Coffee

Gmathis noticed me raving about one of my favorites — the many variations on coffee puerh, so she sent over a sample of this one!  Thanks very much (and also for the super cute card! Books!  Tea!)   This might be the first tea I am trying from TeaMaze?   I could tell even before tipping the kettle over, the scent of the dry leaf could not be better.  This blend should have been called “The Best Coffee”.  At least to this coffee novice!  Then again, this is being marketed to tea people and not coffee people!  The flavor couldn’t be better here, the best parts of coffee — it’s coffee, but sweet, mocha, and a hint of cocoa.  Three steeps with great flavor. The twenty minute third steep was almost the same as the second steep.   However, the base is a little too weak for me, no matter which steep it is.  As a combination of puerh and black tea, I love the concept, but the result of the brew is so light in the mug. (The description says “robust” tea and I disagree.) But where I rate this tea so highly, is the perfect flavor that lingers through all three steeps:  IT’S COFFEE.  Delicious coffee to someone who avoids actual coffee. So I will allow the base here to take a backseat as the carrier of this perfect flavor I’m craving all the time (while not actually craving coffee).  Yum.
Steep #1  // 1 heaping teaspoon for full mug // 22 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 //  15 minutes after boiling // 3 min
Steep #3 // just boiled // 20 min

Thanks to gmathis again for the sweet little package! Wow, this flavor gave me such a blast of nostalgia. When we were kids, on long car trips, we’d sometimes stop at gas stations and mix together all the various cappuccino and hot chocolate flavors they had to create delicious concoctions. This tea is that flavor! I haven’t really had any coffee in the intervening decades, but I remember that flavor well. I taste coffee and cream and maybe some chocolate? This is great. I’d totally drink this again.

Thanks to gmathis for this sample and the lovely handmade card that came with it! Very fancy.

Been sitting on this for a couple weeks because I haven’t had the time to properly enjoy it, but it got cracked open today. The smell of the dry tea is delightful—strong and dark like European coffee with hints of bittersweet chocolate and Chinese black tea. Didn’t expect that to carry over to the actual taste, but it did! Sipping on this while I cleaned out all of my external aquarium filters made the whole process much more pleasant. Probably the best execution of a mocha tea that I’ve had so far.

Happy Boxing Day…as the servants are off duty (or would be if I had any), it was up to me to get the bedroom curtains down and in the washer. Rewarding myself with a cup of this rich, coffee-puerh-cocoa magic. Nothing to add to prior reviews other than I love this stuff and I’m glad I bought a refill when we were in the shop last month.

Theme song for the remainder of my Christmas break: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeELC0RoWak