My Zen Tea

I’m not much of a puerh drinker – actually not at all, except for a flavored one from Lupicia, which is delicious beyond belief, but doesn’t count in my book as you can barely taste the tea. I bought these mini cakes quite a few years ago at a tea and coffee expo in New York, drank one mini cake, and promptly forgot about it. The last few nights, I’ve revisited it, drinking it to relax at the end of the day. I usually do 2 or 3 steeps (not including initial rinse), use a Western teapot, I basically don’t fuss with it at all – boil the water, drop in the mini cake, brew and drink. In mugs – again, not my usual – I like something finer to sip my tea from, but it all seems to work well for this tea.

Very forward taste of wood, slight smoke, and the earthiness I expected. Quite mellow, and really easy to drink. I find it very warming and relaxing, perfect for the cold weather we’ve been having. A bonus is that it seems to settle my tummy really well. I get the feeling that we’ll be going through more of these mini cakes over the next few weeks. As it says in the description, it’s a good entry tea for newbies to puerh as it’s not expensive, and easy to brew and drink.

I drink this Western but tonight I wanted to try it out with a gongfu session.

Disclaimer: This is only my second batch chrysanthemum buds/flowers to ever drink. But I feel positive about this. Pleasant. Clean. Relaxing.

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While it is only a first impression, I’d say this tea is not very good. It started out with a taste of wet wood. It then got sour for several infusions, It got a little better in later infusions. There were some sweet notes but not many. There was a lot of fermentation flavor in the early steeps.

I brewed this eight times in a 170ml teapot with 9.1g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec.

Very dark and earthy flavor. Short to medium finish that is very, very top of the back of the throat mostly.

Second steep is really sharp almost black. Also a rich brown, coffee-like almost. Thick mouthfeel, yep almost black.

A weird bit of not really there sweetness.

It puts me in mind of a light espresso, really…