2020 Yunnan Sourcing "Jue Se" Raw Pu-erh Tea Cake

Thanks to a kindly organized group buy through the CommuniTEA Discord, I now have a few quarter cakes of YS aged mao cha teas, which I am slowly starting to sample.

Yesterday I under-dosed some of the 2020 Lao Wu Mountain. Today I have a bit more time and attention, so I upped the grammage a bit for this one.

Overall the impressions are similar. These two struck me as smelling the most “ready” from the bag (the quarter cakes were neatly sealed, so yes, they have a bag). I mostly took the loosest, most outside leaves. They are of medium size but still intact, making them quite large when dry. Their wet fragrance is clean but with a certain ”farm house” warmth. The drink they produce is neither very bitter nor very sweet, but a bit of both, like how gunpowder tea would taste if it were a sheng.

It has a light drinkability, which is not something I’d usually expect from pu erh. Overall it paints the same picture that they would paint to sell you an artisan Saison beer: a bit of thirst quenching countryside biology nature tradition stuffthings. Also, it may keep well with age, but may be best enjoyed while still fresh, idk.

Grateful to be able to drink something without the taste of regret again. Meanwhile, two months further down the road, my own YS parcel has reached a customs somewhere (it started its travels a month before this one). In theory the advantage of the cheapest shipping option is that you could restrain yourself from buying more stuff while waiting. In practice these last three reviews will tell you how that worked out for me.

Edit: the more I push this thing, the more camphor like it becomes. Didn’t have this note on the Lao Wu mountain.