2007 – Yang Pin Hao - Limited Edition Green Tea Cake

Overall the tea is fairly smooth and easy to drink. Smoke detected in the aroma of the dry leaf but this barely appeared in the tea soup. Orange liquor with a woody base, hints of nutty notes and a light sweetness. Not much (if any) bitterness found and no astringency. Good mouthfeel with a nice tingling on the tongue. The flavor held up nicely through 6-7 steeps. My experience with this tea was rather pleasant and enjoyable for sipping through the day yesterday.
—-Some recent tea notes for samples obtained from finepuer mentioned dry, flavorless tea and I can say that for this one, I opened the three sample boxes I had and dumped the chunks into a small yixing crock to sit for two weeks before trying. When I opened the boxes and plastic bags, there was really no aroma but after storing in the yixing for two weeks, there was a sweet, floral aroma with a little smoke and the results of brewing the leaves were very pleasant.

Summary: Lapsang souchong, grey, electric smoke overwhelms the fruit, unfortunately.

Free sample with my order.

4g Gaiwan.

Dry: Dark. Light smoky, light toasted wood.
Hot Gaiwan
Wet: Very dark grey smoke; some clay.

5s – Light bronze. Dried fruit. Light smoke. Thick syrupy texture. The fruit combined with the smoke gives it as upbeat electric/chalky taste. 82/100
10s – Light bronze. More smoky, and of the dark grey kind. The fruit is soft and sweet. It is not raisin, it is more like subdued mango. The fruit goes to the roof of the mouth. My mouth is left with the grey smoky taste.
15s – Lapsang Souchong, pine like smokiness (Twinings teabag version) Gives a nice sweetness in the throat on the swallow.

Had some Camembert.

30s – Med bronze – Mild bitterness and astringency.
~40s – Med bronze. Good mix of fruit and smoke with a good texture.
45s – Med bronze. Aroma is slightly smoky Mild flavour now.
60s – Light bronze. Mild fruit and smoky End of session.

This was a free sample with my order
Dry – Bitter to bittersweet woody(Tobaccoey?) and floral notes, medicinal, faint tart fruits and some sweetness.
Wet – Very apparent Bitter wood/tobacco notes, some smoke, floral-wood-medicinal and hints of sweetness.
Liquor – Amber

Initial steeps are bitter and harsh up front with apparent tobacco and green wood notes that hints of Chinese medicine and hints of floral notes, all under a noticeable but not unpleasant hint of smoke. There’s some thickness as it goes down and the harshness mellows as it washes away.

By the third maybe fourth steep the Harshness is not as aggressive on the mouth and the thickness seems cumulative and almost tongue numbing, which to me balances in the ‘not sure if I like it’ sensation. The smoke has dissipated for the most part and the medicinal/tobacco notes are very apparent, the Huigan is pleasant and sweet with a herbaceous finish that lingers.

The compression is a bit tight on this one, which is usually bad for a tea this age, luckily the tea is very infusable and the outer layer doesn’t over steep before the piece opens.

Final Notes
At first the tea seemed a bit too harsh with bitter-wood notes (not the pleasant ones). It sort of reminded me of a lower grade version of W2T’s Repave, but missing some of the licorice-medicinal notes and ‘youth’ harshness. The thickness starts weak to medium and pleasant and develops into a numbing sensation that I didn’t really get to appreciate. If you like these notes and like them to last several steeps this cakes holds up well. To it was more pleasant towards the later steeps.

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