Yezi Tea

I was surprised by this one. Yezi describes it as “bitter yet sweet” but I happily get absolutely zero bitterness in this tea. It is beautifully sweet and very strongly reminds me of Bailin Gong Fu. It’s a nice hearty tea with a lovely body even though I under-leafed it. The first 15s steep was a little light, but the second is just lovely. Smooth with notes of sweet cream and a touch of malt.

Rinse, 15s, 30s…

Gong Fu
Quick rinse – 45"-55"
Creamy vanilla wafer scent and flavor to the dry leaves and liquor; thick mouthfeel. No bitter or astringency and naturally sweet. Very good quality Oolong!

I am having the same issues with Yezi samples as I had with Butiki samples ages ago….I’m making weak tea. waaaaaaaaaah!! This time the victim was Jin Jun Mei. I didn’t even post about my attempt with Ming Hong, because I was so disappointed with the outcome. But I’ve decided to forge ahead with this review because I even though weak, I can still pick up on some fascinating business happening in this cup of tea.
Yes, it looks like a Yunnan…a dian hong perhaps… but this tea has a few notes that certainly separate it from that crowd. There is a smoothness to this tea that holds a touch of astringency, which is different from most of the Yunnans it resembles. Bottom notes of chocolate and sweet potato skin form a solid base for the woodsy grainy smoothness that sits in the middle of this tea’s flavor profile. Top notes are a touch of orchid and perhaps a touch of grape skin, which is where I’m getting the touch of astringency from. All these notes are very subtle in my cup (due to a bad steep) but they are there, creating a layered intricate tea with much to offer the person holding the cup. Even if they do mess it up….

From another person’s cake
Their storage method – in cardboard box, allows to air out outside every once and a while

I hope that my cake someday tastes like this. It was so soft and creamy. It really called to mind the whole tasteless taste idea that some describe good pu-erh as having.

This was good I liked it, Not my favorite Yezi black tea, but nice enough for an everyday at work black.

This is a very interesting tea. The first cup was smooth and quite light. It reminded me a bit of Joseph Wesley’s Bai Lin Congfu, only softer. I’m now on my second cup and it seems to have changed its tune a little bit.

The sip starts out rather savory and brisk. It seems to become a little bit sweeter and I detect some mild floral notes in the finish. There is something that lingers in the background that adds strength and astringency. It doesn’t take over, but is quite noticeable. I don’t seem to catch any smokiness which is definitely good news for me. I wish that it could be a little bit more sweet as I think it would make the tea more interesting, but it is still enjoyable.

Overall, I think that I liked the first cup a bit more, but this is a nice tea for the morning or for the afternoon when you need a little boost!

Time to bust out my Yezi pu’erh samples! I’m working from home today, so I figured I could try the 3 pu’erhs they included as samples in my prior orders.

Method: The Yezi site says to use 30 sec to start, then increase by 10-15. Seemed too long, so I did – 5 g, 3 oz, rinse then 15-20-25 seconds, 205 degrees, ru kiln gaiwan. Long pu’erh steeps make me nervous!

Aroma: I’m guessing this is a ripe pu. Please correct me if I am wrong. It smells cavey and earthy. I am learning to appreciate these aromas more, but I admit that they still make me a little uncomfortable.

Flavor: I blended the first 3 steeps into one mug. The flavor is also earthy, but I do catch pleasant little hints of chocolate. I’ve had some pu’erhs with a sharp taste, but this one is very smooth. I like it, but I want to like it even more than I do. It feels very thick and substantial and the aftertaste is actually more pleasant to me than the tea itself.

Here’s pics in my brand new gaiwan:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/124304184@N02/14774513901/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/124304184@N02/14591177117

I am so worn out! I spent the day redoing my room to make room for my newest treasure. Ben’s parents wanted to get rid of an antique writing desk that had been in their family for at least three generations, possibly four. In a near spastic fit I claimed that thing in a heartbeat, I have a real weakness for antiques and desks, so it was the double treasure. Now I just need to get another tea kettle so I can have tea in the bedroom and in the tea lair!

Today’s tea is from Yezi Tea, Yi Fu Chun, a tippy golden tea from the Nanhu Mountains in Fujian, China. Apparently these mountains are covered in a dense fog 200 days a year, meaning the tea that grows there is more or less kissed by clouds, it seems to make it a bit whimsical to me. Add the fog to my intense love of fuzzy golden teas (they are just so cute!) and that makes me a happy tea sipper, or at the very least an interested one. Oh my that is a pleasant and heavy aroma, it seems the leaves collected the dense and heavy feeling of fog rather than the wispy one. There are notes of oak wood, molasses, cocoa, and a touch of smoke. It is intense, not sweet, but more like a rich molasses cookie and cocoa powder.

After the golden leaves have been steeped (and have left their delicate fuzzies behind) the aroma is still strong in the real of molasses and chocolate, though this time it has a sweetness the dry leaves lacked, also a tiny hint of loam. The liquid is even sweeter, retaining the chocolate notes but adding in some delicious stewed plums and cherries.

I decided to do something a little different with this tea, I brewed it Western Style! The first steep is incredibly sweet, like a bit of peaches and honey mixed with my tea! There are also notes of molasses and oak wood with a slight hint of smoke at the finish. The tea manages to be very rich while maintaining an air of lightness about it.

For the second steep the aroma is sweet, with notes of stewed fruit and roasted peanuts, there is a delicate hint of smoke at the finish. The taste is much richer with notes of oak wood and roasted peanuts, this fades to molasses, and lastly a delicate hint of smoke and peaches. Kind of like the way peaches cooked on a grill tastes, this lingers as an aftertaste. This tea is delicious and very smooth, I like it!

For blog and photos (including my cat pretending to be a secretary) : http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/07/yezi-tea-yi-fu-chun-black-tea-tea-review.html

Life has been challenging for me the last six weeks or so, and now just when I thought I was getting back into some sort of normal routine, it reaches out and kicks you back to the ground.
This is a really nice black tea. It’s reacting well to my weird steep parameters at work. It’s exactly what I need this morning. I’ve overleafed it a bit, and that has caused a little bit of bitterness – but in a good way. Makes it a bit stronger, a bit more breakfast blend ish.
I’m just going to take some comfort from some good tea and hope this day passes quickly.

Origin: Wen Shan District, Taiwain
Dry Leaf: Scent is nutty, buttery and leaves are deep forest/spinach green color. They are thick, twisted threads.
Method: 4 oz porcelain gaiwan 200F 45" then 55" steep
Wet Leaf: Floral, buttery, tangerine scent. Medium to large size leaves that had been twisted. All the leaves have carefully had the large part of the stem removed. Very precise and uniform leaves.
Liquor: Light, clear, golden pineapple color. Smells fruity and sweet. Subtly floral.
Flavor: (45") Creamy mouthfeel, subtly floral, buttery. Absolutely no astringency or bitterness. Very high quality Oolong.
(55") Still buttery and very good. Even after the leaves have opened up fully there is no astringency or bitterness. Very smooth Oolong.

Pouchong=
baozhong (Bao1 Zhong3) = very lightly oxidized tea (formerly?) wrapped in paper during drying, literally the Wrapped Kind (包种 or 包種) – in Taiwan this word is often applied to any oolong

I think I’ve been drinking this tea for pretty much the past three days. Thank you to Albertocanfly for sending this to be through the Tealephone.

My littlest teapot definitely isn’t about the size of a gaiwan. (I really need to invest in one… maybe.) It holds maybe a full 8oz, or thereabouts. I think I’ve gotten through maybe 7 steepings, but while there is a little bit of flavor left if I leave it to steep a long time, it’s mostly just colored water at this point. Steeps are 212*F, starting at 1min and adding 15 secs for each additional steep…. with a little bit of lag time for me walking back to the pot and pouring it out. =)

So, the dry leaf smelt fruit, and it was still really compact, not too many loose leaves.
The fishy puerh smell didn’t really fade until maybe the third or fourth steep, but the liquor was smooth and nice throughout. The liquor was a very saturated red at first, and it gradually got lighter in saturation, but it’s still on the red-golden color. It did really come out to be as red-gold, I think the name golden peacock is very apt.

I’m glad this came in the Tealephone, I probably never would have tried it otherwise. Thanks again Albertocanfly!

This was one of the samples I apparently ordered in my sleep one night. I did a good job! I didn’t really know much other than “black tea” but if I had to guess, given my limited experience, I would have guessed a Yunnan just from looking at the leaf. I love Yunnans so that’s good! I can’t say that it’s so very different from others that I have had, but it was a very enjoyable cup and obviously a high quality tea.

Tea-lephone

What a fun TTB! :D The idea behind it is so cute it makes me feel like I’m back in elementary school transforming “my dog is dark brown” to “it’s Dill’s deck now.” tehehe.

This tea is wonderful. Thank you Kiwidelight for choosing this tea. I never would have picked this out for myself but it is really delightful. It is a delicate black tea with luscious honey notes. Astringency does not exist in this tea’s vocabulary but smooth caramel does. And oh that malt…mmm.. making my mouth water… thank goodness it has given me four steeps..tehehe^.^

Yi Fu Chun is described on Yezi’s website as a smoky black tea…I have an aversion to smokiness in tea, as I’ve been chased out of my home twice by wildfire. I don’t exactly associate smokiness with relaxing around a campfire, more like frantically trying to find pets and belongings to evacuate. SO, I was hesitant to approach this sample.

In the packet, the dry leaf smelled sweet and slightly cocoa-y…hmmm….no smoke! Okay then, steep time!

I am wonderfully surprised by this tea. Yi Fu Chun has similar notes to Fujian blacks that I have had before, but the notes are much more restrained. The bottom note is certainly a deep cocoa flavor that sits on the tongue a bit longer than the sip lasts in your mouth. Then comes mid notes of slight malt/grain/cannabis. The top note is a touch of floral, though I can’t quite place it through my allergies today. It is a similar profile to LB by Verdant and Bailin Gongfu by TeaVivre, but dialed in for a warm summer day. I am appreciating the delicateness of these sometimes cloying notes in the humid (yes, today it is humid. Global weather patterns are weirder and weirder these days) summer day in the Southern California arid heat.

MzPriss commented yesterday that she liked this better than the Jin Jun Mei. BETTER than Jin Jun Mei? Ok – that’s all I needed to hear for this to become my “inspired by my dashboard” tea of the day.
OMG she’s RIGHT. This is amazing, fantastic, everything I LOVE about Fujian Black tea.
I was at work and I drank about 7 mugs of it through out the day. I don’t measure or time at work – some had long steeps, some had short steeps, some more leaf, some less. Every steep was different, and yet every steep was wonderful in it’s own way. Less steep time, lighter, brighter more fruity. Longer steep times, deep, dark, bitter chocolate. It reacted exactly as it should have. You can pretty much do anything to this tea and it will handle it. If you don’t like it, play with the steep parameters, it changes greatly with steep time. This is very close to being my perfect black tea. Thank you MzPriss for the inspiration.

Some people sleepwalk, apparently I sleep tea order. I totally have an email confirmation for this from four days ago, but only vaguely remember ordering it. But it showed up today.

It was a quiet day at work (calm before the storm) and I shut down early and decided to Gong Fu this. Five infusions later, I love it. I can’t say it’s so very different from the Eastern Beauty from Green Terrace, but that could just be my untrained taste buds. It was all yummy and honey fruity awesomeness though. I would definitely order it again.

I’ve been drinking this at work for the last couple of days….. It’s a strange one.
I normally like Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong – but this isn’t what I was expecting. I didn’t get any smoke at all (I wasn’t expecting full out Lapsang, but was expecting a little). There is something boozy in here – it says scotch, but that’s not it. I’m getting more wine, grape, alcohol and it’s not working for me.
It’s too bad, I like Yezi, but this one just isn’t for me. :((