Yim Thai tea

Yim is the dye-free Thai tea. A 100% natural Assam loose-leaf lightly flavoured with real vanilla and nothing artificial — no colouring, no artificial flavour. It tastes like Thai tea; it does not look like it. Brewed with milk it turns amber-brown rather than orange, because the orange in every mainstream mix is an added dye and Yim leaves it out. That is the whole difference, and the whole reason to buy it.

This page is a directory entry: what the brand is and what is in it. It does not rank Yim against anything — the dye-free tier is ranked in the best mixes guide and laid out by colour in Thai tea without dye.

What is in the bag

Assam black tea and vanilla. That is the list. Assam is the malty, full-bodied Indian black tea that Thai tea blends are built on anyway, so the base flavour is the same family as the orange bags — clean, strong, and able to hold up under sweetened condensed milk. What you lose is the colour; what you keep is the cup.

Expect it to brew amber. This is the single most common complaint from people trying a dye-free mix for the first time, and it is not a fault. Colour from tea alone is brown. If you want dye-free and orange, that is a different route — carotenoid colouring — and it is covered on the dye-free page.

Format and price

Loose leaf only. No instant, no bags, no gold tier. It sits above the mainstream mixes on price — roughly two to three times Cha Tra Mue per ounce, which is the going rate for the natural tier across every brand in it — and it is the most reviewed and easiest to find of the dye-free options in the US, which is why it is the one this site points to first.

Brewing it

Same ratio as any loose Thai tea mix — about 10 g to 350 ml, five minutes, strain, milk, ice. Do not steep longer to "get the colour"; it will not come, and you will get bitterness instead. Method: the classic recipe, or the dairy-free version, which pairs naturally with a dye-free leaf.

What people actually say about it

Yim comes up 2 times across 1 of the 39 public discussions we read — 1 clear endorsement, 1 qualified, 0 against. That is a thin sample and should be read as one: enough to show the brand is known, not enough to rank it against anything. Counted the same way for every brand, method and rules on the full dataset.

• “I've ordered Yim Thai Tea off of Amazon before. They claim to use no food coloring and the taste is pretty similar to what I've had at restaurants. It's pricey, but might be worth it.”

  for · tea, 2018-06-19

• “I've tried this one and it tastes good and tastes pretty accurate when made correctly and mixed with condensed milk and sugar, but its still slightly different.”

  qualified · tea, 2018-06-19

Other people’s stated experience, counted; not our taste test. Last read 2026-08-29.

Head to head

• Cha Tra Mue vs Yim — dyed against dye-free, and what the natural tier costs.

Brand details reflect what the maker states on its own packaging and listings, checked August 2026. Formulations change — read the ingredient panel before you buy. Spot something wrong? Tell us and we'll fix it.