Help me decide on a YS cake

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Mar 27th, '18, 03:47
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Help me decide on a YS cake

by Balthazar » Mar 27th, '18, 03:47

I've been out of the "pu game" for a few years now, as I pretty much only consume tea during work hours these days, and my working environment is less than gong fu friendly. But recently I've been craving it quite a bit, and I thought I'd buy a cake to enjoy through the spring and summer.

I want something from YS, it shouldn't cost more than $35-50 (around $40 would be great, but I can stretch up to $50), anything from 200 grams and upward is fine as far as size is concerned. I inquired with Scott regarding the possibility to buy half a cake (if that was possible I'd go for half a cake of something a bit more pricey), but unfortunately (and, I should add, understandably) he was not able to arrange that.

I'm looking for a sheng, it should be drinkable immediately. Any recommendations are welcome. Below is a selection I've made:

2016 Yunnan Sourcing "Autumn Bang Dong Village"

2015 Hai Lang Hao "Gao Shan Chen Yun" Yi Wu

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Qiu Yun" Wild Arbor Raw Pu-erh Tea of Yi Wu mountain

I should say that I do have a stomach that does not very much agree with very young sheng pu. Other than that, I'm game for pretty much anything. For reference, one of my favorite puerhs is the "2006 Mengku "Big Snow Mountain" Wild Raw Pu-erh Tea Cake" but it's currently out of my range price wise.

(In addition to a sheng in the $35-50 range, I'm pretty set on picking up a cake of the 2017 Yunnan Sourcing "Rooster King". Big fan of shu, but do let me know if there are better options at that price point.)

Thanks :)

Mar 27th, '18, 04:17
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Re: Help me decide on a YS cake

by xiaguanfanboy » Mar 27th, '18, 04:17

2017 rooster king is by far my favorite shu from YS. Good choice !

For sheng.. i liked the 2016 Autumn Na Han and ku zhu shan alot. For spring Teas you are a bit late since scott just recently increased prices by 10~20%... older factory teas went up a bit aswell.

Autumn jinggu teas are cheap aswell.



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Re: Help me decide on a YS cake

by bagua7 » Mar 27th, '18, 06:04

Hello,

I remember you but you didn't post that much in the past either. A lot of the old timers are gone...maybe on a sabbatical, lol.

Anyway the "2012 Qiu Yun" one is on my list which I will purchase sometimes in the next few days, I have been recommended this cake.

I was going to recommend the 2014 Autumn Bing Dao but it's beyond your budget ($90) unfortunately. It's a very good cake.

Let's wait for someone else to chime in.

Good luck!

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Re: Help me decide on a YS cake

by mr mopu » Mar 27th, '18, 06:48

Gao Shan Chen Yun will not disappoint. Taste much older than it is because it was stored as maocha for a while before pressing.

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Mar 27th, '18, 08:27
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Re: Help me decide on a YS cake

by Balthazar » Mar 27th, '18, 08:27

bagua7 wrote: Hello,

I remember you but you didn't post that much in the past either. A lot of the old timers are gone...maybe on a sabbatical, lol.

Anyway the "2012 Qiu Yun" one is on my list which I will purchase sometimes in the next few days, I have been recommended this cake.

I was going to recommend the 2014 Autumn Bing Dao but it's beyond your budget ($90) unfortunately. It's a very good cake.

Let's wait for someone else to chime in.

Good luck!
It's good to be remembered I guess, and you're right, I was never the most active poster eve when I was an active drinker. Browsed a lot though, but after I graduated it became harder and harder to find time for those special tea moments, and thus the predictable daily drinkers (mostly hongcha) more and more took over... Oh well, there's always weekends.

And yes, I do notice that that most of the old timers are gone and that the activity has gone down quite a bit. The familiar tea blogs all seem to be more or less closed up too, except Marshaln's occasional post. New arenas for tea discussions, perhaps.

The 2012 Qiu Yun definitely looks interesting. Regardless of what I end up buying, I hope you write a post on it once you have had the chance to drink it!
mr mopu wrote: Gao Shan Chen Yun will not disappoint. Taste much older than it is because it was stored as maocha for a while before pressing.
Thank you for the recommendation. Really good price/quantity ratio, this might be the one I end up getting.

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Re: Help me decide on a YS cake

by mr mopu » Mar 27th, '18, 23:22

Balthazar wrote:
bagua7 wrote: Hello,

I remember you but you didn't post that much in the past either. A lot of the old timers are gone...maybe on a sabbatical, lol.

Anyway the "2012 Qiu Yun" one is on my list which I will purchase sometimes in the next few days, I have been recommended this cake.

I was going to recommend the 2014 Autumn Bing Dao but it's beyond your budget ($90) unfortunately. It's a very good cake.

Let's wait for someone else to chime in.

Good luck!
It's good to be remembered I guess, and you're right, I was never the most active poster eve when I was an active drinker. Browsed a lot though, but after I graduated it became harder and harder to find time for those special tea moments, and thus the predictable daily drinkers (mostly hongcha) more and more took over... Oh well, there's always weekends.

And yes, I do notice that that most of the old timers are gone and that the activity has gone down quite a bit. The familiar tea blogs all seem to be more or less closed up too, except Marshaln's occasional post. New arenas for tea discussions, perhaps.

The 2012 Qiu Yun definitely looks interesting. Regardless of what I end up buying, I hope you write a post on it once you have had the chance to drink it!
mr mopu wrote: Gao Shan Chen Yun will not disappoint. Taste much older than it is because it was stored as maocha for a while before pressing.
Thank you for the recommendation. Really good price/quantity ratio, this might be the one I end up getting.
I think it will surprise for the price.

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Re: Help me decide on a YS cake

by kuánglóng » Mar 28th, '18, 04:12

First post in a loong time here as well :)

While I haven't tried the 2012 Qiu Yun, I have 5 and a half cakes of the 2015 HLH Gao Shan and agree with MrMopu (for the xth time in this case) on the great bang for the buck ratio of those cakes. BTW, I've sampled this tea more than once on an empty stomach without any issues whatsoever ... YMMV ... as usual.
Regarding the 2016 YS Autumn Bang Dong I only have a cake and a large sample of the 2015 version and like that one quite a bit as well, especially prepared in one of my smaller hongni pots (vs. porcelain or celadon). (I might have posted some notes in the Pu of the Day thread but don't remember exactly.)
At the end of the day I'd slightly prefer the 2015 Bang Dong over the HLH, mainly for the complexity (entertainment value) and 'qi' but maybe that's just me.
+1 on the Rooster King, excellent shu; even at this young stage it tops Scott's 2014 Green Miracle in my book.

Just in case ... I got all those pu's from Oli @ greenteaguru.co.uk; maybe he's got some left and you could get away with cheaper (?), faster shipping and no customs hassle (greetz from K. & Annette :mrgreen: )
Balthazar wrote: I've been out of the "pu game" for a few years now, as I pretty much only consume tea during work hours these days, and my working environment is less than gong fu friendly. But recently I've been craving it quite a bit, and I thought I'd buy a cake to enjoy through the spring and summer.

I want something from YS, it shouldn't cost more than $35-50 (around $40 would be great, but I can stretch up to $50), anything from 200 grams and upward is fine as far as size is concerned. I inquired with Scott regarding the possibility to buy half a cake (if that was possible I'd go for half a cake of something a bit more pricey), but unfortunately (and, I should add, understandably) he was not able to arrange that.

I'm looking for a sheng, it should be drinkable immediately. Any recommendations are welcome. Below is a selection I've made:

2016 Yunnan Sourcing "Autumn Bang Dong Village"

2015 Hai Lang Hao "Gao Shan Chen Yun" Yi Wu

2012 Yunnan Sourcing "Qiu Yun" Wild Arbor Raw Pu-erh Tea of Yi Wu mountain

I should say that I do have a stomach that does not very much agree with very young sheng pu. Other than that, I'm game for pretty much anything. For reference, one of my favorite puerhs is the "2006 Mengku "Big Snow Mountain" Wild Raw Pu-erh Tea Cake" but it's currently out of my range price wise.

(In addition to a sheng in the $35-50 range, I'm pretty set on picking up a cake of the 2017 Yunnan Sourcing "Rooster King". Big fan of shu, but do let me know if there are better options at that price point.)

Thanks :)

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Mar 29th, '18, 03:21
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Re: Help me decide on a YS cake

by Balthazar » Mar 29th, '18, 03:21

Thanks for chiming in! I ended up ordering the 2015 HLH Gao Shan from Yunnan Sourcing.

I did check out greenteaguru.co.uk, and was surprised to see how fairly priced the teas on there seem to be (considering that it's a European shop). Didn't find the 2015 HLH Gao Shan, but the 2017 Rooster King was priced at only $2-3 more per cake compared to buying it directly from YS. Shipping was a little bit pricier (from England to Norway vs. from China to Norway :D ) compared to YS's most affordable alternative, but not by much.

I'll keep an eye out for any good deals on there in the future, thanks for the recommendation.

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Re: Help me decide on a YS cake

by kuánglóng » Mar 29th, '18, 07:06

Balthazar wrote: Didn't find the 2015 HLH Gao Shan ...
It's here:
https://www.greenteaguru.co.uk/shop/raw ... uerh-cake/
... or rather there seemed to be a couple cakes left when I placed my last order a couple weeks ago.

Mar 30th, '18, 04:51
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Re: Help me decide on a YS cake

by xiaguanfanboy » Mar 30th, '18, 04:51

Yunnan sourcing has a 10% sale going for their own puerh teas.
Time to order some Tea

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Mar 31st, '18, 07:36
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Re: Help me decide on a YS cake

by Balthazar » Mar 31st, '18, 07:36

As always, the sale came right after I made my purchase :D

Oh well.

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Re: Help me decide on a YS cake

by bagua7 » Jun 26th, '19, 22:08

This:

2016 Da Qing Gu Shu

Impressive.

Another bravo to Scott.

Premium raw puerh. This is no plantation or young tree raw material.

One of my favourite raw cakes overall.

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