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Well this is what I like about YS… Site posts tea from a village I’d never heard of for a completely reasonable price, I sample it, it’s actually quite unique and a pleasure to drink. Incredibly pungent, it smells of sweet musk and fruit. Once it gets going its pretty thick and dark, and feels oily in the mouth. There are sudden notes of sweet mint and honey, but the base is much earthier- barn-straw dark green moss. Certainly an enjoyable experience.

Good stuff this one. Initial steepings are light, but with a deep resonating back-of-palette bitterness and a granary sweetness that picks up the more it is steeped. The soup is dense, actually an opaque light-yellow that reminds me of an IPA. Flavors are nutty, with a sweet-corn and honey suckle quality that is somewhat ubiquitous north of Banna, but is intensely focused and balanced in this tea. By the third cup it is intensely bitter and in-your-face-floral. In fact, the bitterness seems to be everywhere in my mouth, from the way-back to right behind my teeth. If you’re a fan of scott’s Lincang/Simao pressings and enjoy some ku-ku-cha, then I’d recommend this…

Wu Liang remains a value champion. Incredibly smooth, buttery tea with almost perfect processing. Wu Liang terroir still is incredibly indistinguishable from Menghai terroir for me… Its dense, and all apricots, tobacco, and kuwei. This seems like a terrific bargain for either drinking now or aging…

This is good, certainly a solid tea, it’s creamy, woodsy and floral, as I would expect from older Yiwu. For some reason I’m just not feeling it though… maybe it’s because I’m still jamming on young sheng and am not quite ready for the winter transition into older puer, but this just doesn’t come off as super remarkable to me. Certainly I can’t fault it, it’s very clean and there are no off-flavors, but imho the Gao Shan Qing Bing doe everything this one does and costs half the price…

edit- checked W2T, well, not half the price, but 20 less…

I’m not sure why this one is so much cheaper this year… was expecting the material to be lesser quality, but it doesn’t seem to be. These dark olive-green leaves brew a creamy, bitter, musky soup with terrific energy. It’s pretty subtle, no particular flavors really strike me, maybe its somewhat floral and nutty, but I have to push even for that. Its more about the creamy mouth-coating soup and lingering texture than big bold flavors, which is just fine. Very pure tea, extremely drinkable and enjoyable.

hooho boy this is crazy good. All Scott’s Jingu-area teas I’ve tried this year are really pretty dynamic and different, going again to show us how much variety there can be in a relatively small area. This one reminds me a lot of a Mengku/Bingdao area profile. That is, it is very pure, sweet and thick, with an icy-cool bite. It is also extremely subtle, but I’d say there are notes of musky wildflowers and honeysuckles, with a vegetal sweetness that seems closest to sweet bell-peppers. The bitterness is solid and gives it this tea a good structure while not being overpowering, and it brews very even across many infusions. I’d almost say this tea seems underpriced…

Had this one with a friend last week, been meaning to get around to posting a review, and, well, the qi is strong with this one. Seriously. At around 4 or 5 steepings in I started to feel like I was on drugs. This cake is clearly from Lincang- it is thick and bitter, but strangely balanced for being as strong as it is, with a granary-sweetness and the familiar pungent stank that I associate with the region. If I had to name its flavors, I’d say it tends towards the floral and herbaceous side of things, but that being said its pretty hard to pin down… While this cake is well out of my current price-range for a 200g baby-cake, I’m glad I had the opportunity to sample it and experience a tier of tea that I hadn’t had. I mean, goddamn, I could still taste and feel this tea more than an hour after the session.

Okay, well, I may be easy to please, but I’d say this guy does live up to the hype. Thick, sweet, and oily, I’m not sure what else there is to ask for, especially for an autumn harvest tea. It is pungent and bitter, with notes of wild grasses and honey suckles. The first time I brewed this, I got more straight-forward fruit flavors, but for whatever reason now I’m getting the more floral complexity and musk, which is what I look for this time of the year.

This cake is simply mind-blowing, and is one of Scott’s best. One of my buddies had this in early 2014, when it was about 6 months old, and I bought one last October and still have about 150-200g remaining, so I’ve seen it change over the last couple of years. Throughout, it has been remarkably easy to drink, but has thickened and sweetened considerably this summer. It almost reminds me of a Taiwanese Oolong; there is very little bitterness, yet is cooling, it produces a thick, viscous soup with notes of vibrant, green spring vegetables. I like to make this one for people who are new to quality Chinese tea and Gong Fu.