Emperor's Puerh

Another great pot of Pu Erh + Fruit Melange. Today’s fruit was SpecialTeas Blueberry-Cream fruit Melange.

Yum!

This is my first puerh. I wanted to try an unflavored one first to get a sense of the tea by itself. The bag smells a little bit fishy, but not overpowering, and it continues to smell that way as it is steeping. As the steeping progresses, it smells like dirt. It tastes like a mixture of dirt and a little bit of fish-food, even with cream and sugar. I don’t think I will finish the cup.

I haven’t had this in a very long time. Today we were running out of the house to go to the laser tag place and I had to grab something fast. I didn’t have time to measure or think too much about water temp and I am down to very few types of bagged tea, so I grabbed this and stuck it in the Timolino.

I think that pu-erh isn’t really the best toodling around tea. Or at least not for me.

Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy this. It was leathery and a bit brothy like it apparently was the last time I had it, judging from my previous note. I just think that it’s meant to be sipped in peace and quiet and in smaller amounts.

I never realized how rushed my life is most of the time until I started having to fight for minutes to get tea made before leaving the house. Or even getting it ready to steep on the way. Sigh.

Well, THAT was gross.

I keep hearing about Pu’erh tea and feel like I should give it a shot, so I tried this one. It was, as expected, pretty darn gross. People had warned me that Pu’erh can smell very fishy and this one wasn’t VERY fishy, but it definitely had some of that vibe. People say it’s “earthy”, I think it smells like a gross fish market.

It’s funny as Numi’s Chocolate Pu’erh is so mild that it’s basically like a Rooibos and it is definitely good and doesn’t have this gross smell. I gotta try some other Pu’erh’s to be safe, but so far the traditional ones are pretty gross. The taste actually was mostly ok, but the smell was pretty bad and that didn’t sell really work out well for me.

Hmm. I’m new to Puerh tea so I recently picked up a big sample box from Numi of all of their Puerh offerings. I guess since this one has no added flavors in the name, it’s the closest in the box to a straight-up cake of something exotic– in bag form.

I neglected to sniff the bag before steeping, but as it steeped it gave off an earthy scent, perhaps leathery, but something familiar I couldn’t put my finger on.

After the first sip I knew– It tastes and smells a LOT like an unlit cigar. A high-quality cigar, mind you, but a cigar nonetheless. Like the taste you get when the cigar end has been trimmed, it’s in your mouth and waiting to be lit. Not a flavor I ever find myself Jonesing for. That’s not to say this tea is terrible, just not my thing. I’ll finish the other two sample bags I have and then be done with it.

Not a bad puerh from a bag! :-) I think Numi isn’t bad bagged tea overall.

For a quick puerh fix in an easy-to-transport tea bag, this tea does the trick.

I am also happy to see puerh making its way into the market; one of the first puerh tea bags! The quality of this tea is good enough to help people cultivate a taste for puerh.

You can’t go wrong with the Emperor.

As far as bagged teas go, Numi does tend to have better than most in their quality. This pu-erh tea (and its counter part: Ginger Pu-Erh) are relatively smooth and full bodied though I do typically have to steep them a bit longer than my other higher quality loose leaf pu-erh teas. However there is a highly beneficial aspect of them being portable. I tend to enjoy many pu-erh teas and while this one is definitely not the same caliber as my other pu-erh teas it is still enjoyable enough.

Reasonably drinkable for puerh, only a little fishy. I’ve had some taste and smell so horribly of dirty fish that after a few sips I threw the whole container in the trash.