Yezi Tea

My first tea of the day, which is from the BBBBox, thanks to Tasty Brew! The main feature of this tea is a gutsy grapenuts kind of taste. I always liked grapenuts. :)

This tea was quite nice – great notes of cocoa, caramel and smoke as promised. The smoke seemed a cross between grilly food and toast, without being over the top. Actually, quite a light black, yet rich in flavor.

I got 4 good steepings, and I did a long one as my fifth. That fifth one had some really neat woody notes that was very nice.

This was only a sample, but I could see myself getting more of this tea to play with some more.

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/jin-pin-black-tea-yezi-tea-oolong-owl-tea-review/

Very excited with this post as I used my new DSLR camera. Though uggg.. I really need like a prime or macro lens as the tea was a little fussy to photo.

An Ode to Tea challenge – Q

I was hesitant to finish this!  I loved keeping the last steep session around for the name alone.  This might be one of my favorite tea names ever.  Qing Pin!  Such a play on words.  But I only had so many teas for ‘Q’ so it was time to drink this up.  I wasn’t expecting much with the flavor due to the age…. but it’s still delicious!  Oh how I love Chinese black teas.   Before, I didn’t really say anything substantial other than it reminded me of Laoshan black, which isn’t my favorite.  I wouldn’t say this tastes like Laoshan black now.  Black teas don’t really taste like this anymore, so I’m surprised it is so gooood.  Three solid strong steeps.  Depth without bite or astringency. I’m GLAD it was hoarded! Raising the rating from an 82.  Also having an OLD Bao Zhong today and I feel like oolong also doesn’t taste like this anymore… maybe I’m on to something.
2021 sipdowns: 50

Some more samples! Thank you! I have so many teas to try just with samples from companies. I’ll be able to get to the samples now since the teaboxes are out of my hands! I love the name of this one. (And I’m also wondering what rooibos teas are called when black teas are red.) I was worried that the samples I picked out from Yezi would be like Laoshan black. I was trying to avoid the teas I thought would be like Laoshan Black, though I still wanted to try their black teas. Let’s call that the tea for me that everyone else seems to love and I don’t really get. I just feel there are stronger teas that are more like chocolate since Laoshan black is so light it can’t possibly taste like chocolate. I’m writing so much about Laoshan black, because I couldn’t tell these apart in a blind taste test. It’s very light, not like my favorite deep dark chocolate teas. I can see where many tea drinkers would prefer a lighter black tea to stronger flavors. Two teaspoons at a three minute steep right after boiling, yep, I can’t tell the two apart. Maybe my palate isn’t refined enough, but Laoshan black is certainly very unique enough that it doesn’t really taste like many other black teas… really any other tea I’ve tried before. Well, I failed trying to avoid the Laoshan of Yezi, but I hope the other two samples will probably be more to my liking… and I really liked the name of this one anyway!

Took a short break from the oolongs and thought I might as well try out the last Yezi Tea sample I have.

First off, I want to say that the dry leaf aroma is just enchanting. Like toasted chocolate. Kind of reminds me of Laoshan Black, the last time I had it (which was a while ago).

While the description says smoky, I don’t detect any of that in here. Just sweet, chocolatey, toasted goodness. The sweetness is sort of fruity, but I can’t quite place what fruit it is. It leaves a ‘clean’, yet ‘empty’ feeling in my mouth, if that makes any sense. No particularly strong aftertaste or complex finish, no dryness or bitterness, either. It just feels… blank. Like a sentence missing the period at the end. Hm. I’ll keep steeping this (gongfu style) for a little while and see what comes of it.

Another sample from Yezi Tea— thanks!

Thought I’d follow up the last tea (an oolong) with another oolong, so I can hopefully more easily detect the differences.

Quick notes:
Mellow, sweet, creamy. Very lightly floral, with a soft vegetal note.

Will update as I continue steeping.

Thanks to Yezi Tea for the sample!

While I really enjoy oolongs, I admittedly don’t have very much experience with them, especially the greener ones. I’ve basically only had a few milk oolongs, a couple tieguanyins, and several roasted oolongs mostly from the Wuyi region. Yezi Tea is currently doing a promotion where you can get three free samples of their teas and only pay a few dollars in shipping. I got two oolongs and a black tea, in the hopes of being able to learn to differentiate the oolongs. They also add an additional sample to orders (mine was another oolong which I believe I’ve already reviewed in brief).

Anyway, on to the tea. I’ve steeped this 5g sample four times so far and have enjoyed each steep. I wasn’t able to take notes for each specific steep, unfortunately, so I’ll just write my overall impression.

Very floral (orchid, specifically), but not overpoweringly so. Sweet, honeylike taste. Lightly grassy aftertaste. No astringency or bitterness. Smooth. Makes me think of spring meadows with wildflowers everywhere (minus the allergies!). It does taste different from the last oolong I had (Dong Ding Winter Peak), but I can’t quite place it. I believe the texture is slightly different but I’m not sure. Still working on figuring out how to taste oolongs!

I just love Wu Yi teas. When I was growing up my mom would take me to the mall and when you first entered the big stores the perfume counter was front and center. I hated it, still do, the overbearing scents that got caught up my schnozzola making me sneeze. But, leave it to the tea plant to seduce me into the fragrances of flowery perfumes that do not make me sneeze or regret inhaling their intoxicant.

Raspberry was the first aroma of the dry leaf in my cup. 5g sample (my last) in a 150ml gaiwan, brewed to Yezi’s guidelines. The wet leaf aromas were so inviting I scalded my tongue a bit sipping the beautifully light brown liquor. The raspberry is still present in the flavor as well as the honeysuckle, gardenia perfumes. But there was something else, I recollect smelling this in Amsterdam at a “coffee” house. All great memories. The flavors are a match to the aromas except for the raspberry, it now took on a medjool taste. In subsequent steepings a hint of tobacco made its presence and the party was in full swing. I managed eight good steeps with four being the best. Next for me are the Yezi red teas, oh boy I can’t wait.

Very nice Yezi. Dry leaf notes of dried cherry and wisps of flowery bouquets. I brewed according to guidelines a 5g sample in 150ml gaiwan. The wet leaf aromas where like opening my brain to Proust. Dried cherry aromas are now forefront with yellow cake and sequoia. The flavor is indeed delicate but certainly not understated. These farmers should be kings for growing such a nice tea. Its even keel, and the perfumes do not over power you nose or palate. I had 6 steeps with number three exhibiting all the beauty this tea has. Thanks for the samples Yezi Teas.

After having the Dong Ding I figured why not sample another. Followed the brewing guide lines for 5gm sample in 130 gaiwan. This tea was almost the same profile as the Dong Ding except the addition of some floral, vegetal notes. Further steeping had more mouth feel with a slight buttery sensation. I liked it a little better than Dong Ding, finding my taste buds need more oomph.

Free sample of 5gm, I used a 130 gaiwan and water temperature a little lower than recommended and also steeped initially for shorter times. Dry leaf aroma is that typical green oolong scent but its somewhat muted in this leaf. The aroma of the wet leaf is more pronounced and again typical. The first steep brought a perfect picture of me eating puffed rice as a kid. I added 5 seconds to each steep and the third was the best of the bunch. Now the puffed rice had the sugar on it and the was more body to this light tea. The also was a hint of pine nut that I remembered from a dragonwell I tasted previously. An average tea good for those who like an unassertive tea.

Sipdown! This was delicious. A robust, malty, rich black. Definitely a tea I’d like to come across again!

Sipdown! 991. (Added my en-route Butikis and Verdant, hence the upswing. I am hovering dangerously near 1000….)

Oddly enough, it looks like Raritea must have given me the second half of her packet of this or something, since I have a prior tasting note on it yet the packet has her name on it. So presumably, I have another half-packet lurking somewhere else (unless I drank it during the months I was away from Steepster, in which case I’d expect to at least find the empty packet at some point…) (Also while looking on my spreadsheet for this tea, I discovered that I didn’t add my Yezi teas to the spreadsheet, which again probably means my count is lower than it should be. Argh.)

Anyways, back to the tea. It’s really quite lovely – quite richly chocolatey with a bit of hay, and fairly malty as well. Great flavour and strength, reminding me quite a bit of Laoshan Black. Ultra smooth as well. If by chance I do find that other half packet, I should really try a side-by-side comparison of the two. It’s worth noting as well that I am not picking up smoke here. It’s possible that it’s there, and because I like it, it’s just not glaringly obvious to me (this happens frequently with me and garlic), but I’d think it’s certainly at a level for smoky tea newbs to handle.

Thanks again to Yezi Tea for these great samples, and know that had I the cupboard space and $$, I’d be all over their blacks.

So far, I am thoroughly impressed with Yezi Teas. Great customer service, our samples arrived in record time (seriously… I never would have dreamed that I’d be able to deliver them to Sil this weekend!), the samples are a perfect 2-cup size (5g), and all in airtight packets (oh how I love when samples don’t get contaminated!), and not only that, but the first tea I tried from them (this one), is great! Reminiscent of Laoshan Black with chocolatey/roasty notes, but a bit less full-bodied. As well, I was catching a different sort of flavour that I would attribute to “scotch” (though I’ve never tried it). A very good, very interesting tea. Not quite a flavour profile I’ve previously tried, and although I was worried it would be too potent for me, it’s definitely not. If black tea isn’t really your thing, and you like Laoshan Black but only because it tastes like chocolate, this probably isn’t a tea for you because those notes aren’t overly dominant, but for black tea lovers, I think this is a big win.

I would like to thank Yezi Tea for this generous free sample offer, and would suggest that lovers of straight teas give them a shot!

Backlog & Sipdown (96)! I had this the other evening, which in retrospect was not such a good idea because I stayed up a few more hours than I had intended, oops! I’m not such a huge fan of jasmine teas in general because they tend to be too perfume-y to me. This one definitely smelled very perfume-y while it was steeping. However, when I actually tasted the tea, the jasmine flavor was not as perfume-y as I had expected it to be. Still a little much for me, but nice enough that I could finish the cup and even resteep it once. Plus, there was no astringency, which is also something else that puts me off of a lot of other jasmine teas. I won’t be repurchasing only because I don’t really like jasmine, but it provided some very lovely cups of tea while I had it!

While I do not like getting up early, it does give me the opportunity to drink more (caffeinated) tea. Hooray for silver linings! Anyway, I’m starting off the day with this sample from Yezi Tea. When I opened the packet, I could immediately smell the jasmine. The tea was a nice cup of jasmine green tea. Very fragrant with a clean taste. I have to say, though, it left the back of my throat pretty dry, which was a bit hard to get over. I don’t believe I will be ordering more of this, but if you really love jasmine teas, then this is worth checking out.

Thanks Yezi Tea for the samples! Out of the 3 samples of black tea that I requested, this is the winner for me. It’s got a slightly smoky taste but has got a sweet, yummy taste that I can’t quite place. I could drink more of this one so whenever I get to place an order, I must remember to get this one. Funny because I almost didn’t get this one because I thought I should try one of their puerh teas since otherwise you’d have to buy a whole lot of it but thought nah, the description for this lured me in more.

Steepster ate my note… Aw. Anyway, I had this sample yesterday and man I can taste the smoke. The smoky taste lingers and makes me think about those long gone days where I smoked hours during finals and hung around friends who smoked a lot too (no smoking for me now). Those are dangerous, tempting thoughts… so I don’t think I should drink this often lol. Other than that I don’t get much else and I’d really liked the description of chestnuts and cinnamon – it’s not a bad tasting tea or bitter but it’s not one for me.

mmmm morning tea is tasty tea! this continues to be a generally good cup of tea. Nothing extraordinary, but nothing bad either.

Still enjoying this one from Yezi. They really do have some great offerings in terms of both puerh and black (red) tea. There’s a slight sweetness to this while also being malty with a medium strength to it.

Another tea today that is giving me grief. Maybe i need to stick with something else until i figure things out. Normally im a fan of this one but lately it’s been “off” just not quite right. There’s a bitterness today so maybe i overleafed a little or something. I’ll have to have it a few more times before i land on thins with this batch. Maybe just the harvest is off as i suspect this is a 2014 batch.

another one from today that was malty and delicious and super great with todays blueberry muffin this morning haha I need to have more of my yezi teas :)