2005 Xiaguan Xiaofa, 2010 Dayi Golden Needle, 2020 YS, etc. Five Quick Ripe Reviews [IBS 513]

Hey everyone, James here from TDB bringing you another Inbetweener. So today I am going to be going through five different ripes. I'm not going to be drinking them as you can see. Let me know also how the audio quality of this turns out. I am doing a slightly different audio recording here, so let me know what you think. If you prefer kind of the old audio style or this one works fine. So today going to be going through five that I had with my wife. So one thing because I am moving relatively soon is I basically have been giving away quite a bit of tea. So I broke up a bunch of ripe cakes, split off enough just for kind of a week of morning brews with my wife for each of them and then I give away the rest. So each of these I've had basically for one week total and then was able to kind of compare them and think about my thoughts of what I prefer the most. Some of them I was able to do one kind of gongfu session with as well, but some of them I wasn't able to. Okay, so just quickly going to be going through them. People seem to like this format. So basically just going to be ranking these. So first up I have one that I didn't expect to necessarily put on here, but it's thanks to Denny that he gave me a bunch of this. It is the 2005 Xiaoguanchaofa which he picked up from Quiche. It's really nice. It has a lot of earthiness and things like that. And I think I'm finally slowly coming around to the xiaofa. I've always been a little bit more of a dai ripe guy, Menghai county in particular too, over a xiaoguan. But I think these older ones do have something to them that is pretty appealing. So I do like this one quite a bit. It's probably a little bit more expensive than the other ripe spring here. So I think it does sit a little bit quality wise above the other ones on the list. Next up I have the 2020 Yunnan Sourcing Happy Elephants Ripe. One thing with Yunnan Sourcing, I highly recommend people check out their ripes from the last year or two. Due to how they raise prices, the prices are just simply going to be higher of stuff that's even like three or four years ago, because they're raising it by 15-20 percent each year. And so that is going to make a really massive difference over time. I think if you buy the current year of or the last year, the value of these teas is pretty good. And I think these are better material quality on average than like a Menghai tea factory one. This is a Menghai area blend. It tends to be what I go for the most as far as these ones go. It's a lot of nice brightness to this too. I thought it stood out and I thought it was definitely, I enjoyed it more than kind of your average one. Next up I have Chenchenghao, the snake blend I think that might be 2025 too. Pretty standard stuff. I might have the least to say about this one too, because it is relatively standard. So Chenchenghao I would presume is also working with Menghai area material, just because that's where they press a lot of their tea from too. Which is one reason I did want to try out their ripe. And I think, I don't know if this stands out as being way better than like Menghai, like Dai Yi ripe. But I think it's probably a little bit above average as far as those teas go. So yeah, I think a, you know, mild thumbs up for that. Next up I have the, I don't remember what year it was. It's one of the buys I did over a decade ago. So it's probably something like 2011 Yunnan sourcing golden needle white lotus. Very tippy one. It's a Dai Yi blend. Never been, well, I started out being a big fan and then I kind of soured on it. It's just not quite my thing. Yeah, it starts out really rich and creamy. It's okay. It's just not my favorite, even though the material quality is probably, you know, a little bit better than like the 7572. For me, it just doesn't quite work in the same ways. Last up I have the Yunnan sourcing year over the go. Never quite connected with this one. It's nice and creamy. I think I wish that it had a little bit more sweetness. It's not a bad ripe by any means. In fact, the quality of something like this versus the happy elephants is probably quite close. So comparing two and five, but this one is from 2015. So I bought a cake way back when and it's fine. It's a decent tea, but it does not quite do everything that I personally like in something like the happy elephants. I forget where that is blended from. I should check if it's Menghai area or not because that might be the reason just because I do tend to go for those sorts of teas. So yeah, I would say the Xiao Fa does sit a little bit above the rest here. I really do like that kind of aged earthy taste. The earthiness of that one is much more amped up versus kind of the newer ripes that we're talking about here. Okay. So those are the five most recent ripes because I'm going through these relatively fast due to my moving. I will probably do another one of these relatively shortly. So thank you all for tuning in. Let me know how you liked it. I'll see you all next time.