Scottish Caramel Toffee Pu-Erh

sipdown! (174) I apparently felt like a few of missB’s samples today :) I love a good scottish caramel toffee puerh. I have no idea if the few that i’ve tried all ultimately come from the same source but i will never say no to this particular tea. there’s something delicious about the earthiness of the puerh mixing with the caramel that leaves me happy. It’s not sweet but it’s delicious! Happy to have tried another variation on this one!

Scottish Caramel Toffee Pu-erh This one is not bad at all in fact it’s quite nice. The aroma of the dry leaf is very sweet like candy and earthy at the same time, the aroma of the steeped leaves at first is slightly pasty like some type of sweet dough yet very earthy, musty and kind of mushroom like. I rinsed this one because of the musty smells and the first steep tasted almost just like the way I described the aroma but not really in a good way I was very musty almost fishy at first and very dough like those flavors started to fade after the second steep and the flavors were very strong but not very sweet like a toffee candy the way it smelled so at that point I added some sweetener to it that really brought out the flavors, by the third steep slightly sweetened this was a very nice tea it tasted slightly like caramel and toasty very rich it does not need much sweetener but just a touch to make it come alive. the forth cup is really good you can taste the earthy puerh and caramel type flavors. 5th cup is still very earthy and delicious so far tho it is now starting to fade away but I usually start with short steeps and increase times as I go along so I made quite a few cups already. 6th cup I decide to have again without the sweetener because I just don’t care for too much sweet teas, the color has faded out some and the flavor is weak and taste almost of watered down whiskey still not too bad, I don’t think this one is going much further. It was a nice tea over all probably one that I will purchase again in the future, I recommend you try it if you LOVE puerh. After this tea I felt the need for a mild green tea to cleanse my palate because this tea was just so rich and flavor full.
See photos on my blog
http://toadsteablog.blogspot.com/2012/11/scottish-caramel-toffee-pu-erh-by.html

I needed to try this asap when I started seeing MissB’s tasting notes saying she loved it so much she was drinking it every day! Basically, I wanted to see if I loved it too, hopefully to make up for the fact that she sent me some before she tried it herself. So I especially thank you for sending this one, MissB!

Both steeps of this ARE amazing! (Just boiled, one teaspoon, 4-5 minutes.) It’s the best sort of pu-erh. Deep, dark, flavorful, sweet, dusky. It’s perfect, really. The toffee (tiny chips) are just an added bonus to add to the sweetness of the pu-erh. I just love the deep earthiness with the sweetness. Exactly as I was wishing/hoping this tea was! I could sip this one every day too… so I hope you don’t regret sending some of this over, MissB! :D

Edited to add: hmm… apparently I have no idea what I’m talking about, since I don’t actually SEE any tasting notes from MissB for this tea!

Edited again: Ah, I was just reading tasting notes and it’s Tea Desire’s Caramel Pu-erh that MissB loves so much. Now I don’t feel so bad about buying some of this one. :D

In the bag, and in the steeper, it smells sooo sweet and yummy. I can’t tell too well, but I don’t think this is quite as good as a previous, and similar, tea like this…but it is still tasty. The two teas could be from the same source, for all I know, but the caramel/toffee bits in this one seem smaller. Maybe it was a little weaker? I definitely picked up the pu erh base, and it was sweet and yummy….

I’ll definitely drink this one down, but maybe I was not in the mood for this after all…even though I’d been thinking about it all during my failed nap.

I dunno…I’m having mixed feelings about this one for some reason, even though I did like it, and like this sort of tea. Thanks to MissB for tossing this one my way.

I am liking this tea a little more this time than last time. Maybe my taste buds are working better but the toffee is tasting good. Maybe the puerh has aged in the six months since I drank this tea. I still don’t find it spectacular but I am liking it today, enough to raise my rating three points. I don’t know if this tea would be better gongfu style but today it got western style, one big cup.

I brewed this tea one time in a Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/ Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 200 degree water for 30 sec after one rinse.

I’m smelling this tea and I’m picking out really soft, creamy, icing-like notes that are weirdly offset by the earthy tea base. The tea smells very dark, damp, and leathery—reminding me of Mandala’s Lincang but much less graceful. There are two RADICALLY different scents here that don’t seem to jive well together. It’s confusing. It also makes my stomach hurt a little bit.

First sip: Okay, it’s not so bad. The tea base isn’t as pungent as I anticipated. It’s actually quite smooth. However…the flavor pairing is just horrid. And I don’t even know if I like the flavor of the additives. It certainly doesn’t say caramel or toffee to me. It’s more like those crazy sweet, thickly iced sugar cookies that are coated with sprinkles you find in Wal-Mart or in the “cheap baked goods” section of any grocery store. And I don’t know about you, but I hate those. It’s not a “bad” flavor per se but it calls to mind bad flavors.

It also leaves this soapy chemical taste in my mouth after each sip. (Gets worse as the tea cools down. Or maybe just because the taste is building up in my mouth. I can’t tell.)

I couldn’t even finish the cup.

It’s sad because I desperately wanted to like this tea. ):