Well, my first Pu-Erh… To say I was on the apprehensive side would be a bit of an understatement! These teas attract so much attention (and money) that I was vary wary of jumping in head first, particularly given all of the emphasis on smoky, earthy flavours, which aren’t my usual cup…
But people strongly recommended this as a ‘new-to-Pu-Erh’ Pu-Erh, and the review on Canton’s site seemed encouraging. So, out of curiosity more than anything else, I ordered myself a 50 g pouch.
So, in my gaiwan (the box and site say 200 ml, but I’m not convinced it’s volume is that high…), I brewed up 4g (to be on the safe side). The leaves had a very heavy, dark smell that I, admittedly, wasn’t all too impressed by. The rinse, too, made me worry slightly – it came of a fairly non-interesting brown, with a deep, dark aroma. Still, I didn’t want to give up yet!
My first steep was for 10" only and I poured it into a small, porcelain jug. The colour was much more impressive – a beautiful, deep mahogany colour. The aroma of the tea wasn’t overly strong – a nice, “earthy” (!!), surprisingly sweet smell. The aroma of the leaves, however, was truly special – a strong, beautiful treacle-like (molasses, for the Americans) smell! It was incredible – the change from the rinse was huge! Encouraged, I poured out a little cup of the tea and gave it a smell (still nothing much, but still very pleasant). Then the taste…
… well, what a marvellous surprise! A really well-rounded, sweet, vanilla-and-cream like tea! It had a charmingly light body and was very easy on the palette. And it was delicious! I demolished my first cup and topped up my gaiwan for steep 2.
For the second steep, I did another 10" (the first steep was still rather strong, so I didn’t want to push it) and finished off the first steep in the mean time (still delicious)! This second steep was somewhat darker, but still a deep mahogany colour. The leaves still had their warming, sweet treacle aroma and the liquor had its light, delicious smoky-treacle-toffee smell. The tea was even sweeter, but still so tasty and pleasing on the palette.
I prepared one more steep from the same leaves (~12") (still much the same as the second steep, pleasingly) before getting too “full” (I had just finished my lunch, after all), with a view to maybe try these leaves for a steep or two more in a couple of hours.
All in all, consider me well impressed! All of my reservations proved (thankfully) unfounded and this really did produce a delicious cup of tea! I’d strongly recommend it to any fans of sweet, dark, strong black teas. As this was my first Pu-Erh, I have nothing to compare it against (hence no score – YET), but I can’t imagine anyone could be disappointed in this tea. It was really delicious.
Flavors: Cream, Molasses, Smoke, Toffee, Vanilla
