16 Tasting Notes
I’d never had pu-erh before, and was hoping for something a bit more… intense? I should note that the description on the box says it’s sweeter and less earthy than traditional pu-erh, so I can’t accuse them of false advertising on that count. Unfortunately, not earthy, relatively sweet, and complex, while it might be unique among pu-erhs, also means it doesn’t deviate much from the norm of green teas, so I was a bit disappointed.
It smells softly earthy, which is promising, but the taste doesn’t measure up. It’s very mild, first of all. I could barely taste anything at 2 minutes, so I resumed steeping for a little longer and had more luck then. What I can taste is interesting, definitely complex. A bit sweet, dry, astringent… The problem is that it’s so light in flavour that my not-yet-refined palate is having a hard time picking up on the nuances. I might experiment with steeping time to see if I can coax out more of the flavour.
Preparation
One of my favourite flavoured teas. I love ginger, and there’s definitely a good bit of it in here. It doesn’t bite as much as it burns on a low level, if that makes sense. I also taste more peach than many people have noted, but it’s definitely dependent on steeping time – I’ll need to pay more attention the next few times I have this. Then again, I’m not a huge fan of fruity teas, so a touch of peach is all I need. Very interesting, versatile tea. I’ll drink it often.
I can’t quite decide how I feel about this. I wasn’t really impressed to see that the tea was more fruit and spices than tea leaves. Brewing, it smelled incredibly spicy, almost overwhelmingly so. But to taste, it was really sweet. Sweeter than any other chai I’ve tried, and fruitier, too. I give it credit for having good depth of flavour, and it was quite strong for a fairly short steeping. I found the cinnamon a bit overwhelming, though.