Da Yu Ling - Spring 2010

[TwoPynts]

cup of leaves

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Victoria was kind enough to send me the Taiwanese mountain Da Yu Ling sample along with the well packed tea gong fu tea set i recently took off her hands. Supposedly there is no more of this to be had, so ...thanks!

She got it from Tea Masters and Stephane reviews it here better than I could:
http://teamasters.blogspot.com/2010/05/ ... dieux.html
Unless you can read French, you may want to have Google translate it for you.

dry leaf detail

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The tightly compressed tea balls are a bright jade and have a faint fresh scent. With gong fu brewing, it releases a pleasing vegetal, hoppy aroma. I only used about 15-20 pellets but through the various seepings, they expanded to fill my little gaiwan pot. Infusion after infusion this oolong produced very drinkable liquors, never once getting bitter even after extended soakings. The longer ones did produce more of a tingle at the back of my throat when drinking them though.

brewed oolong

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The color of the tea is a lively straw yellow, though not as bright as my over-saturated photos. The taste again is a very pleasant fresh, vegetal one, with floral notes after swallowing. It has a nice body and mouth feel, and the aftertaste is slightly metallic though not overt, and lingers for a while. I quit seeping after 11 infusions, though the tea may have been able to go farther.

[TwoPynts]

wet leaves

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The wet leaves are lovely to look at and quite an impressive size. I didn't find many buds, but there are some, and some stems as well. It is amazing how they reconstituted to such a large size.

bud

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stem

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[TwoPynts]

There's some evidence of oxidation, but for the most part the leaves appear fresh and green. Some insect nibbling is there as well, so one can assume that no pesticides were used.

oxidation

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I was not wowed at first by the flavor of the Da Yu Ling, but it has grown on me and I will be sad when I finish the last of it.

EDIT: If anyone wants to get some, this vendor has it:
http://www.teafromtaiwan.com/shop/loose-tea/da-yu-ling

[Victoria]

Very nice review! Glad you enjoyed it!!
There is DYL and then there is DYL

Unfortunately I believe Tea Masters is sold out.
I would next try Hou De or Camellia Sinensis.

[TwoPynts]

Very nice review! Glad you enjoyed it!!
There is DYL and then there is DYL

Unfortunately I believe Tea Masters is sold out.
I would next try Hou De or Camellia Sinensis.

Thanks, glad you liked the review.
Is there anything specific you'd recommend? I was intrigued by this one on the HouDe website:

http://www.houdeasianart.com/index.php? ... iews_id=76

[Victoria]

A sample of their DYL is on the way to me now.
I dunno much about Pu, to comment.

[TwoPynts]

A sample of their DYL is on the way to me now.
I dunno much about Pu, to comment.

I'm learning, but the originally thought the aged MengHai was an aged Oolong like this one (I guess I need to read more carefully):

http://www.teafromtaiwan.com/shop/loose-tea/aged

I'd like to try a more oxidized Oolong but am not sure what to get next.

[guitar9876]

Nice review! I too have been eying that DYL on Hou de. Ah yes that looks like a Norbu gaiwan.

[TwoPynts]

Nice review! I too have been eying that DYL on Hou de. Ah yes that looks like a Norbu gaiwan.

My recommendations is go for it Guitar. As I mentioned in some other threads, I'm on about the 10th steeping of some leaves I started yesterday and it is still going strong!

It certainly does look like the gaiwan at Norbu:
http://www.norbutea.com/white_gaiwan_10 ... gory_id=62

And the tea cups are Zisha clay with porcelain interiors.

[Bubba_tea]

Just my 2cents on DYL from Hou De. I ordered the 2010 from them and have had a few pots of it so far. To me, it's no big deal. Maybe 2010 (as noted in some other posts) wasn't a good tea year for DYL (the dong ding and bao zhongs were pretty good though). The DYL I bought from FLT last year would blow this out of the water with a massive fireball.

I haven't seen DYL on the FLT site yet, so when/if it comes up, I'll be happy to try it. I wouldn't really rate the hou de dyl any higher (probably lower) than the dyl from teafromtaiwan and not much higher then the zen8tea on ebay.

[Victoria]

I had Hou De's also and I agree with your rating. Tea Masters was definitely a cut above. The best DYL of this season.

[Bubba_tea]

I received an email from Shiwen regarding the DYL for 2010 - she said it wasn't up to snuff so she didn't buy it. That's something I will consider strongly in the future for vendors. IMO, hou de sold a sub-par product anyways and floating leaves didn't bother to offer it. Kudos to FLT!

> I don't have any DaYuLing for this spring season. I was in Taiwan to
> do tea buying in May and when it was time for DaYuLing tea, plants got
> attacked by spider mites. My tea friend told me it was not worthy of
> buying, so I gave it up. I will do my best to source out a good
> DaYuLing for winter season, so please pray that the weather will be good for it.
>
> Shiuwen
> Floating Leaves Tea
> http://www.floatingleaves.com
> tea@floatingleaves.com
> 206-276-9542

[britt]

I didn't try the 2010 Da Yu Ling from Hou De yet, but their Bhao Zhong and Tsui Feng were fine. What I have found in the past with high-quality Da Yu Ling is that it's very sensitive to the type of brewing vessel that is used. Using an Yixing pot that worked well for lower-elevation high mountain oolongs didn't necessarily mean I'd get equal results with the Da Yu Ling, which is from a very high elevation. I now brew all high mountains in a porcelain gaiwan and am much happier with the results because they are more consistent. The Da Yu Ling is so light that it can be difficult to brew.

It could also be that this year was a bad one for tea. I know that Jing Tea Shop mentioned this when they posted their 2010 teas.

[TwoPynts]

I suppose I was fortunate to get a good one. Really good one.

[TwoPynts]

:sigh:
I'm brewing up the last of this batch. When it is gone, it will be gone forever. I will miss it :sniff:. It was very interesting to drink it right after having all of that TGY from OTTI 6. Quite a different character between the two teas.