2011 Black Star Puerh Stuffed Xinhui Mandarin

I bought this for… reason unknown. Maybe I wanted to try fruit filled puerh, at least that sounds like a plausible explanation.

Anyway, I split the mandarin in half and picking some amount of puerh inside with a finger. Also adding some of the peel. I just hope it is intended to be steeped with the tea.

I tried it once before writing this note, but as my 4 years old niece was around, I was rather checking if my cup is far enough from the table border, than checking the tea itself.

Today I prepared 3g/3 mins with 90°C water.

It much earthier than I have expected. I also notice some of the cardboard / paper note which seems like a flaw to me. It’s not what I was expecting, to be honest. Also, earthy note is strong and then it fades into that I wrote about. I do notice some of the orange zest, but rather in aroma than the taste.

As it cools down it is getting better. Not by a lot, though. Have I used wrong steeping parameters? Was I supposed to steep it gongfu only? Was it packed in the paper wrapping for too long? Discuss below.

Just a very short note. It’s my first introduction to tea and mandarin.

Due to the small, loose leaves I found it a bit hard to estimate the amount of tea (I don’t use a scale) and I perhaps understeeped a bit. At any rate, the deep darkness was gone after two steeps, leaving a brownish liquor.

The smell, as noted by others, was dominated by paper. When drinking, there was a very pronounced taste which I assume is what’s meant by medicinal. I haven’t tasted that in other shus, so I’m wondering whether this is the contribution of the mandarin or a result of mandarin and tea aging together. I didn’t get any smokiness.

I think it may be tasting better without the paper smell, so I put the remainder, sans wrapper, in a stoneware pot to be forgotten for a while. The wrapper, by the way, smelled incredibly strong of mandarin/orange. If I’d bought it anywhere else I’d have suspected the wrapper had been soaked in ethereal oil before packaging.

My latest obsession…puerh stuffed Xinhui mandarin. For the price, very underwhelming. No off flavors or wet storage, pretty clean, except a dominant taste of paper. Perhaps the paper wrapper that’s sealed inside plastic has affected the taste? I’ll leave some to air out for a bit to see if that goes away, update review as necessary.

Very pleasant and complex aromas, I am blown away by the smell. So yummy and relaxing, pleasant, just simply pleasant. Saying “citrus” doesn’t do it justice. It smells similar to the liqueur Grand Marnier. Musty earthy citrus herbal.

Aromas didn’t manifest into flavors unfortunately. Liquor was thinner than I prefer in shu, and pretty flat. Didn’t really get much complexity, much flavor, or even much ripe puerh flavors at all. Dominant paper taste with a tinge of herbal citrus.

Someone else said it was smoky, there was no smokiness in mine. Used gaiwan.

This is a very tasty puerh stuffed mandarin. There is the earthy taste from the ripe puerh and the smoky taste from the mandarin. It is not quite as smoky as some I have tasted. The earthy flavor was clean and persisted for about four steeps. The smoky taste was present even in the tenth steep. Presumably because of it’s smoked nature this tea did not develop in my opinion a taste of chocolate. But it definitely developed a fruity taste as much from the mandarin as from the ripe puerh. This is a fairly expensive puerh at something like $9.50 per 30g mandarin but it is good. It has no wet storage taste to it at all.

I steeped this in a 120ml gaiwan with 9.3g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse and a 10 minute rest. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min. Judging by the color of the tea in the tenth steep I’d say this was nearly played out but I’m fairly certain I could get two more steeps out of it.