On my last Yunnan Sourcing order, I bought a couple of their newer shou puers. The 2018 Balance Shou Puer caught my eye as I do like golden needle. I let mine rest a month in the open air before tasting. Balance is made of 2017 Lincang/Mengku material pressed in October 2018.
Leaf and Steeping Method
Balance sports gorgeous gold and brown colours. The cake has a light wet pile scent, smelling richly earthy and a little funky ground.
2018 Balance shou cake is on the crumbly side from all the fine leaves. Yunnan Sourcing goes overkill on bubble wrap, but it seems this cake is very delicate as all the edges on my cake got flaked off. Breaking pieces off is cake (ha) but does leave a lot of loose bits.
I used 1 gram per 12ml of vessel size, which is a heavy ratio, but I wanted to get this shou inky. After two rinses with boiling water, Balance’s leaves revealed strong rich earth with notes of frankincense.
Tasting of Yunnan Sourcing’s 2018 Balance Shou Puer
First, Second, Third, and Fourth Infusion: The first infusion of the 2018 Balance Shou puer steeps up cloudy, but was a temporary set back as it cleared up on the second infusion.
Balance sips in thick and syrupy. It has this earthy sharp bittersweet chocolate vibe like I added a squeeze of liquid bittersweet chocolate topping. This shou does have a wet pile, funky floor, and damp wood floor aftertaste in the first infusion, but lost steam in the next infusions. The texture is really slick and heavy. Balance drinks like a meal, feeling like that sloppy cement of casein in a protein shake.
Fifth and Sixth Infusion: 2018 Balance shou has lost the wet pile notes, exchanging them for sweetness and complexity. It is still syrupy thick bittersweet chocolate, balanced with an equal/hard to separate earth and wood notes. Some sips have that wood and frankincense note. The finish is bittersweet sharp ebony wood richness. Unfortunately, Balance was quickly losing steam during these infusions.
Seventh Infusion: I went in for a 15-minute infusion to get all the tea flavor out. 2018 Balance shou puer is shifted more semisweet chocolate with a soggy wood finish and aftertaste. It drinks really easy and sweet here.
Comments
Yunnan Sourcing’s 2018 Balance shou puer starts as an inky, rich, and bittersweet shou that develops more character with each infusion. It does live up to its name of “balance” due to the balance of earth and wood, as well as sweetness and bitterness. It doesn’t resteep amazingly, but that is to be expected of finely leafed shou.
The only con at this time is the wet pile flavor, however, I can see this shou being an ultimate beast once that note is gone in a year or two. My game plan is to leave this tea alone for a year in storage.
