Gushu Yin Ya "white pu'er" buds

I really tasted two unrelated teas together, one a tea bud cake version (the "Yin Ya white pu'er") and one a standard sheng, both from Moychay.

The reasoning for the pairing was to finish trying some tea versions from a set of samples (with cakes as samples, this buds version a mini-cake; not how samples for review usually works out).  To repeat a common theme here, comparison of unrelated teas isn't helpful for review purposes.  I suppose I noticed how feel aspects related, for example, but didn't make a lot of that in the notes.  I'll present the summary of the two teas separately, with the typical sheng version second, as a sort of bonus review, since it seems to read more clearly split up.

Both of these teas are not currently listed for sale on the site (shown as "not available").  If someone is reading this only for research of purchase alternatives all of this might be completely irrelevant.  I don't see discussing teas here as limited to marketing support so to me the descriptions are still meaningful.  That saves me from even considering value since I don't know how these were priced.

The vendor mentioned that this tea is similar, if that's of interest.

It is nice having more of these teas than I typically receive for reviews (they were provided by Moychay), for more than one reason.  Of course I can drink more tea then, and can share it with others, as I did in those tasting sessions I wrote about over the last few months.  Also these types of teas are more or less designed to age, and a 10 or 20 gram sample is only going to go so far related to trying the teas for review and then again later on.  I probably won't say a lot in following years about teas I've reviewed this year but eventually some of that will come up, and beyond that at least the experience will recur.

It's my impression that this vendor shared more of the teas related to taking my overall experience into account, more than to influence reviews to be positive.  People can interpret that as they want though, or make nothing of it.  Anyone opposed to blog reviewing as a potentially biased form of input might be less likely to read this anyway.  I can't say for sure that my impressions aren't biased, it just doesn't seem to work out that way to me.  I just describe the teas.


What the two teas are:

Gu Shu Yin Ya (MoyChay.ru), 2016, 100 g.

Qian Jia Zhai Sheng Cha (Moychay.ru, raw material 2016, compressed 2017), 357 g.


I'm curious if the Yin Ya is similar to Ya Bao tea buds, but it looks nothing like those.  The connection is both being referred to as "white pu'er," and both obviously being made of buds, but beyond that the similarities stop.  Let's start with a label description:

A photo of that "Yin Ya" loose:

And that previous Ya Bao version reviewed here:

It's just not the same thing.  Per my understanding (which is never a last word) the difference isn't that Ya Bao is from a different tree plant type, although it is said to typically be from a specific version of Assamica.  Instead the Ya Bao buds are picked much earlier, before the type of bud familiar in silver needle or tips white tea versions has a chance to form (which seems to be what this is, only perhaps processed differently than white teas).

The other tea is just sheng.  That area / origin name relates to a place in Yunnan, described in a general reference here:


Qianjia Zhai Scenic Area, located in the northeast of Zhenyuan County of Pu’er City in Yunnan Province, is the provincial-level scenery area. It consists of 49 scenic spots with the total area of 44 square kilometers. Qianjia Zhai Scenic Area features beautiful water, majestic mountains, quiet forest and extraordinary scenery.

Wild tea trees: According to the experts, the top tea tree, which is 18.5 meters high and 2700 years old, is the oldest and biggest wild tree that ever been found so far. It’s situated on Ailao Mountain which rises more than 2600 meters above sea level... 


In a questionable choice of references I'll also mention a vendor page describing growing conditions and the area from Verdant.  That supplier started a trend for tea vendors taking heat for allegedly making obviously false claims about tea tree source ages (obviously false to many), with discussion of that on Reddit, Steepster, and in a personal blog account.  The photos in that reference are still actual local images, it would just be as well to take the written content plant-age claims with a grain of salt.

If accuracy of vendor background information is seen a main concern then evaluating that debate would be relevant to judging Verdant as a potential source.  The tea is the same if paired with carefully reviewed and accurate claims versus references that are almost certainly untrue, but it's still probably not a good sign.  It would make evaluating the other information presented more difficult.

Even including "gushu" in this post title related to the buds version goes a bit far for making a claim.  I've seen people use that term as a reference to different source-plant age claims, but it's as well to just take it for what it's worth, as an attempt to describe something about the source, versus having a specific meaning or making an implied quality level or character claim.

Review of the buds version

sheng on the left, these buds on the right

This Yin Ya (a version of buds-only sheng, described as white bud pu'er) does remind me a little of the only version of Ya Bao I've ever tried, but the aspects profile isn't so similar.  It's sweet and rich, not exactly like pu'er or any white tea I've tried, but probably closer to a Moonlight version.  No surprise in that.

There was one distinctive flavor in that Ya Bao version that defined it, said to be typical of the type in other versions, which I had to look up in my review to remember it:  pine.  There isn't really any pine in this the first infusion, it's on the mild side and sweet side, and a bit subtle.  If you taste a pine tree bud--which is kind of a strange thing to do, but I did, plenty of times--they sort of do taste like this, mild and sweet, with a distinctive flavor.  I think it turns out those are even edible, which makes me wonder how many random things I tasted as a child weren't.  I was probably a strange kid.

Second infusion

The sweetness picked up a lot.  It is odd tasting two teas that are so dissimilar together (a point I'll not say much more about throughout this).  The contrast isn't informative; they're just opposites.  This one is smooth and round, sweet and relatively full in feel and flavor profile.  As I remember the opposite of that is what I didn't like about the only Ya Bao I'd tried, it being so one-dimensional, with just a limited but pleasant flavor standing out, and feel and complexity seeming limited.  It seemed more like a tisane than a tea for lacking flavor complexity and other range, the full feel and aftertaste that "real" teas express much better than any other dried leaves or other herbs.

Flavors are definitely in a fruit range; a little towards juicyfruit gum.  Someone else might interpret that as similar to dried apricot, or something else altogether.

Third infusion

More of the same; not transitioning too much.  It's novel, with positive aspects to appreciate.  Moonlight whites can push that intensity and depth of fruit aspects just a little further, so I tend to like those better, but that's a familiar personal preference issue from silver tips style whites in general.  I tend to like Bai Mu Dan versions more than silver needle / silver tips teas for the fine leaves included adding more flavor range, but lots of others express the opposite preference.

This tea would work well for a tea to drink when you feel like something different or an experiment to set aside for a decade.  It might be hard to put a clear market value on this tea since versions like this don't come up that often.  To carry that a little further this isn't exactly like any other version of any tea I've ever tried.  When I said the feel was full it also includes a creaminess that's not all that common for lots of tea types, maybe closer to how some oolongs come across than to sheng versions or white teas.

I'd probably be evaluating this tea more positively if I was really attached to that particular type of fullness.  It's interesting and positive, to me, but other people seem to make more of how nice an experience it makes for than I tend to.

Fourth infusion

A cool root-spice aspect joins in with the fruit (still no pine though, in terms of pine needle character).

Fifth infusion

It's odd this has worked out so well brewed fast, matching the sheng times.  Doubling the time would bump intensity but it's nice as it is, sweet, complex, full in feel, and so on.  I would've expected it to not be as intense given how brief those brewing times have been.

I brewed it for a number of additional infusions.  The flavor became a good bit less sweet and creamy, extending more towards wood or a trace of bitterness, but it was still positive.  It was definitely a unique tea version.  I'd expect it to pick up additional complexity and depth after years of aging, but I'm not certain about that, since I haven't tried so many aged whites that typical transition patterns are clear to me.

Review of the sheng,  2016 Qian Jia Zhai

Initial flavor is pleasant; some bitterness, perhaps a hint of smoke, but with good depth of a range of different aspects, and a nice overall balance.  I'd expect the bitterness to fall into a more pleasant balance after a couple of infusions  I'd also guess that this tea is intense enough that it's well suited for waiting another decade to drink it.  I'll say more about a flavors list, and other aspects, but the rest of the taste seems to settle into aged wood or towards spice from that.


Second infusion: bitterness is pronounced enough in this that it would be too much for people unaccustomed to young sheng range.  For people on that general page it would probably still seem moderate, not strong, but the bitterness is a good bit more pronounced than Yiwu or Nan Nuo origin versions tend to be, probably just a touch heavier than Jing Mai teas I've tried tend to express.  For some that would still be fine, since the overall balance works; it would depend on aspect preferences.

It's intense; a bit of smoke stands out just because it's novel, and from that there's a woodiness with some degree of spice.  The spice is hard to place; in that aromatic range of spices used for incense, frankincense or myhrr or such.


Third infusion:  it's not transitioning enough to add much, maybe softening slightly.  I get a sense it may shift off this range more in a couple more infusions.  Really this seems a good candidate for trying twice a year to check in and leaving sit otherwise.  It's not that it's not good tea, or not drinkable, but it's true potential probably lies in the future, and this is probably a good starting point for picking up more complexity in a different range later.

Even after 5 years stored here (in Bangkok, in a very humid and warm environment) teas can change a lot.  It has nice body and aftertaste beyond the flavor, but per how I experience teas it's hard to really move past that bitterness, the flavor level.  Or I guess if this level of bitterness is seen as desirable it could be perfect now.


Fourth infusion:  it is softening up a little more; using a really fast infusion helped with that (up towards 10 seconds, but this would drink ok at flash infusions at this proportion).  The sweetness is nice; that effect of bitter and sweet together works.  You get some nice sweetness after-effect after drinking it but not as much of the feeling trailing down the throat as I usually associate with hui gan ("returning sweetness," described here, per a translation that doesn't mean much beyond already knowing what it means).  This effect occurs all throughout your mouth instead, with a pronounced effect along your tongue with some tightness on the sides of your mouth.

None of that means so much to me; people really far along the sheng path tend to associate and mouth-location variations in range of feel and aftertaste more than I do.  Flavors include woodiness (aged, but with some tree-sap bite too), a bit of spice, and lots of mineral depth, the last across a broad range, from rocks to metal.


Fifth infusion:  the character is the nicest it's been, softened, gaining complexity instead of loosing it.  Aspects description would shift a little but it's not so different that it's worth running through it.


I drank a good number of infusions more of both teas, and while the buds trailed off in terms of initial sweetness and creamy feel this one just thinned a bit instead.  I could imagine some people interpreting the character and aspects of infusions 6 through 10 as more positive for this sheng compared to the earlier infusions range.  Intensity dropped off and the balance of aspects shifted as longer brew times drew out the same level of infusion strength, with this sheng more consistent than the other buds-based tea.

recent ice skating outing (they can do it)

Halloween and birthday theme; his 10th that day

it worked out that we had ice cream cake later and sang twice

Visiting Bangkok Chinatown on staycation, reviewing Ya Bao (tea buds)

I live in Bangkok, so it's normal that I would visit the local Chinatown and buy tea there.  I've written about the Jip Eu shop there (in a search query here), and about the one tea cafe there, Double Dogs.  Odd there is just one cafe in Chinatown, or maybe I'm just missing the others, and they're Google-proof.  Of course I'm searching in English; I can use Google translate to switch back and forth to do a Thai language based search but it's not simple.


I'll say a little about the Bangkok Chinatown, what it's like, and that shop, and describe a tea I bought.  In a sense it's not ordinary tea, Ya Bao, it's a different form of tea buds made into something like white tea, sold as white pu'er.  That could almost be three different subjects and three different posts, especially the review part, and I am using just that part as a TChing post (which appeared here).

Back-story:  a staycation

in Bali with a cousin

My wife went on a vacation to Bali without me this week with our kids.  We get out a good bit compared to the vacation time I have to spend on that, using it all, and I had an important meeting, and her cousin and his wife were signed on for that trip, so I didn't join.  No problem.  We visited Java and Bali (Indonesia) a year and a half ago, and Bali is nice but it's a lot like any other tropical island, with a few extra ancient temples around.  The beaches are not nearly as nice as those in Hawaii, where my wife and I both went to grad school, so that helped soften the blow a little related to passing on a vacation.


Technically this wasn't a "staycation" because I worked the whole week, but I did explore some.  For entertainment I walked around Chinatown two nights, not so far from where I work, and checked out a backpacker theme tourist area another, Kao San Road.  I typically never get out, besides  running errands and doing what kids do, so it made for a nice change of pace.  I'll skip mentioning Kao San Road but I will go into what the Bangkok Chinatown is like.

Chinatowns comparison

Our Chinatown is a little rough, to be honest.  I feel safe there, whether that's justified or not.  I really did just test that safety issue by walking several kilometers along vacant streets and alleys, seeing what's there and looking for one place in particular.  Once you get just a bit further West of Chinatown walking by homeless people setting up camp on sidewalks happens, something that would be a sure sign you really shouldn't be there in a US city.  For whatever reason Thailand doesn't have much of the kinds of crime that tie in with that.  Maybe because they're Buddhist?  Some people do very non-Buddhist things, clearly dropping the five precepts, but few enough take up mugging other people, stealing their money in that way.  So much for the superiority complex associated with developed world privilege, thinking that it's all that much closer to a utopia in "the West."

a side street dining area off Yaowarat, in Bangkok Chinatown (photo credit)

So by "rough" I mean that there are restaurants, which look like Chinese restaurants anywhere, in a US city or in China, but per appearances most food is sold and consumed in street-stall informal cafe settings.  In the Singapore Chinatown that's a wonderfully well organized, clean, structured setting, although I suppose pricing goes up a little for tidying up the environment.  Here the "kitchens" are food carts, not like food trucks, like a steel cabinet on wheels with a gas-fired wok set-up attached.  They're even cooler when the whole thing is welded to a motorcycle, Mad Max style, but that configuration is mostly used for fruit vending or something such.

I speak some Thai, maybe a few hundred words, so I can muddle through ordering, but that setting still doesn't feel familiar.  Part of that relates to crowding; some food carts have only two or three small associated tables, and more popular places maybe a dozen or more, but they'd typically be full.  Anyway this is supposed to circle back to tea, not just about dining issues.

I've already said that Singapore's Chinatown is well-organized, maybe a bit too much so.  The dining is better--unless someone loves street food, maybe--but lots of the main areas turn into tourist souvenir shops.  That's great for buying a magnet with a merlion on it, or a knock-off watch that will probably stop in a month, but somehow not as authentic an experience.  Bangkok's Chinatown retains the wholesale vendor theme, it's what drives their local economy, but then if you visit after six PM that means most of it is closed.

NYC Chinatown (One World Trade Center in the background)

We just visited the NYC Chinatown in January so I can compare it to both.  It looks like NYC, to me, maybe no surprise there.  I'd be more careful about wandering quiet alleys in the evenings there but it seemed friendly.  Nowhere in the US, outside slums, is as rough-edged as lots of Bangkok looks so it seemed modern in comparison.  I like that about Bangkok, by the way, but it does take some getting used to.  Maybe especially the smells, which I don't really notice now (funny, now that I think of it).  At any rate the NYC Chinatown is a good place to get tea (maybe better for ordinary grade versions), or a bowl of noodles, or some Asian food dry goods, back to that wholesale theme.  I wasn't looking for counterfeit brand-name goods so I'm not sure about that.

a nice gate at the Yokohama Chinatown

We visited the Yokohama Chinatown, a good bit outside Tokyo, two years back--the time just flies--and it was nice, more like Sinagpore's, but maybe a little more genuine.  Japan is so clean and well organized that nowhere there is likely to look like an average part of Bangkok.  Drifting off topic, but you can find tea from different countries in Japan, more true of there than here; odd it works out that way.  But if you go to a Japanese Chinatown looking for Japanese tea that won't work; funny I hadn't thought that through before visiting there.


What about Chinese cities, not really Chinatowns, but definitely Chinese?  I've only been to Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen (and Hong Kong, sort of a different thing).  They're awesome, maybe a little more modern and "normal" compared to "the West" than one might expect, but the different levels of unusual options would not disappoint.

Chinese people are great, I think.  Some do spit a lot, related to that one stereotype.  And for whatever reason our friend and local guide, my son's former schoolmate's mother, did end up shouting a lot at vendors when she showed us around Shanghai, but to me that was just local color.  The people were warm and friendly, and very genuine, especially as urban environments go.  Again I felt safer there than in a US city.  And tea is EVERYWHERE!  Turning up the best of local shops takes some doing but finding tea is a matter of just looking around anywhere you happen to be.  I should get back on track here though, about that tea, and about finding it.

Ya Bao from a Bankok Chinatown shop

I had been walking around aimlessly for about two hours.  Not finding a street-stall "restaurant" that had an empty seat, or that looked agreeable, I went to a familiar restaurant.  I'd been in one shop that had tea, including generic pu'er, but that theme was going nowhere, and the lychee I walked by seemed overpriced.  It's funny how I'm conditioned to value $5-7 here as if that's a substantial amount of money; I tend to live like a local in some ways.  I was considering stopping for a beer but that's not what Chinatown is about, and I only passed a jazz bar that wasn't of interest (not a dive at all, or I wouldn't have hesitated).  I had just about had it, and just then I found this shop, Sen Xing Fa, at the far end of a side-street.

one owner-family member, with pu'er

It's not the 90+ year old old-school Chinatown shop that Jip-Eu is; it's an ordinary tea shop.  It seemed odd that they sell commercial pu'er, some pressed white teas (a little), Thai commercial teas, and lots of bulk-stored teas, a good mix (ok, that bulk storage isn't exactly ideal).  At a guess this isn't the kind of place you'd find an upper-level range of Chinese teas, good Wuyi Yancha or Dan Cong, but I didn't try theirs to check on that.  It's probably mostly fine, I'm just getting a bit spoiled.  And I was looking for teas that are new to me.

I drifted towards an unusual looking white tea cake, and then after tasting that bought 50 grams of the loose version instead (this tea), since I didn't love that version.  You have to go with your intuition.  I also bought a pressed white tea cake, in the candy-bar block style, and a pu'er I have no idea what to make of (aged sheng, or at least it was sold as that).  Since this runs long maybe it's better to get back about those later.

The Ya Bao looks like tea buds, but not like silver tips / silver needle, as if from a different plant.  Per talking to one Yunnan producer they are from a different plant, and another vendor mentioned the look is different because they're picked in the winter instead.  Both could be true; I'll see what turns up about that.

The tea doesn't taste like tea at all, like a tisane instead.  This version's flavor is bright and sweet, with a distinctive pine aspect, pretty close to how brewing rosemary works out.  I did brew a lot of rosemary, by the way.  I bought a large size container of both that and thyme on sale in a grocery store and then, realizing that I don't cook much with rosemary, spent months drinking it prepared as an infused tisane (or as herb tea, if you're loose with how you use that word).  It's nice.

This is probably shifted a little from rosemary towards actual pine (which I reviewed here, and went into potential medicinal or nutritional uses here), which to me is a good thing since I like brewed pine needles.  I could even go back and review that post to confirm which tree's needles it is most similar to, but based on memory this is like White Pine, on the light, sweet, fresh, and delicate side as those go.  It just doesn't taste anything like tea.

a bit like this atypical tisane

I think this tea would be good or bad depending on how much someone expected and wanted it to taste like tea.  From there flavor preference would come into play, but I think anyone ok with using rosemary as a tisane would love it, and anyone that would hate that wouldn't.  It seems a little one-dimensional, but it would probably vary some based on shifting around brewing parameters, so I'm likely not getting the best out of it just yet.  I guess you could blend with it too, mix it with something else, but I wouldn't.



As far as this being "white pu'er" I'm not seeing that, either of those descriptions fitting.  It's nothing like Moonlight White teas I've tried, in a similar general range. The processing method for making this from the picked buds is simple, per my understanding from discussing that with a couple people, more or less just letting the buds dry, so maybe closest to making white tea.

other tea

Ya Bao; what is it?

Per a Yunnan tea maker contact it's grown in Dehong Prefecture, but he didn't know the specific plant type, just referring to it as "wild," not made from a variation of the two main tea plant varieties.  Most sources seem to describe it as just being tea, presumably the Assamica variety.  Yunnan Sourcing has a different take, seconding what that other producer told me:


These little white buds come from wild-growing Camellia Assamica Dehongensis varietal.  It is a sub-varietal of camellia that grows in the tropical area of Dehong and Lincang in southwestern Yunnan.  The buds are picked in early February and then sun-dried.  The flavor is fresh and a little fruity somewhat similar to a good white tea but more complex flavors.  The brewed liquor is whitish and clear, and there is a hint of fresh pine needles in the aroma!

a black tea version from the same plant type (photo credit Yunnan Sourcing)

The version of Ya Bao I tried didn't seem at all complex.  I read some other reviews of versions--for some reason a wave of product descriptions and blog posts published in 2014; funny how that works out--and those were a lot more positive than my two experiences, counting trying a pressed version in that shop.  Another tea vendor in the US completely echoed my take on the experience of only one version; it tastes sweet and a little like pine, but doesn't have a lot going on.

He and another Chinese tea producer and vendor expressed one other interesting idea (or concern, depending on your take), that unlike picking a silver needle / silver tip bud later in the spring harvesting this from the tip of a branch will prevent that branch from producing any new leaves at all.  This is surely tied to why it looks like a set of leaves early in development, not just a bud.  If it's not really a Camellia Sinensis plant--odd that other citation used "Camellia Assamica" right; that's not how that naming convention works--then this might not relate to later "tea" harvest potential anyway, unless there is a different leaf-based version to be had from this plant type as well.  The product in that last picture (with link mentioned there) seems to clearly be exactly that.

I'm sure adjusting brewing could turn up a couple more trace flavor aspects, but based only on this experience of this version I could take or leave it.  It's interesting and pleasant, worth trying out, and I'm glad I have most of 50 grams left for that, but it probably won't become a favorite.