Tea type
Black Tea
Ingredients
Black Tea Leaves
Flavors
Chocolate, Malt, Plum, Roasted Nuts, Toasted, Wood, Bread, Molasses, Pastries, Honey, Smooth, Sweet, Cocoa, Dried Fruit, Fennel Seed, Grain, Roasted, Dill, Rose, Floral, Nuts, Rye
Sold in
Loose Leaf
Caffeine
High
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by tonkatsu
Average preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 2 min, 0 sec 5 g 7 oz / 217 ml

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From Our Community

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37 Tasting Notes View all

  • “I took my sons Drew & Leif out to breakfast, as a prelude to a day of prepping the front porch for paint. I made a large go cup of this tea to bring along, because the tea they offer at the...” Read full tasting note
  • “terri…i really hope this is the one you sent to us for the bbb Box the other day. i usually count on tastybrew’s notes to let me know i’ve found the right one but there’s none to be found under...” Read full tasting note
    83
  • “This is another good one from YS courtesy of Terri Harplady and the BBB. This tastes of roasted nuts and is incredibly smooth. I’m using my gaiwan and accidentally forgot it during the 20 second...” Read full tasting note
  • “…If you had served me this tea and told me that it was Earl Grey - then you would have FOOLED me! ’Cause it reminds me of the Earl … Kinda. I would had looked at the reddish liquid, bittersweet...” Read full tasting note
    81

From Yunnan Sourcing

“Yi Mei Ren” (彝美人) means literally Yi (Minority) Beauty. This tea is named “Yi Mei Ren” as its made from Wu Liang Mountain material, an area inhabited primarily by Yi Minority people and bears similarity to both and oolong and a black tea in its fragrance and taste. Yunnan large-leaf varietal material is used and the tea is wilted and fermented like a black tea, but for a longer period of time with several intervals of vigorously shaking the leaves. This promotes more thorough wilting/fermentation and leads to it’s darker color.
The brewed tea is highly aromatic with a chocolaty sweet taste with no noticeable astringency. The tea liquor is super clear and deep gold with tinges of red if brewed longer. Due to the higher level oxidization this tea can be stored for several years with subtle changes in aroma and flavor.

About Yunnan Sourcing View company

Company description not available.

37 Tasting Notes

100
1 tasting notes

One of my favorite black teas. It is slightly similar to a high quality non-smoky Zhengshan xiaozhong (正山小种) or Sapsang Souchong as it is known in the local language. There are some other yunnanese teas that does so too, the difference with this one is the clear notes of chocolate and coffee. But it does have that dried fruit flavor as well. If you take two-three leaves of smoky lapsang souchong and mix with this, you will achieve a wonderful blend that is very fruity (as in dried longan, dried figs, rich and thick flavour.

Preparation
Boiling 1 min, 30 sec

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97
4 tasting notes

I’m gonna go ahead and say it… Raisinetes! Or maybe more like chocolate covered apricots or golden raisins… Good dry Sherry… Silky texture, slightly viscous mouthfeel, long sweet finish. This gets my current “favorite black tea” award! Brewed 2g in a small gaiwan. Quick 4 second rinse then combined the next 5 infusions in a mug. Inf. times: 25s,35s,50s,70s,100s

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C

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85
33 tasting notes

It’s a bit tricky to pin down the aromas and flavors that this tea offers, but the wet leaves smell of dark chocolate and unripe plums while the flavor is a complex array of dark chocolate, plums, wood and toasted nuts.
The effect is overall delicious and fruity, with a light brisk mouthfeel. Highly recommended!

Flavors: Chocolate, Malt, Plum, Roasted Nuts, Toasted, Wood

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987 tasting notes

Backlog from this morning.

I’ve had this tea a few times, and I’m still trying to sort out how I feel about it. It’s definitely not a bad tea, but it’s maltier and breadier than I like. It reminds me of whole wheat bread, of bread crust.

It’s rich, but I tend to like my black teas a little sweeter/spicier. However, I will keep this because sometimes you just need a strong kick in the pants.

Sil

We need to get a swap list going on for tea festival…

Christina / BooksandTea

Yeah. In the existing forum thread, I think, so it’s all in one spot. Did you want some of this?

Nicole

Mm. This sounds like I’d like it. I’ll have to look for it in my next YS order.

Sil

Christina – yeah that would be awesome. I’m hoping my bags arrive before the festival so that i don’t have to use dollar store bags.

Evol Ving Ness

A strong kick in the pants. I like it. I am having that kind of tea day too.

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100
193 tasting notes

I thought I enjoyed the last harvest I tried, but this Spring 2015 is amazing! Honestly one of the best teas I’ve ever tried. It tastes so strongly of pastries it almost tastes flavored. Holds up well even in a travel mug. I just picked up another 100g but am considering updating my order to get 250 instead. I don’t think it can get much better than this

Flavors: Bread, Malt, Molasses, Pastries

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 4 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 10 OZ / 295 ML
boychik

i love this tea too. i think i prefer autumn version. its richer

Haveteawilltravel

The emphasis you put on this… I may just need to get some…

cookies

That’s good to know boychik, maybe I’ll keep the 100g and get some of the Autumn version when it comes out.

Haveteawilltravel – I highly recommend it! Let me know if you want a sample, clearly I have enough to share :)

TeaExplorer

boychik — I’ve only tried the Spring harvests (2013 & 2014). Will have to get some of the Autumn to compare.

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80
737 tasting notes

I’ve wanted to try this for a while! I really wanted to like it, but part of my assumed I wouldn’t since I have such bad luck with teas sometimes. xD
So this one was a pleasant surprise for me! :D
The main flavor is bready. It’s very bready-Which I absolutely love! There are notes of honey too, but isn’t overly powerful. Really really enjoyed this one!
Not sure I’d buy it since I have a super bready tea from Tao Tea Leaf that I’m blanking on the name of at the moment…But it’s amazing!
But Terri sent me a really generous sample so I will have a few more cups to decide if I should ever pick this up!
Thank you so much for the sample, Terri!! Happy I liked this one! :D

Flavors: Bread, Honey, Smooth, Sweet

donkeyteaarrrraugh

pm me the name of the bready tea…… i LOVE them!

Ost

Sure I will! I’m sure you’ve already had it before though, but in case, I’ll tell you anyway! just gotta find it on my shelf :P

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493 tasting notes

Gongfu method
5g 100ml gaiwan 205F
Rinse/pause/10/10/15/15/20sec etc
Revisiting this tea, but couldn’t find my previous note. It’s very nice. Chocolaty, lychee aroma, some muscatel notes, raw nuts. It reminds me Ai Lao Mtn teas or even Taiwanese teas. Delightful.

Preparation
0 min, 15 sec 5 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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818 tasting notes

Stephanie threw this one into our swap as a bonus tea. Thank you! I’ve been eyeing the teas on Yunnan Sourcing’s website recently. Everything looks delicious, but I really better wait on buying more tea. ;)

This is a nice black tea. It was malty, sweet potato-y, and after looking at the description, I think I’m convinced I tasted molasses as well. Sometimes I wonder if I actually taste a note listed, or if I’m just easily persuaded! Ha! Overall, though, a very enjoyable tea.

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85
3986 tasting notes

This sample is from Nicole. I’m still working on your box, I promise! :P The leaves are very dark and spindly, a look that I associate with Taiwanese blacks. The leaves themselves are very large, and there are a lot of broken pieces too, which I can see being unavoidable with a tea this fragile. There are also some stems included. The dry scent is all honey and pastry with some dried fruits. I steeped for 2 minutes, but I think I could’ve gone for 3.

The brewed tea smells very dark and malty, with cocoa and sweet raisin notes. Very different from the dry leaf! The taste is not super heavy, most likely because of the shorter steep. It is definitely malty, and there’s a nice dark grain note that isn’t quite like bread. There’s something roasty and toasty about it. I definitely get a bit of bittersweet cocoa, and there’s a lovely rich molasses flavor combined with slightly sweet dark dried fruits (cherries, raisins). I definitely taste an herbaceous spice note, and it reminds me of fennel seed. I notice as this tea cools, I get less of the fruitiness and more of the spice.

A very lovely tea! It reminds me in some ways of Full Steam by Hugo, mostly because of that savory spice. I think next time I’ll try 3 minutes and see how it changes.

Flavors: Cocoa, Dried Fruit, Fennel Seed, Grain, Malt, Molasses, Roasted

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 2 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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1113 tasting notes

I am drinking the Autumn 2013 harvest of this tea, which I believe came to me courtesy of boychik :) :) :)

I slightly underleafed this but I can tell it is a winner. Nice and sweet and malty with cocoa notes. Heck yeah! Next time I will use a lot more leaf. Big leafed teas are hard to measure and I need to get in the habit of weighing them.

TheTeaFairy

I loved this one…And I do weigh them, so much easier!

boychik

Weigh them all the time. I’m so surprised at the amount of tea of 3g

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