Yi Mei Ren

This is my last black Yunnan from boychik’s generosity. :)

This smells fruity and dark. Initial steep at 1:30 was fruity and golden tasting with a bit of sharpness. At 3 min it was sharper and the scent reminds me sooo much of Taiwanese Wild Mountain Black from Butiki. The flavor is raisiny like so many have mentioned with TWMB but this is not quite as sweet and the sharpness on the tongue is more noticeable.

It’s an excellent tea. Not sure I’d keep it over TWMB but that may be sentimentality speaking as that was the tea that really supercharged my interest in all of these malty, bready, deep blacks, even though it is not a Yunnan. :)

So this time, I didn’t “choose” a tea out of my Terri box. Tonight, I just put my hand in it and grabbed one the zillion bags that’s in there. Abracadabra! This one showed up.

Yay, my first Yunnan Sourcing tea ever! I’ve heard so many good things about their teas, my mouth is watering!

Oh, oh, is this one of those medium bodied sweet Yunnan I am so fond of?

But, uh, wait…this also reminds me of Oriental Beauty Oolong! I’m confused, this feels like a fusion of the two.

Whatever this is, (I obviously know nothing about it), it is absolutely scrumptious!

Just like Oriental Beauty, I get super sweet honey notes, with a floral finish and that little je ne sais quoi I always find in OB that resemble muscatel but is not.

Though it reminds me of OB, it’s clearly not cause it’s very chocolaty, something you just don’t find in OB.

It’s so aromatic and tasty.

Such a beautiful tea, right up my alley, and the good news is I have enough for another cup, maybe two!!

Thank you so much Terri , another hit :-)

Today I tried the spring harvest of this tea using short steeps and boiling water, covering the bottom of my 150ml Gaiwan with leaves. My timings were 15,20,40,65,100,120s.

This is the spring harvest of this tea and I am not sure whether the differences I found in flavour are the result of using different techniques or a different season.

I found that this time the cocoa notes were intensified over my previous tasting. The fruit notes found were longan and blackcurrant. Cashew butter and cream notes were also present. The caramel notes were present but not as distinct and I did not find the grainy notes of the last steeping. I’ll have to try my longer steeps and lower temperatures to do a true comparison with the previous season, but I did really enjoy it this way.

Very nice tea. Very little astringency and mild sweetness. Nice at the morning or the afternoon, an

Was drinking this at work this morning. WOW – for me this is a GREAT black tea, right up there with some of my favorite black teas. Not as chocolate as some, but has hints of that and everything else that should be in a good Yunnan.
REALLY LIKE IT. Have been snooping around the Yunnan Sourcing web site- don’t like that there isn’t anything smaller than 50g (and some teas 100g).

Thanks Sil (and everyone else who’s hands this has passed through) for sending me a sample of this fantastic tea.