Yunnan Sourcing's 2017 Gong Ting Certified Organic Shou Puer

Hello hello!

Earlier this year, Yunnan Sourcing released two new certified organic shou puer teas! One of them is a 200g beeng, while the other one is a 100g beeng. Whenever I placed my last Yunnan Sourcing order, two of them were included in my order — one for me to keep and the other one to give away! So for today’s review, we’re going to go over Yunnan Sourcing’s 2017 Gong Ting Certified Organic Shou Puer!

Dimensions - 4g of tea in a 60ml gaiwan

Beeng Price - 100g for $13.80 USD

Water Temperature - boil

Number of Steeps - 12

Steeps 1 - 6

At first, this tea started out light and earthy, which left an undertone of dirt and stevia in the mouth. After another few infusions, this tea’s color quickly turned dark as the texture turned rich and frothy. The tasting notes of sweet dirt took over this tea's palate as it left a distinct light aftertaste of cola (soda). After a few more infusions, this tea was so thick that it started to become minutely bitter.

Steeps 7 - 12

Around the sixth infusion, this tea’s base consisted of dirt with the lingering sweet aftertaste of cola. This tea’s texture was still thick and soft, but around the eighth infusion, this tea’s color and body began to lighten up. Around the tenth infusion, this tea began to quickly taper off and only tasted like cola. By the twelfth and last infusion, this tea was completely used up and was ready to be put away.

Conclusion

Yunnan Sourcing’s 2017 Gong Ting Certified Organic Shou Puer is a 100g beeng that was released earlier in the year. One aspect about this tea that I liked was that its texture was soft and smooth. Another thing I liked about this tea was that it had a strong, yet pleasant, distinct aftertaste that reminded me of soda. However, this tea shows evidence of being recently pressed because of how humid it is, and can greatly benefit from resting a bit longer before drinking again.

Overall, this shou was a memorable one because of its distinct tasting notes, and is a shou that I would recommend to anyone. Beside needing more time to rest/air out, this tea has a lot of promising signs of being great as time goes on. So now that I have a second beeng of this tea in my possession, I might as well give it away (randomly). Below is a link to my Instagram post with more info. on how to win it…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiX5PGlnHvr/?taken-by=theoolongdrunk

-Blissfully Tea Drunk