39 Tasting Notes
The more I drink this tea, the more I like it. The leaves smell like a candy orange, and although I’m not sure that I get much caramel flavor, this is more creamy that a tea with only orange flavor. I think I will need to have a few more cups of this to determine my final feelings on this….
This is my first venture into the world of pu erh, and I have to admit, I’m kinda terrified. My mother wanted to try this because of supposed weight-loss benefits, but she wasn’t able to commit to the extra effort involved in making loose leaf tea. Today I took this (and her gravity steeper, so now I have 2) off of her hands. The dry leaves smell like moss and earth. However, as soon as poured hot water over these leaves to rinse them, I got a fishy aroma (and was even more terrified). For the real first steeping, like others have said, this tea brews really really dark. The fishy aroma is no longer present. The first sip tasted like earth, but not in a dirty way (if that makes sense), but I got a sharp astringent note at the end. This went away with the addition of a bit of brown sugar :). Overall, I’m not sure pu erh’s are for me, but I think I will be able to tolerate this very interesting tea.
Hate to tell you but don’t judge puerh by this one. It was one of my first too…yuck! Puerh is indeed delicious..so check out some others. Try a naturally flavored puerh, or look for the favorites under the tea tab and select puerh. Companies I suggest are Mandala, Verdant’s Imperial Breakfast Blend or Cinnamon Puerh blend, Butiki’s Phoenix Coins and Steapshop’s Cinnamon Swirl Bread.
manadala does amazing puerhs, as does verdant. and if you want to start slow, maybe look at trying ‘cinnamon swirl bread’ by steap shoppe….. the puerh plays the part of the bread and is awesome!
myself, i prefer loose puerh over nested because they tend to be muuuuuuuuch heavier. the best i’ve ever had is verdant’s golden buds puerh.
just my unsolicited opinion!!!
Still feeling sick today, but luckily I had a short day at school. The citrus flavor I get from this tea doesn’t taste completely real to me. I always found it strange that the description for this tea says that it is lemon and lime flavored, but the ingredients list only mentions orange. Nevertheless I enjoyed this hot today to help my sore throat.