Hm, well, it’s an odd one. I like Pu-erh teas, not my all time favorites but I can appreciate the nuance and the savory, earthy taste they sometimes carry. This one is pretty good, and the cardamom certainly makes the pu-erh more palatable, but it’s quite disorienting in some ways.
Specifically, it smells like fish when it’s brewing. Fish with a subtle hint of cardamom…sounds like a pretty nice dish, but not necessarily what I imagine when I’m brewing tea. So once it’s finished brewing (I followed Numi’s suggestion of about 4 minutes) it doesn’t taste like fish at all to me.
It’s got the earthiness I’ve come to expect with pu-erhs, and a nice thick body to it. There is a lot of cardamom, and over all it just tastes…okay. I like it, but I don’t think it will sway chai fans, for example, into the world of pu-erh based off of scent alone. And pu-erh connoisseurs may not appreciate the presence of cardamom. It’s not bad, but I just almost don’t know who it’s for…Well, as a fan of cardamom and pu-erh I think it’s pretty good. If you are in that venn diagram, you may like it as well.
Flavors: Cardamom, Earth, Mushrooms
