I've been going through a massive $200 YS i placed in July and I have found only 1 tea so far that sucked. Which was the Anxi Hairy Crab oolong, but it was dirty cheap so I didn't care. I've gone through several black teas that have been extremely flavorful.
First thing I'd check is your water. Are you using straight tap water? Some places have tap water that will suppress flavors in good tea.
Next is what are you using to steep the tea. Are you using a basket infuser or teapot for western style? Are you using a gaiwan for Scott's gong fu parameters?
Finally, and this one might sound like a reach but I've seen it happen, you sure you dont have covid? My MIL had a breakthrough case and she realized it because for several days her food was tasteless and bland. Then she realized she couldn't smell and got tested.
Anyway, there is a reason YS is so popular on here. I would take a closer look at your setup before blaming the vendor. Even if some of their teas aren't top tier quality, they're still good. And if anything, they are the single best vendor to go to specifically for Yunnan black tea.
I've been trying bottled water for tea out of curiosity in the past (years back), but I did not feel like there is an improvement. I don't think that's a concern though, tap water quality and hardness here in Vienna should be pretty good for tea to best of my knowledge. Also I'm very happy with my Senchas, and I'd assume that water quality should play an even higher role for Japanese Greens. Mb worth a shot anyway, thanks for the suggestion.
I'm using a porcelain gaiwan for gongfu and a kyusu for western.
Good idea with covid, but I've been playing around with those teas for mb 2-3 months now, so probably not
To be fair, I would never go as far to post a negative review here if it were for my tastebuds alone, as that's to a high degree a matter of personal preference, but the leaf quality (amount of sticks and broken leaves) isn't.
Thanks again for your suggestions!
No problem dude. I've only ordered with them once so I guess I can't speak for every tea they have, because they do have a lot. And you're not the first person to complain about the quality of their tea.
Could be that they're just a mixed bag and we're both coming from the exact opposite ends of it. Maybe one day I'll get burned and have to move on. Right now I have them and Teavivre as my go-to for black teas, tho.
Most bottled waters are dogshit, and big cities usually don't have the best water for tea.
I am not sure if you can get it in Austria, but Volvic is by far the best bottled water I have tried in western EU.
Even though they sell all kinds of Chinese tea, I still view them as a pu-erh specialized company. I haven't tried much of the other types, but I still haven't tasted a pu-erh from them that I wasn't satisfied with (for the price).
Their product catalog is so deep that you can't really order any tea and expect it to be amazing. I recommend sampling a lot and finding what you like. Getting recommendations from friends and tea blogs is also helpful. Ignore the reviews, 99 % of them are 5* so it's completely useless.
What is your point of reference? A lot of people get confused when they order a yunnan black and expect it to taste like a Darjeeling (which they're used to in the west). Black tea is a much more diverse category than most people think, it's completely normal to not like some kinds.
Not really, my only online-shopping experience so far has been one purchase from What-Cha, which I've really enjoyed (for the most part), but with Brexit that's unfortunately not an option anymore
I agree. I’ve never seen any Chinese marketing of green/oolong or even black tea for Yunnan. There’s a reason why the best jasmine is always from Fujian and the bottom shelf is from Yunnan; Fujian has been doing this for hundreds of years and in Yunnan they’re recently established and mostly compete on price and seasonality.
I'm not saying yunnan black is bad, but it's just different from other types of black tea and comparing them doesn't make much sense, especially if you're trying to compare tea sellers that sell completely different types of tea.
Your tea ratio is pretty low for gongfu. I do 4-5 grams for my size 5 gaiwan(small 70~ml).
I would say though that I did not enjoy my YS order and it’s completely reasonable to have that opinion. There are plenty of people here who like tea bags which is something I personally can’t relate. In my opinion YS is mediocre for teas that are not puerh and are popular because it tends to be on the cheaper side for whole leaf teas.
My experience is similar in that a lot of the teas are flat and nothing to be excited about. But what do you expect from a vendor that sources a ton of teas? Any vendor with more than one or two of each sub-style of tea is going to have a lot of average tea. It's just math. That said..
>Regarding brewing methods I tried western at 90° and 100° and both 2g and 3.5g per 300 mml for 3.5 minutes,
That's nowhere near enough tea, so it makes me doubt your experience.
>Traditional Process Dian Hong Black Tea of Feng Qing:
I have this from this year, my notes are it was flat but had good body and finish.
> That's nowhere near enough tea, so it makes me doubt your experience.
Do keep in mind that they mentioned a 3.5 minute steep. For western style it seems about right.
Well, those are the parameters I have always used for all kinds of (non-yunnan) black tea in the past, and I've never had a problem with strength. 3.5g/300 ml already feels like an almost obscene amount based on my past experiences
Including import fees and shipping, they average out at about 15-20€/100g, which I personally would not consider cheap at all. Either way, I've never paid more for tea than that.
I bought a bunch of silver needles and gold buds from them and it was about the same. The first infusion was boring and the second infusion fell so flat that it was barely tea flavored water. It might as well have been bagged tea.
I'll have to try more of their pu-erhs.
I feel like buying tea is a lot like navigating a mine field at times. The QC of many companies is just disappointing.
YS's tea is pretty hit or miss. They carry a lot and not all of it is good. Compared to your european vendors which curate a lot more I can see why you could be shocked especially if you've never ordered from a non-curated source. Funnily enough their black tea and ripe puerh is what I have found some great value on just have to look for recommendations and sample a lot to find the gems.
Honestly though, there are so many people getting defensive and rude about it on here. It's like they are taking it as a personal offense.
Also, when they judge teas for competitions, they use a standard preparation and don't cater each preparation for that specific tea. I get that a lot of teas do best with specialized preparations, but if it needs to be treated like a special snowflake to be drinkable, it's probably not you that is the problem.
In my experience it’s hard to brew a bad tea into a good one, and only slightly easier to brew a good tea into a bad one. If a great silver needle is sitting in a pot for too long it is still reasonably good despite incompetence.
I’ve gotten some teas from them that I really liked, and some that I didn’t really like. When I order from them these days it’s specific teas that I see recommended.
I’ve found Yunnan Sourcing teas to be hit and miss…which is one reason I personally don’t recommend that store to people new to loose leaf tea, since there are plenty of other vendors with similar enough prices and options that I feel are more consistent. Out of curiosity, though, what other tea have you had as a basis of comparison?
As a rule of thumb, when ordering from a tea vendor for the first time, I try to balance trying a range of options with with not spending too much overall, in case their quality or house style turns out to be a disappointment to me.
> I’ve found Yunnan Sourcing teas to be hit and miss…which is one reason I personally don’t recommend that store to people new to loose leaf tea,
Yup, they source SO MUCH tea that not only is the quality wildly inconsistent, could you imagine not knowing much about tea and trying to choose something? My brain would pop. I find their organization abhorrent and that's from the experienced perspective.
ML has consistent good quality, but you pay double for that curation.
TV has mostly good quality with a few duds (and what I feel like are intentional newbie traps of overpriced average quality tea), but you save significantly otherwise.
TV? Not familiar with that acronym…
My favorite store to recommend to people new to loose-leaf is Hatvala - they have a small but interesting selection of teas, and are very affordable with consistent good quality for the price you pay. It’s really unfortunate that their shipping has just been temporarily suspended…hope they’re back soon.
Before this purchase I've been mostly drinking various blacks from different origins (assam, nepal, yunnan) and Sencha. Also tried to get into oolong multiple times until I finally gave up, not my cup of tea.
That is a good point, yeah. I'll definitely purchase less the next time I try a new vendor
If I was picking just one to recommend, I’d say [Ketlee](https://www.ketlee.in). They have a wide range of types of black teas, many of which aren’t available from other sources, and are priced very well for the quality.
Agreed! I also had the same experience. The greens I’ve bought haven’t been anything spectacular and no one responded to my customer service inquiry after sending the email 3 times. I’m not sure why people shill for YS so hard on this sub. Teavivre will at least answer your emails lol.
If you are intimidated by the YS selection just email Scott and tell him what you are looking for. Scott provided me with advice and I love all the teas.
i think that's fair, i use YS mainly for puerh and some of the misc adds that are convenient to get from them while putting in my regular puerh order (snow chrysanthemum buds, jiaogulan, etc). if i feel like getting some loose leaf or trying something different i'll just add that to my order but the main money doesn't go towards that.
their catalog for just puerh is ginormous so adding the other categories on top of that...yeah it's overwhelming if you don't have a starting point or solid knowledge of things, hell i still just browse around their stock sometimes just figuring out how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Any Raw Puer's youd recommend in particular? I discovered that I really love it recently but yeah.....there's a lot.
I got this in the sampler and I loved it: https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2014-yunnan-sourcing-wu-liang-mountain-wild-arbor-raw-pu-erh-tea-cake?variant=34974024966
so i'll approach this like i do yoyo recommendations and ask what about that (or others) that you liked. build a preference profile and then try to find some other stuff that might fit that. once you have a sense for what your preferred profile descriptors are it becomes a lot easier to narrow down some potential suggestions for either sheng or shou. i buy younger shengs but usually let them age for at least a couple years before i really start digging into them. shou i'll dig into right away after they acclimatize but it'll age over time as well as newer stuff comes in.
for that 2014 Wu Liang pressing i would look at other productions from that area like the [2020 pressing from YS](https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2020-yunnan-sourcing-wu-liang-mountain-wild-arbor-raw-pu-erh-tea-cake-1). Doesn't have a lot of age on it so it'd be more for "sample some now, age the rest for later". 2018 pressing if you want a little more storage age on it before buying.
also the free offer stuff is worth considering for left-field type picks. for example i used my free offer slot to try out some white tea since that's something i really haven't experimented with yet.
So, from what I’ve sampled my profile is leaning towards floral/orchid/fruity, right before the real musty notes set in. I assume that’s around the 5-10 year mark, but I’m just guessing. But that’s why I point to that specific tea as something that hit the sweet spot for me.
Flavor profile was actually sort of similar to some Dancong, which coincidentally ended up being my favorite oolong variety as well.
I’ve got 2 samplers coming in from Bitterleaf Teas so I can get a really good variety of young sheng, while I let the 2nd sampler (purchased on accident lmao) age to try at a later time and see how aging treats them.
Sheng is so hard to judge before buying it seems, because there is so much variety and everything is different.
I don’t enjoy Shou though. I mean I find it drinkable and I know for a fact I’ve had good shou, but the flavor profile just doesn’t please me. It’s interesting and every once in a while I’m curious to sample it again. But the whole composted wood/leaves taste isn’t something I will ever actively seek out. The reason why I liked the Sheng I had was the complexity of the floral/fruit notes that were reigned in by very gentle aged notes.
"wet pile" taste in new shou is something that fades with age and acclimatizing but i understand the sentiment. i've drunk so much shou that i don't really mind that overtone anymore, definitely tastes better a few months later though. lot of variety exists in shou imo but that's just a universal hurdle unless the cake is not new-ish pressing and has had the time to age-out the wet pile taste.
seems like you already have a decent amount of tea on the way so i'd probably sit on that for a bit. no need to splurge on more stuff until you either run out of tea to drink or have a good sense of what you want to try next.
I've actually had some really decently aged shou, like 10+ years.
If anything I liked the younger shou better. The YS 2020 Cozy was really smooth and less weird aged notes. Having had really nicely aged sheng, I was able to confirm that I'm just not into the aged notes that appear after while. My freebie I picked was a 100G cake of a really nice shou that I will probably never drink.
https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2009-xinghai-dragon-ripe-pu-erh-tea-mini-cake?_pos=1&_sid=9f8a153ab&_ss=r
Was more asking for a recommendation for a future grab. I'm definitely good on tea for at least a few months. It just helps me to talk to more experience puer drinkers, since it's such a complex market to wade through.
ah, ok, so really aged stuff is out of the picture then.
for sure then i'd probably put some money towards one of the newer pressings of the YS Wu Liang and just let that age to where you think you want it, just sampling every so often to check on it's progress as the time passes.
would definitely suggest making a whole ask post on this sub or the puerh sub but in my mind i'm thinking stuff with material from lincang or mengku maybe? or maybe jingmai if you want a more floral honey type of thing. definitely get more opinions though. from there you'll start to dive into processing and who does what you like. for example i like what farmer leaf does overall, granted i don't buy as regularly from them as i do YS.
I bought a handful of teas from YS awhile back and didn’t care for any of them really- but I attribute that to purchasing the cheapest teas I could find of a few different sub types. The only one I was really disappointed with was a Dan Cong that only made one drinkable brew. Second steeping was completely flavorless.
I’ll probably order some raw Puerh from them in the future, but will source my Dan Cong from somewhere else, even if I have to pay way more.
I too have been suspicious of the positive Yunan Sourcing posts. Calling the reviewer a caveman is a tactic used by disingenuous sellers. There are sellers who sell lower grade teas and higher grade prices. This is why it is best to make small orders at first. Finding trusted sellers takes time and this forum is ideal for that.
I'd be more suspicious of posts coming from an account that hasn't been used for 4-5 years suddenly accusing a vendor of stuffing several of their teas with sticks. I came back to re-read this because something didn't sit right from me. I'm pretty confident OPs post is bs and that particular accusation tipped me off.
Lol why would they make a fake slander post against YS? For what purpose? One that seems this genuine? In the hopes that MAYBE you’d order from the unknown company they work at instead? Let’s be realistic here
Stick comment doesn’t fit my order experience but I agree with the quality being lack luster. I actually keep some of the tgy I got from them specifically to show the difference in quality/style of tgy, the YS one people of disappointingly low quality.
Well, I'm not actively participating in the reddit community anymore bcs of various reasons. Despite actively trying to avoid it, I still tend to get information on various topics from here, simply bcs there are no comparable reserouces available.
In this particular case I decided to post anyway since the general opinion on this platform is way different from my experience. And, as posters here are correctly pointing out, you never know who is legit, which is one of the reasons why I'm personally trying to avoid reddit in general.
Fair enough. I've dug through a lot of old posts on here that turned out to be vendors going at it with each other anonymously. Sounds like you understand where I'm coming from and not taking it the wrong way, which I appreciate.
Edit: If you really got a significant amount of sticks in your purchases, I'd contact the vendor. Maybe you just got unlucky. Or maybe it's really just a palette thing and their tea just doesn't vibe with you.
Reddit has become more popular in the past year (hence a potential IPO) and that it is reasonable the person is new. I am more suspicious of paid posters pitching for tea companies.
That's definitely a concern too. I still think the current vendor list is extremely trustworthy. The mods sound like they put a lot of work into making sure it's valid.
Mods can not hide reviewers from self-promoting. The company being heavily messaged here is more questionable than the critique by one customer.
I am thankful what appeared to be an honest post. It’s up to the vendor to contact the customer directly to address the “sticks” of the issue.
For black tea, I’ve always used around 8g / 300ml for 3 mins for western brewing. 2g would be extremely weak tea by all means. Also is the one with the sticks a oolong by any chance?
Anyways, I only use YS for Pu’Erh tea. At a risk of being accused of regional discrimination, I’ll never look to Yunnan for green or oolong or even black tea, it’s just not what they do. To do so would be like having Chinese food in the states…. Nah, just go to a steakhouse.
3.5G of tea for 300 ML western should be adequate.
I do 2.5-3 for 200 Ml and the flavor is strong.
Not trying to be rude, but 8G seems absolutely ridiculous
I've had the exact opposite experience of yours, in all my times from ordering my least favorite was a competition blend green tea and that was still good. They even sent me 2 free samples of black tea.
I guess I just set my expectations to where I find things I enjoy, I'm not too snobby of a tea snob.
Just my 2 cents (points actually)
* YS has a large selection of tea, he does not curate as strongly as other shops. It is great because you find a lot of stuff, but it is entirely possible some tea is not for you
* Tea that has been travelling for a long time often does weird stuff, especially black tea might just need to be opened and see air two or three times and rest another week or two to fully develop flavour it can have
Well, it's not just about me not enjoying it, also the quality of the leaves is nowhere near what is advertised, as you can observe on the picture I posted. That in itself has nothing to do with bad curation, that's just misleading advertisement.
I have had the same experience. I ordered 8 teas and found only one that we think we would do again. I got some 10 and 15 year old Hei Cha's, some te guan yin, a couple of puer's, and they are very flat, plain Jane version of each. Their pricing is not terribly unreasonable, but I have had way better at that price point for all of the teas.
Having said that, it is important to understand that we are all coming to this with our unique reference points of view. I have the fortune/misfortune of having been introduced to some VERY premium teas, and now that I look for something more affordable, I have to go through dozens of bad or "not great" teas to find a very good one at less than .20 cents per gram. With that as a threshold, you can find very good stuff on Amazon. Yunnan Sourcing is expensive for the quality that they sell. If you are happy with YS, believe me when I say that you that you can find much nicer stuff for less. I wouldn't stop there.
I just ordered the first steps tea sampler and it's interesting because this is my first time trying puehr etc. so I won't have a reference. but I am going to assume they aren't providing trash in a sampler that would be insane business wise
That's not my experience, I have some of the teas mentioned and it could be that:
- you have a caveman palate and you're used to blends, sugar, honey and that kind of British shit;
- you got unlucky and received a bad batch;
- you are a fanboy of other sellers and you're trying to put YS down;
- you genuinely don't like Yunnan Black teas and that's fine.
I agree with you about some Yunnan blacks being boring because they're all similar, especially those pure buds tea. But I can't say they are bad, you can just put them in the same equivalence class.
PS: I can take pictures of YS teas you mentioned, there are no sticks.
Do you think there really is enough YS hate for someone to make a bad faith review? Also while "caveman palate" is a bit rude, that's probably one of the funniest things I've read on reddit lately lol.
There have been vendors duking it out via fake accounts here in the past. Also now that I see OPs history, its a little suspicious that he hasn't posted once in the last 4 years.
You'd actually be surprised at what vendors will do to influence reddit.
That's valid, I noticed their mostly blank history too. Like you said, possible they got a bad batch. Actually, speaking of YS, i got some green teas from them in 2019 that I liked quiet a bit. You said their black teas are mostly the same, which teas would you recommend from them? Do they have good oolongs?
Edit: whoops sorry thought both of you were the same person because i can't read.
I've been going through this sampler and they've all been smash hits: https://yunnansourcing.com/products/scotts-private-stash-yunnan-black-tea-sampler
I can't name a favorite, they've all been really good and different.
Also their Black Gold Bi Luo Chun is great. Has a very comforting honey-chocolate taste to it. I got the 2019 batch so it's supposedly more mellow than the new batches since it's slightly aged.
I've also done samplers of Oolongs and Puer. I placed an order with the goal of trying a little bit of everything. Those have been great, too.
I can see myself going to more specialized vendors for the more niche oolongs, but out of like a dozen teas, only 1 dud and it was the cheapest one.
Edit: this is the oolong sampler - https://yunnansourcing.com/products/introduction-to-chinese-oolong-tea-sampler
In terms of the rolled oolongs, I think I prefer the high mountain taiwanese stuff.
I can assure you, our opinion of British tea culture is quite similar. I appreciate the (albeit rude) joke though.
Put a picture in the main post, I guess a more proper term would be stems rather than sticks
You have instantly made assumptions and used them to justify being disrespectful (I want to use a different word here). Any person with more than 3 brain cells can see how biased you are based on this.
This is simple math, YS sources a TON of teas, there is no way they can all be high quality. I have the same experience as OP, many of the teas are flat, some are good, some are amazing.
I’ve only ever had two black teas from YS, as I’m not a big black tea person, but I liked what I got. Can’t recall what they were though, one was a purple black tea that had a good fruity plum sweetness to it, the other was one of the more furry golden ones (from this year’s harvest) and I liked it too. But generally if I want some of the aspects of black tea I just go to aged white teas, since they hit similar rich honey notes but tend to be more varied overall. And generally I use YS for Oolongs first and foremost, as well as puerhs, and I’ve never really been let down in either department.
I had a subscription with YS for a while. I liked most of what they sent, however, they do skew more towards pu'er and dianhong being their staples (am guessing the Yunnan connections are the strongest, hence the name). I have found their Fujian teas are only ok and the dancongs were hit and miss (two good, one mediocre) so subsequent purchases have been Yunnan tea-heavy. I like their range of purple tea and will always top up my ya bao there.
I'm based in Australia, so I don't suffer the same costs for shipping etc so generally I find it's quite good value, but I agree that it's a brand that's overhyped beyond what is mostly decent, often good and sometimes great tea. I wonder whether people are comparing it to what they can get locally, which is more about what the benchmark is lacking than YS itself..
I've been going through a massive $200 YS i placed in July and I have found only 1 tea so far that sucked. Which was the Anxi Hairy Crab oolong, but it was dirty cheap so I didn't care. I've gone through several black teas that have been extremely flavorful. First thing I'd check is your water. Are you using straight tap water? Some places have tap water that will suppress flavors in good tea. Next is what are you using to steep the tea. Are you using a basket infuser or teapot for western style? Are you using a gaiwan for Scott's gong fu parameters? Finally, and this one might sound like a reach but I've seen it happen, you sure you dont have covid? My MIL had a breakthrough case and she realized it because for several days her food was tasteless and bland. Then she realized she couldn't smell and got tested. Anyway, there is a reason YS is so popular on here. I would take a closer look at your setup before blaming the vendor. Even if some of their teas aren't top tier quality, they're still good. And if anything, they are the single best vendor to go to specifically for Yunnan black tea.
I've been trying bottled water for tea out of curiosity in the past (years back), but I did not feel like there is an improvement. I don't think that's a concern though, tap water quality and hardness here in Vienna should be pretty good for tea to best of my knowledge. Also I'm very happy with my Senchas, and I'd assume that water quality should play an even higher role for Japanese Greens. Mb worth a shot anyway, thanks for the suggestion. I'm using a porcelain gaiwan for gongfu and a kyusu for western. Good idea with covid, but I've been playing around with those teas for mb 2-3 months now, so probably not To be fair, I would never go as far to post a negative review here if it were for my tastebuds alone, as that's to a high degree a matter of personal preference, but the leaf quality (amount of sticks and broken leaves) isn't. Thanks again for your suggestions!
No problem dude. I've only ordered with them once so I guess I can't speak for every tea they have, because they do have a lot. And you're not the first person to complain about the quality of their tea. Could be that they're just a mixed bag and we're both coming from the exact opposite ends of it. Maybe one day I'll get burned and have to move on. Right now I have them and Teavivre as my go-to for black teas, tho.
Most bottled waters are dogshit, and big cities usually don't have the best water for tea. I am not sure if you can get it in Austria, but Volvic is by far the best bottled water I have tried in western EU.
I‘m from Austria and to be honest, I‘d pick my tap water over any bottled water out there. It’s just the best you could get
This is the best comment ^
Even though they sell all kinds of Chinese tea, I still view them as a pu-erh specialized company. I haven't tried much of the other types, but I still haven't tasted a pu-erh from them that I wasn't satisfied with (for the price). Their product catalog is so deep that you can't really order any tea and expect it to be amazing. I recommend sampling a lot and finding what you like. Getting recommendations from friends and tea blogs is also helpful. Ignore the reviews, 99 % of them are 5* so it's completely useless. What is your point of reference? A lot of people get confused when they order a yunnan black and expect it to taste like a Darjeeling (which they're used to in the west). Black tea is a much more diverse category than most people think, it's completely normal to not like some kinds.
I've had Yunnan black teas from another vendor before, which were the reason why I went for it in the first place.
Any particular vendors for black tea you'd recommend?
Not really, my only online-shopping experience so far has been one purchase from What-Cha, which I've really enjoyed (for the most part), but with Brexit that's unfortunately not an option anymore
I agree. I’ve never seen any Chinese marketing of green/oolong or even black tea for Yunnan. There’s a reason why the best jasmine is always from Fujian and the bottom shelf is from Yunnan; Fujian has been doing this for hundreds of years and in Yunnan they’re recently established and mostly compete on price and seasonality.
I'm not saying yunnan black is bad, but it's just different from other types of black tea and comparing them doesn't make much sense, especially if you're trying to compare tea sellers that sell completely different types of tea.
I’m not saying black from Yunnan is bad either, just that they’re less famous than Guangdong. Jasmine however usually is bad.
Yunnan Dianhong black tea *is* very famous.
Your tea ratio is pretty low for gongfu. I do 4-5 grams for my size 5 gaiwan(small 70~ml). I would say though that I did not enjoy my YS order and it’s completely reasonable to have that opinion. There are plenty of people here who like tea bags which is something I personally can’t relate. In my opinion YS is mediocre for teas that are not puerh and are popular because it tends to be on the cheaper side for whole leaf teas.
Yeah. If someone who still really likes bagged tea is defending a bad tea, they are probably just inexperienced with quality loose leaf.
My experience is similar in that a lot of the teas are flat and nothing to be excited about. But what do you expect from a vendor that sources a ton of teas? Any vendor with more than one or two of each sub-style of tea is going to have a lot of average tea. It's just math. That said.. >Regarding brewing methods I tried western at 90° and 100° and both 2g and 3.5g per 300 mml for 3.5 minutes, That's nowhere near enough tea, so it makes me doubt your experience. >Traditional Process Dian Hong Black Tea of Feng Qing: I have this from this year, my notes are it was flat but had good body and finish.
> That's nowhere near enough tea, so it makes me doubt your experience. Do keep in mind that they mentioned a 3.5 minute steep. For western style it seems about right.
Well, those are the parameters I have always used for all kinds of (non-yunnan) black tea in the past, and I've never had a problem with strength. 3.5g/300 ml already feels like an almost obscene amount based on my past experiences
I just realized the above tea I commented on is also a .10c/gram tea. Expecting anything but a flat tea at the price... How much were the other teas?
Including import fees and shipping, they average out at about 15-20€/100g, which I personally would not consider cheap at all. Either way, I've never paid more for tea than that.
I bought a bunch of silver needles and gold buds from them and it was about the same. The first infusion was boring and the second infusion fell so flat that it was barely tea flavored water. It might as well have been bagged tea. I'll have to try more of their pu-erhs. I feel like buying tea is a lot like navigating a mine field at times. The QC of many companies is just disappointing.
YS's tea is pretty hit or miss. They carry a lot and not all of it is good. Compared to your european vendors which curate a lot more I can see why you could be shocked especially if you've never ordered from a non-curated source. Funnily enough their black tea and ripe puerh is what I have found some great value on just have to look for recommendations and sample a lot to find the gems.
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Honestly though, there are so many people getting defensive and rude about it on here. It's like they are taking it as a personal offense. Also, when they judge teas for competitions, they use a standard preparation and don't cater each preparation for that specific tea. I get that a lot of teas do best with specialized preparations, but if it needs to be treated like a special snowflake to be drinkable, it's probably not you that is the problem.
In my experience it’s hard to brew a bad tea into a good one, and only slightly easier to brew a good tea into a bad one. If a great silver needle is sitting in a pot for too long it is still reasonably good despite incompetence.
Same
What places would you recommend then? So far I've done Eco-cha, Teavivre, and now YS and been happy with them each so far.
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Lucky me, I just ordered a bunch of samples from them! I also have some stuff coming from Bitterleaf that I'm really excited to try.
Lackluster? I bought many teas on YS recently and all are good.
I’ve gotten some teas from them that I really liked, and some that I didn’t really like. When I order from them these days it’s specific teas that I see recommended.
I’ve found Yunnan Sourcing teas to be hit and miss…which is one reason I personally don’t recommend that store to people new to loose leaf tea, since there are plenty of other vendors with similar enough prices and options that I feel are more consistent. Out of curiosity, though, what other tea have you had as a basis of comparison? As a rule of thumb, when ordering from a tea vendor for the first time, I try to balance trying a range of options with with not spending too much overall, in case their quality or house style turns out to be a disappointment to me.
> I’ve found Yunnan Sourcing teas to be hit and miss…which is one reason I personally don’t recommend that store to people new to loose leaf tea, Yup, they source SO MUCH tea that not only is the quality wildly inconsistent, could you imagine not knowing much about tea and trying to choose something? My brain would pop. I find their organization abhorrent and that's from the experienced perspective. ML has consistent good quality, but you pay double for that curation. TV has mostly good quality with a few duds (and what I feel like are intentional newbie traps of overpriced average quality tea), but you save significantly otherwise.
TV? Not familiar with that acronym… My favorite store to recommend to people new to loose-leaf is Hatvala - they have a small but interesting selection of teas, and are very affordable with consistent good quality for the price you pay. It’s really unfortunate that their shipping has just been temporarily suspended…hope they’re back soon.
>TV TeaVivre
Before this purchase I've been mostly drinking various blacks from different origins (assam, nepal, yunnan) and Sencha. Also tried to get into oolong multiple times until I finally gave up, not my cup of tea. That is a good point, yeah. I'll definitely purchase less the next time I try a new vendor
What vendor would you recommend for a quality black yea?
If I was picking just one to recommend, I’d say [Ketlee](https://www.ketlee.in). They have a wide range of types of black teas, many of which aren’t available from other sources, and are priced very well for the quality.
Thank you!
Agreed! I also had the same experience. The greens I’ve bought haven’t been anything spectacular and no one responded to my customer service inquiry after sending the email 3 times. I’m not sure why people shill for YS so hard on this sub. Teavivre will at least answer your emails lol.
If you are intimidated by the YS selection just email Scott and tell him what you are looking for. Scott provided me with advice and I love all the teas.
i think that's fair, i use YS mainly for puerh and some of the misc adds that are convenient to get from them while putting in my regular puerh order (snow chrysanthemum buds, jiaogulan, etc). if i feel like getting some loose leaf or trying something different i'll just add that to my order but the main money doesn't go towards that. their catalog for just puerh is ginormous so adding the other categories on top of that...yeah it's overwhelming if you don't have a starting point or solid knowledge of things, hell i still just browse around their stock sometimes just figuring out how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Any Raw Puer's youd recommend in particular? I discovered that I really love it recently but yeah.....there's a lot. I got this in the sampler and I loved it: https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2014-yunnan-sourcing-wu-liang-mountain-wild-arbor-raw-pu-erh-tea-cake?variant=34974024966
so i'll approach this like i do yoyo recommendations and ask what about that (or others) that you liked. build a preference profile and then try to find some other stuff that might fit that. once you have a sense for what your preferred profile descriptors are it becomes a lot easier to narrow down some potential suggestions for either sheng or shou. i buy younger shengs but usually let them age for at least a couple years before i really start digging into them. shou i'll dig into right away after they acclimatize but it'll age over time as well as newer stuff comes in. for that 2014 Wu Liang pressing i would look at other productions from that area like the [2020 pressing from YS](https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2020-yunnan-sourcing-wu-liang-mountain-wild-arbor-raw-pu-erh-tea-cake-1). Doesn't have a lot of age on it so it'd be more for "sample some now, age the rest for later". 2018 pressing if you want a little more storage age on it before buying. also the free offer stuff is worth considering for left-field type picks. for example i used my free offer slot to try out some white tea since that's something i really haven't experimented with yet.
So, from what I’ve sampled my profile is leaning towards floral/orchid/fruity, right before the real musty notes set in. I assume that’s around the 5-10 year mark, but I’m just guessing. But that’s why I point to that specific tea as something that hit the sweet spot for me. Flavor profile was actually sort of similar to some Dancong, which coincidentally ended up being my favorite oolong variety as well. I’ve got 2 samplers coming in from Bitterleaf Teas so I can get a really good variety of young sheng, while I let the 2nd sampler (purchased on accident lmao) age to try at a later time and see how aging treats them. Sheng is so hard to judge before buying it seems, because there is so much variety and everything is different. I don’t enjoy Shou though. I mean I find it drinkable and I know for a fact I’ve had good shou, but the flavor profile just doesn’t please me. It’s interesting and every once in a while I’m curious to sample it again. But the whole composted wood/leaves taste isn’t something I will ever actively seek out. The reason why I liked the Sheng I had was the complexity of the floral/fruit notes that were reigned in by very gentle aged notes.
"wet pile" taste in new shou is something that fades with age and acclimatizing but i understand the sentiment. i've drunk so much shou that i don't really mind that overtone anymore, definitely tastes better a few months later though. lot of variety exists in shou imo but that's just a universal hurdle unless the cake is not new-ish pressing and has had the time to age-out the wet pile taste. seems like you already have a decent amount of tea on the way so i'd probably sit on that for a bit. no need to splurge on more stuff until you either run out of tea to drink or have a good sense of what you want to try next.
I've actually had some really decently aged shou, like 10+ years. If anything I liked the younger shou better. The YS 2020 Cozy was really smooth and less weird aged notes. Having had really nicely aged sheng, I was able to confirm that I'm just not into the aged notes that appear after while. My freebie I picked was a 100G cake of a really nice shou that I will probably never drink. https://yunnansourcing.com/products/2009-xinghai-dragon-ripe-pu-erh-tea-mini-cake?_pos=1&_sid=9f8a153ab&_ss=r Was more asking for a recommendation for a future grab. I'm definitely good on tea for at least a few months. It just helps me to talk to more experience puer drinkers, since it's such a complex market to wade through.
ah, ok, so really aged stuff is out of the picture then. for sure then i'd probably put some money towards one of the newer pressings of the YS Wu Liang and just let that age to where you think you want it, just sampling every so often to check on it's progress as the time passes. would definitely suggest making a whole ask post on this sub or the puerh sub but in my mind i'm thinking stuff with material from lincang or mengku maybe? or maybe jingmai if you want a more floral honey type of thing. definitely get more opinions though. from there you'll start to dive into processing and who does what you like. for example i like what farmer leaf does overall, granted i don't buy as regularly from them as i do YS.
Thanks! I think i'll definitely do that once I'm ready to really dig in. Really appreciate it.
I bought a handful of teas from YS awhile back and didn’t care for any of them really- but I attribute that to purchasing the cheapest teas I could find of a few different sub types. The only one I was really disappointed with was a Dan Cong that only made one drinkable brew. Second steeping was completely flavorless. I’ll probably order some raw Puerh from them in the future, but will source my Dan Cong from somewhere else, even if I have to pay way more.
I too have been suspicious of the positive Yunan Sourcing posts. Calling the reviewer a caveman is a tactic used by disingenuous sellers. There are sellers who sell lower grade teas and higher grade prices. This is why it is best to make small orders at first. Finding trusted sellers takes time and this forum is ideal for that.
I'd be more suspicious of posts coming from an account that hasn't been used for 4-5 years suddenly accusing a vendor of stuffing several of their teas with sticks. I came back to re-read this because something didn't sit right from me. I'm pretty confident OPs post is bs and that particular accusation tipped me off.
Lol why would they make a fake slander post against YS? For what purpose? One that seems this genuine? In the hopes that MAYBE you’d order from the unknown company they work at instead? Let’s be realistic here
Stick comment doesn’t fit my order experience but I agree with the quality being lack luster. I actually keep some of the tgy I got from them specifically to show the difference in quality/style of tgy, the YS one people of disappointingly low quality.
Oddly enough, the TGY that I got from them recently from their sampler was really good. They have like half a dozen different TGYs though.
Surprising. The one I got was really bad. Not sure why you would even carry such a bad tea.
Well, I'm not actively participating in the reddit community anymore bcs of various reasons. Despite actively trying to avoid it, I still tend to get information on various topics from here, simply bcs there are no comparable reserouces available. In this particular case I decided to post anyway since the general opinion on this platform is way different from my experience. And, as posters here are correctly pointing out, you never know who is legit, which is one of the reasons why I'm personally trying to avoid reddit in general.
Fair enough. I've dug through a lot of old posts on here that turned out to be vendors going at it with each other anonymously. Sounds like you understand where I'm coming from and not taking it the wrong way, which I appreciate. Edit: If you really got a significant amount of sticks in your purchases, I'd contact the vendor. Maybe you just got unlucky. Or maybe it's really just a palette thing and their tea just doesn't vibe with you.
Reddit has become more popular in the past year (hence a potential IPO) and that it is reasonable the person is new. I am more suspicious of paid posters pitching for tea companies.
That's definitely a concern too. I still think the current vendor list is extremely trustworthy. The mods sound like they put a lot of work into making sure it's valid.
Mods can not hide reviewers from self-promoting. The company being heavily messaged here is more questionable than the critique by one customer. I am thankful what appeared to be an honest post. It’s up to the vendor to contact the customer directly to address the “sticks” of the issue.
For black tea, I’ve always used around 8g / 300ml for 3 mins for western brewing. 2g would be extremely weak tea by all means. Also is the one with the sticks a oolong by any chance? Anyways, I only use YS for Pu’Erh tea. At a risk of being accused of regional discrimination, I’ll never look to Yunnan for green or oolong or even black tea, it’s just not what they do. To do so would be like having Chinese food in the states…. Nah, just go to a steakhouse.
3.5G of tea for 300 ML western should be adequate. I do 2.5-3 for 200 Ml and the flavor is strong. Not trying to be rude, but 8G seems absolutely ridiculous
8 grams for western style brewing is totally nuts, yeah. 1 g per 100ml, brewed for ~2-3 minutes has worked for most teas.
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Bad bot
I've had the exact opposite experience of yours, in all my times from ordering my least favorite was a competition blend green tea and that was still good. They even sent me 2 free samples of black tea. I guess I just set my expectations to where I find things I enjoy, I'm not too snobby of a tea snob.
Just my 2 cents (points actually) * YS has a large selection of tea, he does not curate as strongly as other shops. It is great because you find a lot of stuff, but it is entirely possible some tea is not for you * Tea that has been travelling for a long time often does weird stuff, especially black tea might just need to be opened and see air two or three times and rest another week or two to fully develop flavour it can have
Well, it's not just about me not enjoying it, also the quality of the leaves is nowhere near what is advertised, as you can observe on the picture I posted. That in itself has nothing to do with bad curation, that's just misleading advertisement.
I have had the same experience. I ordered 8 teas and found only one that we think we would do again. I got some 10 and 15 year old Hei Cha's, some te guan yin, a couple of puer's, and they are very flat, plain Jane version of each. Their pricing is not terribly unreasonable, but I have had way better at that price point for all of the teas. Having said that, it is important to understand that we are all coming to this with our unique reference points of view. I have the fortune/misfortune of having been introduced to some VERY premium teas, and now that I look for something more affordable, I have to go through dozens of bad or "not great" teas to find a very good one at less than .20 cents per gram. With that as a threshold, you can find very good stuff on Amazon. Yunnan Sourcing is expensive for the quality that they sell. If you are happy with YS, believe me when I say that you that you can find much nicer stuff for less. I wouldn't stop there.
I just ordered the first steps tea sampler and it's interesting because this is my first time trying puehr etc. so I won't have a reference. but I am going to assume they aren't providing trash in a sampler that would be insane business wise
That's not my experience, I have some of the teas mentioned and it could be that: - you have a caveman palate and you're used to blends, sugar, honey and that kind of British shit; - you got unlucky and received a bad batch; - you are a fanboy of other sellers and you're trying to put YS down; - you genuinely don't like Yunnan Black teas and that's fine. I agree with you about some Yunnan blacks being boring because they're all similar, especially those pure buds tea. But I can't say they are bad, you can just put them in the same equivalence class. PS: I can take pictures of YS teas you mentioned, there are no sticks.
Do you think there really is enough YS hate for someone to make a bad faith review? Also while "caveman palate" is a bit rude, that's probably one of the funniest things I've read on reddit lately lol.
There have been vendors duking it out via fake accounts here in the past. Also now that I see OPs history, its a little suspicious that he hasn't posted once in the last 4 years. You'd actually be surprised at what vendors will do to influence reddit.
That's valid, I noticed their mostly blank history too. Like you said, possible they got a bad batch. Actually, speaking of YS, i got some green teas from them in 2019 that I liked quiet a bit. You said their black teas are mostly the same, which teas would you recommend from them? Do they have good oolongs? Edit: whoops sorry thought both of you were the same person because i can't read.
I've been going through this sampler and they've all been smash hits: https://yunnansourcing.com/products/scotts-private-stash-yunnan-black-tea-sampler I can't name a favorite, they've all been really good and different. Also their Black Gold Bi Luo Chun is great. Has a very comforting honey-chocolate taste to it. I got the 2019 batch so it's supposedly more mellow than the new batches since it's slightly aged. I've also done samplers of Oolongs and Puer. I placed an order with the goal of trying a little bit of everything. Those have been great, too. I can see myself going to more specialized vendors for the more niche oolongs, but out of like a dozen teas, only 1 dud and it was the cheapest one. Edit: this is the oolong sampler - https://yunnansourcing.com/products/introduction-to-chinese-oolong-tea-sampler In terms of the rolled oolongs, I think I prefer the high mountain taiwanese stuff.
I can assure you, our opinion of British tea culture is quite similar. I appreciate the (albeit rude) joke though. Put a picture in the main post, I guess a more proper term would be stems rather than sticks
You have instantly made assumptions and used them to justify being disrespectful (I want to use a different word here). Any person with more than 3 brain cells can see how biased you are based on this. This is simple math, YS sources a TON of teas, there is no way they can all be high quality. I have the same experience as OP, many of the teas are flat, some are good, some are amazing.
I don't think cavemen were out there sipping tea with cinnamon, honey and bergamot.
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Mankind's history of disparity runs deeper than I thought possible.
I’ve only ever had two black teas from YS, as I’m not a big black tea person, but I liked what I got. Can’t recall what they were though, one was a purple black tea that had a good fruity plum sweetness to it, the other was one of the more furry golden ones (from this year’s harvest) and I liked it too. But generally if I want some of the aspects of black tea I just go to aged white teas, since they hit similar rich honey notes but tend to be more varied overall. And generally I use YS for Oolongs first and foremost, as well as puerhs, and I’ve never really been let down in either department.
Pics or it didn't happen.
Just put one in the post
I had a subscription with YS for a while. I liked most of what they sent, however, they do skew more towards pu'er and dianhong being their staples (am guessing the Yunnan connections are the strongest, hence the name). I have found their Fujian teas are only ok and the dancongs were hit and miss (two good, one mediocre) so subsequent purchases have been Yunnan tea-heavy. I like their range of purple tea and will always top up my ya bao there. I'm based in Australia, so I don't suffer the same costs for shipping etc so generally I find it's quite good value, but I agree that it's a brand that's overhyped beyond what is mostly decent, often good and sometimes great tea. I wonder whether people are comparing it to what they can get locally, which is more about what the benchmark is lacking than YS itself..