sensiblyscript Send Message

From the Puerh Plus TTB. Not the strongest black I’ve had, but pleasant enough, with floral and biscuity notes coming along with a slight bitterness that would probably be great for helping me wake up in the morning.

From the Puerh Plus teabox. This tea has long, twisted dark leaves and gives off a very attractive fragrance even when dry. I’ve tried about two taiwan black teas before (one that I liked and one that I didn’t) so I was happy to find that this one has the wonderful sweet potato notes that make me want to dump brown sugar and butter in it, lol (I will resist! Because that would be a mess).

Eh. This did not taste how I was expecting it to taste based on the name and the smell. It didn’t really taste like chocolate at all to me, oddly. Although there was a nice coconut flavor, there was also a strange sort of off flavor. Maybe it was just really old; after all, I received the sample months ago and didn’t finish off until now. (Thanks for the sample, Teasipper! I’m glad I got to try it.)

This tea is from Hawaii!! By way of LP’s Regional Group Buy (Thanks LP!!!!), which is really awesome by the way.

So I’m not sure what the problem is, but I was drinking this tea today and it was trying to fool me into thinking that green teas are my favorite. Normally I prefer darker teas (blacks, pu-erhs, chais, roasted oolongs) and even when I do drink greens I prefer the sweet floral notes that go well with honey, but this tea’s vegetal, savory notes are making me super happy today for some reason instead of, well, the opposite. I guess it’s just a really good tea? Or else I’m just starting to enjoy the savory flavors in green tea, in which case I’m going to need a lot more green teas than I have, lol.

The leaves are great for at least three steepings (so far). The only thing I’ve noticed that detracted from the experience is a teeny bit of bitterness, which may be the result of my imprecise steeping temperature (I’ve just been boiling the water and then letting it rest for a couple of minutes before steeping. I really need to start using a candy thermometer or something).

YUM! This tea tastes so much of sweet potato (which I noticed especially on the second and third steepings) that I’m wondering if I should sweeten it with brown sugar and marshmallows, lol. It goes excellently with milk and sugar, in any case. :)

(So . . . apparently I like sweet potato notes in my tea? That seems to be the gist of this.)

Very sweet. Very excellent.

Me (sniffing the tea as it steeps): Well, this smells a lot more like green tea than I expected from something that’s been toasted.
Me (tasting the tea): Why on earth is it so sweet? This doesn’t taste like green tea at all. Except when it does.

Yes, this tea does have an inexplicable sweetness. It also has a warm brownish color, very fine leaf particles that like to escape the steeper thingy (just like green tea), and a nice toasted flavor. I shall now put some milk into it because low blood sugar is a thing that I’ve got right now.

ETA: It tastes very strange with milk. (As I suspected it might.) It masks most of the flavor so that mostly only the sweetness and the green-tea-esque seaweed notes show through, with a hint of toastedness. So it’s like sweet, creamy seaweed that’s been dried over the fire a bit too long lol. (I don’t normally like green tea with milk though, so I’m not too disappointed.)