Highlights:
- Dry/natural taiwanese storage
- Youle ancient tree material
- Part of the legendary 2003 6 famous mountains CYH productions
Complex tasting Youle material of excellent quality, enigmatic and unique at first, and with significant sweetness and thickness in the end.
By far, the most centering/mind-stopping Qi of the 2003 CYH single-origin ancient tree cakes we offer.
These cakes don’t have a wrapper, they’re packed “naked” in the tong as in pictures (which is common for early 2000s CYH).
Approx. 357g cakes, available as 1/4 slice too (approx. 85g).
Natethesnake –
Youle teas are a tough nut to crack. Mostly used in blends and rarely available on their own. Most available aged Youle teas I’ve had are resinous, aggressively woody and often accompanied by musty storage notes. The silver lining in my experience has been a deep, centering qi. Imho as other CYH teas from this era have done this tea for me exemplifies what teas from this area can be…however it is still an acquired taste and it took several sessions for me to understand this tea. Firstly, like many other CYH teas, this one benefits from flash steeping early steeps. The early steeps are unsurprisingly woody. My dad likened the character to the smell of sitting under a willow tree after a thunderstorm. Yep. Also, the soup is thick but not particularly sweet. The qi is pretty immediate and powerful yet refined. If Banzhang qi is a canon, this qi is a silk hammer. After about 6 steeps I start to push the tea a bit longer and sweetness emerges and the woodiness gives way to notes of cherry, not actual cherry but like the cherry esters one finds in particular English Olde Ales. In fact other than it’s relative dryness this tea reminds me of certain vintages of Fullers Vintage Ale…sorry I’m from the Michael Jackson school of beer nerds and although I no longer drink beer I will likely always find a comparison between certain beers and puerh tea as there are so many parallels, probably related to the byproducts created by the fermentation process, the oils contained both in the camellia and hops and the malty character inherent in many teas. Sorry for the long review. The shorter version is if you like woody teas this is a must try. If you dislike strong woodiness and prefer florals , skip this one and try the Yiwu blend.
Dani Zoltán (verified owner) –
After the second try, I can say that, apart from the obvious strength and aging potential, the most remarkable asset of this tea is the purity of the aging. Such a clean, unadultareted walnut note is coming out from the wet leaves, even after many brews, without any offnote, it’s really amazing.