I found this one at the Flying Bird Tea Bar in Vienna — a beautiful space, and the people there are just lovely, really engaging, happy to let you try things. I was there wanting to explore Liu Bao further, so we tried an old cake. We had a chance to taste it…

Outside, in front of the house. Tea often just feels (or even tastes) different when drinking outside, for some reason, so take it with a grain of salt;) In the session starts reminiscent of an old wooden cabinet and layered notes of grain, dark molasses, a li…

I rediscovered this one in my cupboard today - ordered it maybe two years ago, 50g, and this is the last of it, mostly small leaf bits and dust. I was surprised by how soft and beautiful it still is. The first few times I drank it, I don't remember the energy…

Revisiting this aged Oolong in the Tent today, and while I rarely dring Oolong those days, this one especially has something special. It has remarkable Qi! I have not had any fresh TGY (or even oolong) that has this centering, medidative quality to it. That wa…

This tea shares a distinct family character with other Bi Yun Hao productions of similar age - the 2005 Yiwu and 2004 Manzhuan in particular come to mind, all carrying a similar tangy, slightly fizzy quality on the back of the tongue. Whether this points to dr…

Recently I’ve been drinking quite a few middle-aged sheng samples from Yiwu, most of them around twenty years old. Many of the (drier stored ones) share a similar character: a woody body with a certain bright zest, woven into a soft sweetness - more or less no…

Yiwu Ancient Dragon Balls from Essence of Tea. The balls vary in size, roughly six to eight grams each, and they look quite nice from the outside. Once they open up, you can see there are some finer particles worked into them. In the first three to five steeps…

The tea has a rather light character overall, but with great depth — and that depth comes not through strong flavour, but through a softness that I really like in Yiwu tea (and puerh in general). There is a good sense of depth noticeable right from the first c…

When it comes to taste, it is similar to the other Bi Yun Hao cakes of the same age, like the Yiwu with its particular bright fruit “zestiness” that isn’t really my favourite. I usually prefer a rounder, thicker sweetness. I read somewhere that a lot of these…

What comes across strongest with this tea is a deeply layered dried fruit and medicinal herb flavor, present upfront and lingering quite a bit on the palate after swallowing - that's the most dominant impression. There's also good complexity, with sweetness wo…