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Hallieod drank Wild Purple Buds Puerh by Butiki Teas

73 tasting notes

Generous sample sent to me by Stacy along with my order – aim: to make me no longer fear the puerh, accomplished! Thank you, Stacy! I’m not going to be able to do a proper tasting note for this one, especially given the number of infusions I got before I had to leave it and do other, more boring things. (Like cleaning.) But briefly, some of the notes I got were tobacco (strongest in the first infusion), honey (ditto), oak, a peppery bite (didn’t taste like pepper, but had that kind of bite – strongest in 3rd and 4th infusions), and then back to a very smooth oaky smokey one, with that lasting through all subsequent infusions. I was trying to get the flavour of the ‘bite’, and it was driving me crazy, as I could not pin it down. And suddenly I got it – serendipity helped, because we’d just got some Amaretti biscuits, which I haven’t had in ages, and we’ve been eating at night with our rooibos. These are totally different tasting from the macaroons I’m more used to, although the package translates ‘Amaretti classici’ as ‘classic crunchy macaroons’. The ingredients are sugar, apricot kernels, almonds and egg white, in that order, and I don’t know if it’s the apricot kernels that give the bite, although other than very bitter almonds, it can’t be anything else? If it was just the baking longer to make them crunchy, they’d taste more of toasty almonds. Anyway, that’s the bite in the Puerh!

Very much enjoyed drinking this today, and still have enough for another session!

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Butiki Teas
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Yay, I’m so glad this has helped you conquer your fear of puerh!

Hallieod
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Thanks, Stacy – much more fun than conquering fear usually is! :)

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Butiki Teas
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Yay, I’m so glad this has helped you conquer your fear of puerh!

Hallieod
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Thanks, Stacy – much more fun than conquering fear usually is! :)

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I’ve been drinking tea pretty much all my life, allowing for the fact that there probably was no tea in my baby-bottles. I gave it up twice, once when a then-boyfriend sneered at me for being addicted (okay, I was, but I was also stubborn enough to bear a week of the blinding headaches and overwhelming exhaustion that followed cold-turkey withdrawal), and once on my first pregnancy. Neither experience gave me any reason to believe a life without tea is a good life.

Having spent most of my younger days in Ireland, where tea is everywhere, and mostly it’s decent, I whined my way across the States in the 80s and first half of the 90s. Now back in Dublin, and the tea situation is a bit mixed, but there’s the internet to provide what nearby shops don’t!

I started drinking green and white teas as well as my staple black a good few years ago now, but have recently decided I need to LEARN something more about tea than the little I know.

My likes:
- strong black tea blends; some flavoured blacks, such as Earl Grey and a small (but growing) number of other fruit and flower-flavoured ones; and chai. (For some daft reason, I feel like a tea fraud drinking sweet chai at home, though I’ll happily drink it out.)

- Chinese greens (may update this when I’ve learned enough to be more specific); some flavoured greens, especially if they’re made by the fabulous Yumchaa; Genmaicha; getting to like Sencha, as long as it’s not too bitter.

- White tea, pretty much as long as it’s good quality, I like it. Some flavoured ones are nice, though it’s easy to overpower the more delicate taste of white.

- Rooibos, which I know, I know, isn’t properly ‘tea’. (As above for Yumchaa flavoured rooibos – some of my favourites.)

Dislikes:
- Any black tea made by someone who doesn’t know you need BOILING WATER. (See above about the Whining Years.)

- Hibiscus in fruit-flavoured teas. Looks so pretty! Tastes so awful!

I’m working on trying to like Hojicha, which isn’t going too well yet. Jane Pettigrew describes it as “biscuity”, but unless she’s eaten a lot of cigarette-flavoured biscuits in her time, I don’t get it.

- Aniseed in spiced teas. (Just discovered this one for the dislike list today, in an otherwise-tasty chai. Don’t like the tongue-numbing effect.)

Indecisive, despite being opinionated – okay, very opinionated – so may just add notes rather than rating.