2009 Youle by Douji

The year 2009 was the only year I bought Douji cakes, only single mountain series, this was the year I first time went to Yunnan and I was lucky to meet there twice the CEO of Douji, a very modest and nice man Mr. Chen. I met him once at it's factory and the second time on Lao Banzhang village.

His cakes age very well and catching on high prices lately. I stored this tea the whole time since its production.

The dry leaves, the cake is very aromatic, a good sign, the warm leaves give a dry plum scent, the rinsed cup, the cup after rinsing brews gives also dry plums, I am making a rather weaken evening brew with lower quantity of leaves, about 3 grams per 80 ml of water.

First brew is sweetie, light, almost like a fresh puerh cake but without the green tea taste, which is I like. This Youle cakes were more bitter I would say in 2009.

Second is rather forgotten, I brew it for about 3-4 minutes, the water was not that hot, so the leaves are not that much exhausted this way. The tea soup is darker Ohh, this one is bitter, but the bitterness fades right away and leaves you with this sweetie-bitterish symphony in your mouth. I did not expect this one to kick in this hard way, but the bitterness is an aging potential for the upcoming years. The cup is after dry plumbs, a mix of dry sweet fruits.

Third is bitterish and tough again, I lack the fruityness, this cakes needs to be forgotten for another 4 years at least. So let's see what this will transform into. 

Fourth is a relieve, I had to stop my session here and do something else.

I returned back to this in the morning, just decide to brew it from the previous night and it is good, really good, no showing any deterioration from about 13 hours rest in the teapot. The bitterness is very pleasant now and it is wrapped in sweet tones, even a further brew is very mature and good. Tea leaves still enduring further flow of hot water, giving very good notes of sweetness.

I decided to have this tea again a day after. This happens rarely with me, but today I thought let it drink again. The first brew is a lot of sweet and delicious. I try to make the second just very short steep time. This is not a complex, multilayer, 3D tea but still very good. I managed not to overbrew the second brew, its enough to leave it just for seconds. The next hours I make time to time a new and a new steeps, this is very relaxing.

In overall this tea is not pure, orthodox gushu cake but still very good base for aging and making a superb cake in an age of about 20 years.