Yangqing Hao 2021 Tasting

// Published March 21, 2021 by mgualt

I’ve been re-tasting YQH teas for the past few weeks, and I also ordered some new samples from YQH to test some productions which I never got the chance to taste. Some of the samples have the typical YQH yeasty/minty/Crest/herbal storage taste, with the muting that entails, but interestingly some do not. Presumably this is because the tea has been stored in Yang’s house rather than in his usual storage. The dry-stored samples are eye-opening, showing in some cases quite normal processing, including desirable traits like a touch of incense/smoke/woodiness and resinous aroma. If this kind of processing cannot stand up to Yang’s storage conditions (which I expect are not *so* aggressive), this may be a worrying sign for gushu Yiwu material processed in this fashion.

Experimenting with an additional rating system for characteristics based on an updated version of the classical puerh evaluation criteria.

2004 YQH Dingji Yesheng 頂極野生
Wet leaf: no mustiness, rich dark fruit compote. Not overly sweet, leather wood. Thick texture, woody-herbal-sweet. Very light incense cedar/agarwood. Mild, no smoke, light astringency. Complex taste, mildly tart aftertaste. Dark leaves, typical YQH flavour is not overly strong but is present. Resinous taste and aroma. Sweet aftertaste but subtle. Superb thick and concentrated mouthfeel. Some char. Throat feeling very nice. Waves of frisson, slow moving with breath, with menthol in the late aftertaste. I like the fact that there are some aged notes which are becoming clear in this. Esepcially in the direction of camphor and dark resin. 8.0

2006 YQH Wushang Miaopin 無上妙品
Twiggy material, much like 06 CWS. Significantly lighter colour than Dingji Yesheng and other YQH of similar age, this has seen drier storage. Typical Yang storage is not present. Material is more mixed, silvery leaves brown, dark green. Not the usual overoxidized appearance. The wet leaves have a bit of storage aroma but more of an attic or basement smell. Yiwu profile. The wet leaves are very deep dark green. Liquor is very thick, has an overall “Beige” feeling. Relaxing and heavy. Quite warming but very sedating. Material is nice, it is a bit mushy, dark green-brown. Very thick, minimal huigan, deep heavy qi, not sweet, relatively green for a 2006 from Taiwan, much more normal than other YQH. The interesting thing about this sample is that the deep YQH storage profile is gone, and you see the base material more clearly. It is not exceptional, not very strong, but very much south Yiwu profile, no smoke, quite soft. Not as bitter as Dingji Yesheng, not as sweet as e.g. Tejipin or CWS… I prefer both of those to this sample. 7.2

2006 YQH Longya Fengjian 龍芽鳳尖
Dry leaf has darker profile, slight dankness, darker looking leaf, reminds me of Malaysia storage. Small leaves. Dryer storage than typical Yang, no Yang storage aroma. Good resin aroma. Refreshing. Slightly cloudy. Tarry. A bit bitter, not much depth or juiciness. Wired, heating. Caffeine bitterness. Bitter unpleasant. Reminds quite strongly of Yeh Gu bitterness. Woody smoke incense on empty cup. Strong heating, focusing, good longevity. Good leaf texture. Burly leaves, strongly rolled. Late steeps are good. 6.5

2006 YQH Tianpin 天品
Strong YQH house storage smell, quite dank. Very thick. Warm taste, nice level of fine astringency. Sweet, mild. Concentrated taste. Similar taste to Dingji Yesheng. Strong relaxation, focus, and clarity. Strongly oxidised. In the style of Dingji Yesheng and Zhencang chawang. In the longer steeps, there is some smoke and juiciness. 6.9

2006 YQH Yeh Chawang 野茶王 春秋 (not the “special”)


Another dry stored sample from YQH. Some incense woody smoke aspects are clear on the dry leaf and on the liquor. Light orange. Good incense aroma. Very sweet empty cup aroma. Very grounding energy, slowing, downer. Reminds me of the better mid-2000s BYH tea. Nice old-style camphor aroma such as in the iron zhongcha. Much better depth and concentration than most YQH I’ve tried. Warming. Frisson. Very nice overall tea. 8.1

2007 YQH Xishi Shenpin 稀世神品
Similar aroma to yqh 06 and 07 minty herbal leather reminds me more of qi Xiang. Very thick, and very mild taste initially, sweet thick water. Good perfumed empty cup aroma, mild but very intoxicating. The taste strengthens, but still mild. Herbal, bittersweet, solid orange. Looks like a blend of maocha. Clear energy, raises level, eyes close, dense. Old tree leaves. Very nice energy. Waves. Bitterness, increasing astringency. Some greenness. The overall profile is not so different from e.g. tejipin Or even qizhong. As a 6ftm blend, the cyh szcq is more interesting. But there is a decent amount of bitter complexity. The problem is that the storage renders it so similar to the bulk of yqh. 6.4

2009 YQH Gongpin 888 贡品御藏
Tight compression, looks like a dry stored sample. Slightly smoky and barnyard on wet leaf. Very dark leaf, could be “yesheng”. Sandalwood incense on wet leaf . No YQH house aroma. lots of different leaf sizes, from tiny to medium. Mild but good perfume resin on empty cup. Has a “wild tea” off-varietal taste. Excellent resin incense aroma, good balance of bitterness and sweetness. High astringency, deep serrations and midribs consistent with old tree material. nice agarwood aroma. excitement energy slowly builds. focus. Not the same material as yeh gu definitely not. Strong astringency continues. Sweetness subsides. 6.1

2011 YQH Jinya 金芽
Very interesting tea in the context of YQH. Smoky, very hard compression. Impressive incense woody profile. Spectacular empty cup aroma, great energy, numb mouth face, concentrated taste, bitter, astringent, strong longevity. 7.9

2011 YQH Guyun 古韵
Aroma of dry and wet leaf is typical YQH house aroma. But the profile of this tea is very different. Very light wash, light peach orange. Strikes me as similar to XZH oxidized teas. Good wet aroma, herbal dark profile. Very sweet tea, and very thick tea. Light, like a dessert tea. Slightly juicy peach-apricot. High pitched, sweet, cotton candy. Decent astringency, frisson and focusing. Very gentle and light. Peach nectar. Frisson in neck and back, heat to face. Gentle. 6.2

Comments

  1. Alex
    March 22, 2021 @ 6:51 am

    Great comparison, thank you!
    Also like your charts – they give a nice overview of the tea. Have been thinking to rework mine since they lean heavy on the taste-side of things, but updating 680+ pages is a bit daunting, haha. Maybe gradualy…

    Reply
    • mgualt
      March 22, 2021 @ 8:53 am

      Thanks Alex! I like your site, good selection of reviews. You might have more TdJ reviews than anyone, is this possible? The radar graph is roughly based on the classic five qualities approach to puerh, but with a couple of extra points. We have been trying to use it at TWL for the tasting panel and so trying it out here. It seems to cover the most important features but it is a work in progress. Maybe you could explain how you decided which elements to include in your radar charts?

      Reply
  2. MattCha
    March 23, 2021 @ 11:25 am

    Alex’s charts!!!!!!

    Hahaha

    Peace

    Reply
  3. Alex
    March 25, 2021 @ 8:32 am

    Yeah, I ceraintly didn’t invent those charts back when I started my blog 5 years ago – they just doesn’t seem very common at tea blogs, so I’m glad to see them here (since I obviously like them).
    I just chose those characteristics of Puerh, which seemd to be the most important ones to compare Puerhs with another – at least at an more superficial, more taste-oriented view: if I look at the chart I can relativly accurate imagine what to expect how the tea taste, if it is light or heavy and if it has a lot of energy or not. If I would start this thing nowadays, I certainly would go with similar paramerters like you, which would give a more complete profile of the tea – maybe I’ll someday just start with new metrics and update old posts when revisting them, we’ll see 😉

    Reply
  4. H
    May 23, 2021 @ 1:27 pm

    How does one go about ordering samples from YQH and what are the sizes of them? Really interested in trying the Dingji Yesheng, Tejipin, Yuanshi Senlin Huangshan Cha, Qixiang, and Shenpin Chawang, but nowhere near the amount of money to blind buy full cakes of all of them to try.

    Reply
    • mgualt
      May 23, 2021 @ 2:45 pm

      A simple google search will yield the answers you seek, and it will be up to date 😉

      Reply
  5. Colin
    August 21, 2021 @ 12:45 pm

    What does “Strength” mean to you?

    I find these charts to be more helpful than others I’ve seen used for puer.

    Reply
    • mgualt
      August 21, 2021 @ 1:25 pm

      The categories I settled on are based on the traditional approach to evaluating Puerh tea, with minor modifications.
      Strength is roughly synonymous with intensity, concentration etc, and this can be for both taste and effects.
      For example 501-7542 is much stronger than any other batch from 2005, for equal weight of tea. I believe that strength and durability are important to consider together: sometimes a tea can be strong because it steeps out quickly and so has low durability. An example of this is Wistaria Hongyin – it’s a quite strong tea but with low durability. On the other hand, Double lion 2005 is both strong and durable. YQH Qizhong is both strong and durable as well, though it’s been a while since i’ve had it. Mengku and Changtai teas tend to be neither strong nor durable, though there are a few exceptions.

      Reply

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