Organic Japanese Puerh

Wow, this puerh is really different! There’s no fishyness! It’s not pitch black and strong for the first few steeps – even following the recommended steeping of boiling water for 4 minutes! Butiki’s japanese puerh has some good barley, nutty, brown rice syrup, and coffee. What I found interesting was there was a slight dryness in the first few cups, but it went away with further infusions.
And this tea can resteep very well!

Full review on my blog, the Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/organic-japanese-puerh-from-butiki-teas-tea-review/

Stacy over at Butiki Teas is on my mental wavelength.

She should probably have that checked.

Her flare for the unusual rivals even my own. And, boy, was this unusual. I mean that in all the best possible ways I can muster. While it technically shouldn’t be called a pu-erh in the traditional (read: Yunnan-produced) sense, it meets all the character criteria I care about. That being, it actually tastes good. Cocoa was at war with coffee, and chestnuts were the jury and arbiter…er…as far as flavor goes.

Whatever it’s called, I want more of it.

My full feature on it (and other tea/writing adventures) can be found here: http://steepstories.com/2012/11/12/writing-epiphanies-and-japanese-pu-erh/

Unsurprisingly, this reminds me of my beloved genamicha. I love the toasted rice in that tea, and I’m enjoying those flavors here as well. I could swear I’m tasting the faintest hint of seaweed, too, but maybe it’s just my brain taking the connection a little too far. I’m also getting some soy sauce, but there’s a sweet finish. This is quite roasty, but aside from that—and, perhaps, from the depth of texture—I wouldn’t say it’s particularly reminiscent of coffee. It’s a very smooth tea as well, and not very earthy at all by puerh standards. It does leave my mouth feeling kind of dry, which is strange and not entirely welcome, but for a tea this unique and flavourful I can deal with it. Definitely one of my favorites from Butiki.

Sipping down a sample.

The tea smells and tastes like umami. Bonito flakes and soy sauce, but very delicate and lightly sweet.

Would be excellent in chazuke, a Japanese tea and rice soup.

Not 100% sure about sipping on this one.

As it cools, it gets a little fruity, a little bitter. It’s really quite interesting, but I’m glad I only have this one cup sample to sip down.

I took a half day from work today, met Casey in Santa Rosa for dinner at 5 o’clock, and am now home brewing a lot of tea. Today is a good day!

My first impression was that this smelled like cooked rice with a dash or soy sauce. Casey said the flavor reminded him of slightly burnt caramel corn. There is a slight sour (not bad) note, I belive Stacy said it was like sourdough and I’d say that’s accurate. This is a very interesting, unique tea!

After eating a few clementines, I poured another cup of this tea. Maybe it was the fruit taste still left in my mouth, but suddenly there was a strong note of blackberry mid-sip. This was a very nice way to end my evening!

Thank you Stacy for this sample: I like it enough to purchase in the future for sure.
It’s buttery and smooth, absolutely no musty/funky taste. I detect some notes of roasted rice and slight fruitiness. Vey nice indeed!

Mainly writing this tasting note to serve as a reminder to myself not to follow the recommended 1.5tsps. I haven’t drank this in a long while, but in the past have always used 1tsp and it’s came out fine (as far as I can remember). This cup, I followed the recommendations and used 1.5, and it is not good . It’s bitter and astringent and I can’t pick out any redeeming notes. I also typically use a larger mug of around 10ish oz, and this was definitely a smaller 8oz cup. That has to be it, because I don’t know what else could have caused such a drastic change in experience. Not changing the rating partially because I never rate down, only up, but mainly because this is almost certainly user error and I hope to avoid making the same mistake next time. So yeah, don’t overleaf.

Dry leaves dark and smell syrupy and fruity. Reminds me a bit of a heicha I’ve had. SO thinks it smells like coffee beans. I do a rinse and then a steep.

First steep tastes kind of coffee-like and a bit of smoke. There is a bit of sour stonefruit in there for me. I am again reminded of that heicha. SO gets vegetal, which she’s not a fan of. She also picks up on the smoke, which she doesn’t like in tea. Roasty notes are there, but I’m not really getting chestnut.

The smell of the liquor transforms after the first steep. I honestly don’t really have the words to fully describe the smell or flavor that I get from this point on. It is drying on the back of the tongue and throat. There is definitely some camphor, some tobacco and there is a nice, focusing cha qi that I was definitely not expecting.

Of course, this is not a true puerh, and I wish that there was more information about it, but since Butiki is no longer around, all I’ve got to go on is what was posted here. All-in-all, this has been a very interesting experience that I will have to further explore in the future!

I really want to love this… but I can only enjoy it for what it is to me.

This brews one brisk tea that doesn’t have the appeal that a ripe pu’erh has. The smell is close to a roasted Japanese tea which is odd, but the taste is somewhat like dirty brown sugar left on top of grass near a stream on the outskirts of Tokyo. That is to say that there is a mixture of old and fresh combined. While this is not what I consider pu’erh to generally be… it’s a fun cup to sip at. I’m not sure if this is something I would want to drink again because it doesn’t leave me very satisfied.

Also, this guy on Ebay called me a stickler because I suggested to ship a book using media mail to save $5… but then he responded 10 minutes later with, ‘just kidding, I work a desk job’
HOW THE HELL ARE THOSE TWO THINGS CONNECTED?

To me this tea is a cross between a ripe puerh, a raw puerh, and a roasted oolong. That is the best way I can describe it. It’s not as good as a good Chinese puerh but it’s decent, very different. Not sure what notes I am getting here, definitely not stonefruits as in the writeup on Steepster. More like tobacco I think. I didn’t use the recommended infusion time of 4 min as I never infuse puerh that long.

I brewed this twice in a 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 30 sec each time.