Hello Steepster, haven’t been posting in a while! I’ve still been drinking tea, but nothing noteworthy until now. I’m trying yet another new tea from Rishi, a company that is quickly garnering more and more of my appreciation with their quality teas. This time it is dun, dun, duuuuun a pu-erh blend. I was, for obvious reasons, wary of trying this one, but because Rishi has convinced me that their teas are usually really good, I decided to give it a go.
The first time I opened the bag, I got a hefty waft of ginger (and a subtle earthy smell of the pu-erh). It felt like a kick in the nostrils, so I was expecting the ginger to be quite strong in this blend. And it is, as we will get to in a bit. The instructions said to brew this with boiling water for 4 minutes, adding a minute per each additional steep. I was doubtful, because 4 minutes for a pu-erh seems to be quite a long time. And I think I was right, because after just 1.5-2 minutes the tea was already dark and has a strong aroma. These two signs I usually take to mean that the tea is strong enough for me to drink, and I decided to pull the plug on the steeper.
The tea was just right in strength: not over-brewed but strong enough for me to be satisfied with enough flavour. The ginger is quite strong in the blend – in fact it is the dominant flavour note – but the pu-erh also comes through, though rather sneakily, almost as if it knows I am waiting for it like an intruder in the night and it doesn’t want to get caught. It’s not bad though. To be honest, it is a bit hard to separate from the powerful ginger flavour and aroma, but I do get the slight earthiness (?) in the background. I think this was a good way to ease into becoming acquainted with the taste of pu-erh, but because this tea is predominantly ginger-flavoured (which is not bad, I like ginger), I will have to try some of LP’s sample pu-erh packets to really delve into the pu-erh world.
