfeeling.  This mug steeping is pretty nice with a strong relaxing and spacy feeling still.



The overnight steeping is a thin oily with edges of sweet creamy faint tastes with pungent foresty barnyard nuances.  There is a pop of melon fruity sweetness in the retuning taste with a subtle floral nuance here.  The profile is still deep and long here.  The stamina of these leaves is notable.

I like this one…

This is one of those obvious Yiwu Gushu’s probably the clearest and purist Gushu example in the Tea Encounter’s 2021 catalogue.  It is also one of those Yiwu gushu puerh that isn’t very sweet which is the reason why it isn’t a few hundred dollars more in price.  However, it does have a deep foresty gamey barnyard profile that is common among some gushu in Yiwu and its taste and profile is reasonably dense and long but just not very sweet.  Its Qi, on the other hand, the bodyfeels in the neck and deep spacey almost feel good spacey qi that doesn’t bother to slow or sedate- it is something you can find in a premium gushu offering… its really good… but it’s just not that sweet.  In some ways it’s like the 2020 Tea Encounter Walong Guoyoulin which had a very deep profile and deep qi but not as overtly tasty but much more Gushu than the other 2020 Tea Encounter offerings… its just not that sweet.

This one actually reminds me a bit of 2013 Tea Urchin’sSnake blend in the fact it’s not overly sweet.  It also reminds me of the blended 2019 Tea Encounter Laos Gushu.

….But oh man that Qi…

Peace

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