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I thought I’d written a note about this but it appears I haven’t.

Before my hiatus, I had gotten up the courage to try cold brewing a pu-erh and I picked this one because I had metric ton of it compared to what I have of other pu-erhs.

I recently repeated that experiment and it was pretty interesting. I was worried that this one in particular might be a bad candidate for cold brewing because in the tin it has that rather fishy smell that some shus can have. But it actually worked out nicely as a cold brew. There’s a bit of saltiness, a leathery note, and some earthiness to the taste, but underneath that there’s a sort of thick black tea iced tea taste. It was surprisingly thirst quenching when I came in from running the other day.

Today I decided to try some in my little yixing that had sat neglected for so long after seasoning. The first infusion had the salty/leathery note I remembered from the cold version and was a sort of light mahogany in color. The second infusion was much darker, a sort of dark chocolate. At first I thought it had less flavor than the first infusion because the salt/leather was pretty much gone and the flavor was mellow and round. But mellow and round what, exactly, I’m not sure. Because there wasn’t a heck of a lot of flavor there. The third and fourth infusions went lighter again, back to the mahogany color, and back to a lesser version of the salt/leather with some round nothing thrown in.

It wasn’t unpleasant, it just wasn’t very interesting. I am thinking that my yixing, which has not been fully broken in, sucked whatever flavor out that might have substituted for the salt/leather. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s a difference when I try it in the gaiwan.

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I got obsessed with tea in 2010 for a while, then other things intruded, then I cycled back to it. I seem to be continuing that in for a while, out for a while cycle. I have a short attention span, but no shortage of tea.

I’m a mom, writer, gamer, lawyer, reader, runner, traveler, and enjoyer of life, literature, art, music, thought and kindness, in no particular order. I write fantasy and science fiction under the name J. J. Roth.

Personal biases: I drink tea without additives. If a tea needs milk or sugar to improve its flavor, its unlikely I’ll rate it high. The exception is chai, which I drink with milk/sugar or substitute. Rooibos and honeybush were my gateway drugs, but as my tastes developed they became less appealing — I still enjoy nicely done blends. I do not mix well with tulsi or yerba mate, and savory teas are more often a miss than a hit with me. I used to hate hibiscus, but I’ve turned that corner. Licorice, not so much.

Since I find others’ rating legends helpful, I added my own. But I don’t really find myself hating most things I try.

I try to rate teas in relation to others of the same type, for example, Earl Greys against other Earl Greys. But if a tea rates very high with me, it’s a stand out against all other teas I’ve tried.

95-100 A once in a lifetime experience; the best there is

90-94 Excellent; first rate; top notch; really terrific; will definitely buy more

80-89 Very good; will likely buy more

70-79 Good; would enjoy again, might buy again

60-69 Okay; wouldn’t pass up if offered, but likely won’t buy again

Below 60 Meh, so-so, iffy, or ick. The lower the number, the closer to ick.

I don’t swap. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that I have way more tea than any one person needs and am not lacking for new things to try. Also, I have way too much going on already in daily life and the additional commitment to get packages to people adds to my already high stress level. (Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does.)

That said, I enjoy reading folks’ notes, talking about what I drink, and getting to “know” people virtually here on Steepster so I can get ideas of other things I might want to try if I can ever again justify buying more tea. I also like keeping track of what I drink and what I thought about it.

My current process for tea note generation is described in my note on this tea: https://steepster.com/teas/mariage-freres/6990-the-des-impressionnistes

Location

Bay Area, California

Website

http://www.jjroth.net

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