Yezi Tea

Thank you Yezi Tea for this sample!
A strong bodied, slightly earthy tea which is
reminiscent scent wise of old leather and tobacco. (To me)
this is my first Pu’erh tea, and something of an unusual flavor
remonding me of sour dough bread, but it is not at all toasty
and neither is it astringent.
This is not my favorite tea, and yet I am thankful for the introduction
to the world or Pu’erh via this tea.
This could become a staple for me.
I received this today and have steeped it multiple times.
This tea is very consistent steep after steep, and I like that.
Color of an amber-burgundy garnet.

Not tasting a whole lot. Added 1/2 packet of Stevia in the Raw (I just don’t like unsweetened tea). Flavor is very subtle. Paid attention to the brewing time (1 minute)…finally learning to do that!

Edited: The second steep, I liked a lot better. Added the other 1/2 of the sweetener, and upped the time to 2 minutes. I liked this tea better than I thought I would, and may actually order more (this was a sample for me).

sipdown! 3 more days to get another in…let’s do this! haha. My internet is acting up so not sure this will post..but i’m happy to have had this one again. Will have to consider it again for a reorder :)

FInal Count: 96

not much to continue to say about this one – an oldy but a goodie… malty and sweet.

Now that the house is back in relatively decent order – still a bunch of things left to do but man we got ride of a lot of things, we’re relaxing a little – getting in some computer times while we wait for butter chicken to marinate for tonight’s dinner. Upside of this long weekend? I managed to organise my tea cupboard and get down to 93! which puts me relatively close to staying under 100 even with my teas that are incoming. May will be a bit of an explosion but that’s ok since i think after that, i’ll be back on hiatus because of the wedding . poop on that. lol this is a solid cup of malty, cocoa-y like tea tonight. yay!

delicious tea from yesterday! I didn’t get much chance to log a lot of the teas i had because we met up with friends in the evening since we haven’t seen them in ages. This was as expected a tasty cup in the morning. I really do like yezi’s offerings :)

mmmm another cup of this. I am happy that i picked this one up from yezi. Not uch else to say on this one besides the fact that it falls in to the “like” bucket :)

morning tea from ages ago..thanks again for the taste dexter! Great start to the morning, which is well over. There will be some back logging later i’m sure! :)

mmmmmm dexter sent this my way. My other half did a sneaky thing and picked up my tea yesterday but didn’t give it to me until today – he left it on the table for me to find in the morning since he knew i was working from home today. Doctor appointment this morning so it’s easier to go there and come back home than go all the way downtown. This is another yummy tea from yezi! I am digging the sweetness that it in this cup along with a sort of malty finish. mostly though, it’s just good. like nearly every yezi tea i’ve tried. nom nom nom thanks dexter!

this is my “required” sipdown for today, though it hardly counts as a sipdown since it’s been in my cupboard for all of a day. Kittenna dropped off tea with me before her trip so i’m just bringing myself back to 160 tonight at the least so that i don’t feel pressured to sipdown things this week. If i do, great, otherwise who cares! only 10 left to go! haha

I think i have LB on the brain since this is reminding me of it – at least as a sweeter, less malty sort of version of it. I could also pick up on the peach flavors towards the middle of the sip in the later infusions. Overall a really nice tea from yezi!

I have been drinking down this beauty. Each day I freak out over how just perfect this tea is. Every one who has tried it has nothing bad to say.

I brought this with me on a trip to the Georgia mountains to visit a friend expecting her first. I knew her as a big tea drinker and thought she would have teaware for gongfu brewing. No luck there so I made due by converting a small sugar bowl into a gaiwan, worked perfectly.

Great bouquet of chocolate malt and dates. Tastes of malt, plum, fig and a decided oomph of my god this tea is fabulous. All subsequent steeps were equally as brilliant. I had this every morning for 4 days and it made my trip extra special being around a person I adore and a tea s well.

Tie Guan Yin Master Grade Oolong Tea from Yezi Tea is an Oolong from the famed tea growing region of the Nanhu Mountain Range. To brew this beauty I decided to go all out, sitting outside on a warm sunny day with my Yixing pot, my vintage Chinese tea bowl, and all my fancy Gong Fu tools. I don’t use my Yixing nearly as often as I would like to, something I plan on rectifying in the future. The aroma of this Tie Guan Yin is nothing short of heavenly, very floral and sweet. I mainly notice orchids and honeysuckles but for an extra treat I can pick out the aroma of scuppernongs. As an afterthought there is a tiny wisp of green, similar to spring time vegetation and an even more scant ghost of honey. This tea’s aroma very much so embodies ideal of Spring.

I was very fortunate to get multiple awesome steeps out of this tea, so I will start with the first soaking of the leaves. The aroma of the brewed leaves is slightly nutty with strong floral notes. There is also a tiny hint of a roasted aroma in the leaves. The liquid is mostly floral, primarily orchid, but there is also a slight hint of vegetal, like spinach. The taste is very smooth and mild! Intensely floral like honeysuckles or possibly lilacs. The tea tastes very clean and fresh, just like a tiny bit of spring time in my mouth. The aftertaste is one of orchids.

The second steep brings in more of a roasted aroma to leaves and a stronger floral aroma to the liquid. The taste of the tea brings in more of a green, vegetal tone. Somehow the tea seems cleaner, like it purifies the water. It reminds me of fresh spring water with a tiny taste of the moss growing near it. Having drank from a mountain spring (it was significantly colder than hot tea) the similarity is surprising.

The third steep brings in even more of a roasted chestnut aroma and it is very heady. The liquid has the aroma of orchids, but instead of being freshly opened these are orchids that have been sitting in the sun for hours and start to have that old flower sickly sweetness. The taste is intense! Best steep of the set, it manages to be intense but still mild (ah the magic of Oolongs) the flavor is mildly roasted chestnut at first and then it fills your mouth with intense orchid. The aftertaste is mineral-like, bringing in the mountain spring imagery from the previous steep.

The fourth and final steep, I notice that the leaves have lost most their aroma but what is left is sweet and evocative of honeysuckle. The taste is sweet and floral bringing out the honeysuckle notes that were in the aroma. There is also a slight mid taste of roasted chestnut and then lastly an aftertaste of mineral spring water. This tea was fascinating and very enjoyable, it was like I journeyed through early Spring with the first steep and traveled through to Midsummer. I recommend seeking this tea out if you want a very different experience with each steep.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/yezi-tea-tie-guan-yin-master-grade.html

Sipdown, 136. I’m having this one in close succession with Teavivre’s Jin Xuan (unflavored) as a comparsion, since I happen to have both on hand. I have had mixed success with jin xuans, although mostly I don’t find them super interesting. I do love Teavivre’s however, and I’m often interested to try new ones.

This one, unfortunately, is kind of boring. Vegetal and slightly floral, but pretty much lacking the creaminess that I expect from jin xuan. Well, the texture is fairly silky and smooth, but it’s not there in the flavor. This tastes more like a generic green Taiwanese oolong to me. A decent tea, but not my favorite.

Love the two black teas that I got from Yezi but I am less enthralled with this one. So it goes!

Sipdown, 122. I am officially back down to where I was before my swap with Sil, almost exactly one month ago. I am happy I got to try these teas from Yezi because they are clearly high quality.

This one isn’t quite blowing my mind like the last time I had it, but that is not to say that it isn’t delicious. It has a malty, grainy base that I love in a black tea, with some honeyed sweetness. A bit chocolatey, though not as chocolatey as some black teas I’ve had in the past. It’s super smooth with a great texture, not overly thin or lacking in body. Quite a nice tea overall.

When I first started drinking this one it was a bit underwhelming. I mean, it was tasty enough, but not overwhelmingly awesome. But then it became overwhelmingly awesome as it cooled. Sooooo naturally sweet, like honey and caramel. And despite Yezi’s description of this tea, not a hint of bitterness. A super smooth and delicious chocolatey tea. I am definitely pleased with my selection of this one! I honestly drank up the cup so quickly (and while working) that I didn’t really pay super close attention to it. But I will with my next cup and try to write a more detailed review. This one may have to go on my to-reorder list!

Sipdown, 125. Thanks again to Yezi Tea for this sample.

I brewed this one a bit longer this time to try to bring out the richness in it, but I think I would have been better off with a higher leaf-to-water ratio. It was still quite tasty, but perhaps not as sweet and nuanced as my previous cup. The added boldness also came with a slight rough-around-the-edges quality. I still really enjoyed my cup, though!

Finally getting around to trying one of the samples that I ordered from Yezi Tea! Of course whenever people start raving about a Chinese black tea on Steepster, I know I need to try it, especially when its a type that I’ve never tried before.

This one definitely smells tasty. It actually smells a bit like the Laoshan Black Genmaicha, like toasted rice/grains, chocolate, and a hint of molasses. When it was still pretty hot it was a tasty but not too exciting cup of black tea, but as it cools it definitely becomes sweeter and more chocolatey. This one definitely reminds me of LB with more toasted grains in the flavor. I think this is one of those Chinese black teas that does well with a fair lot of leaf when brewed western style, so I may reduce the amount of water for the remainder of my sample. Or maybe just steep it really long… I have a feeling it will just get rich and lovely. Definitely a very tasty tea!

Another BBBB tea from TastyBrew. This one is nice, a little chocolate to it. Next!

This is one of Tasty Brew’s offerings to the BBBBox!
I’ve been excited about trying Yezi teas, & would like to request some of their samples, but I haven’t yet.

This one is tasty, with a dark chocolate flavor that reminds me somewhat of Laoshan Black.

I received this as a free sample from Yezi Tea. Their samples come beautifully packaged in color coded foil packets which don’t seem to allow scent leakage. The whole unboxing experience was very neat and clean. The samples came in a tiny flat box, which was actually small enough to fit into my little apartment mailbox, and there were all sorts of cute thank you notes and notes about “red tea” as a name for black tea and smiley faces and stuff. They seem very promising for a starting tea company, and I hope to place another order with them soon.

The tea: On their website, they call this “I can’t believe it’s not scotch”, but as with the butter substitute, I certainly can believe it. I actually get some sweet, fruity notes from this tea. It has the lightest kiss of smokiness and an undercurrent I can’t place… It’s like a combination of pollen and nuts. The first steeping was a beautiful mahogany, which darkened to a deep raw umber with subsequent steepings. From the scent and the color, I was expecting a heavy handed tea that smacked you upside the head with flavor and smoke and depth, but the zheng shan xiao zhong was actually very delicate and light. All things considered, it was a pretty positive tea drinking experience.

We’re watching World War Z.
When I saw the previews, I said I wasn’t going to watch it.
Tony put it on his Netflix list, & now we’re watching it.
It’s very intense.
I need good tea to watch a movie like this.
Thank you TastyBrew.