Tuesday, September 19, 2023

2023 Tea Encounter Yishanmo GuShu: Happy and Light


 This was a part of the free samples that Tiago sent me.  This 2023 Tea Encounter Yi Shan Mo Gushu goes for $83.00 for 200g cake or $0.42/g.  It is an enjoyable YiShanMo area puerh for me.  It was likely the lightest and in some ways has the widest flavour profile of the 2023 Tea Encounter Gushus.  A lot of the flavours are hard to grasp at and during the long Thermos steeping at the end of the session, I was left pulled into the light deep flavours… so fun!

Dry leaves have a woody forestry almost pungent almost gamey root vegetables odour.

First infusion is a watery faint forest woody taste almost floral with a wet mouthfeel.

Second infusion is left to cool and has a woody Forest slight creamy not really floral taste.  Faint creamy finish in a wet slight lubricating mouthfeel.  Peaceful Qi feeling.

Third infusion has a woody Forest bland taste which is thickened by the wet lubricating mouthfeel which you can see in the picture with lasting bubbles.  YiShanMo is all about the lubricating mouthfeel which this one has.  Woody forest tastes almost but not really mushroom with no bitter astringency.  Nice peaceful qi with a bit of body abdominal warming qi.


Fourth infusion has a woody almost melon taste with a lubricating wet mouthfeeling and peaceful Qi.  Very comfortable in the body and mind with some abdominal warming bodyfeeling.  Faint sweet melon finish. No astringency or bitter.

Fifth is a woody Forest pure watery taste. Watery lubricant with peaceful feeling. Warming abdomen.  

Sixth infusion has a woody almost dry grass/ hay straw taste with an almost melon faintly sweet finish.  Peaceful mind.

Longer seventh steeping pull out some cereal grains tastes and other interesting hard to grasp forest tastes.


The eighth infusion I put the wet leaves into a thermos and overnight steep the leaves and it is quite melon creamy sweet with a fresh Forest taste and layered chalky melon vibrant sweetness with pops of creamy sweet melon tastes.  Happy feelings.

Peace

4 comments:

Alex said...

Wait, a 2023 Yishanmo?? Was this released later then the other teas this year? Somehow I missed it with my order - damn, Yishanmo is one of my favorite Yiwu villages. Hopefully this tea will make it to the EU site too, then shipping for a single tea would be not a big deal, haha.

Matt said...

Alex,

I also didn’t receive the Nanma Gushu so will be awaiting your review on that one. I think you will enjoy this YiShanMo,like I said, it has a very mild but a wider more complex, if not hard to grasp, taste for YiShanMo when pushed. You probably have much more experience with YiShanMo than I though. Not sure if that helps or complicates your one cake shipping conundrum! Haha

Peace

Alex said...

Haha, discovered today Tiago sent me a sample of it without me realising it: https://puerh.blog/teanotes/2023-yishanmo-gushu-te

Matt said...

Alex,

Like you said this 2023 YiShanMo is quite underwhelming compared to the 2021. I gobbled up that delicious 2023 sample possibly considering a purchase. So I had none left to compare today. It was one of my favourites of the 2021 Tea Encounter line up!

It seems to me that some of my favourite Tea Encounter productions of 2021 (YiShanMo& TongQingHe& GuaFengZhai)) are not as good as some of the new area offerings of 2023 like the Pasha, DingJiaZhai, and DuoYiShu.

https://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/2021/09/2021-tea-encounter-yi-shan-mo-gushu-top.html?m=1

This 2023 TE YiShanMo was my third favourite of the2023 GuShus.

Peace