So I was a bad person and brewed this Western style and also added a bit more sugar than usual in hopes that this would be palatable to me because I have yet to like a pu’erh, sheng or shu. But I keep trying, especially what Verdant sends me. The whole purpose of the membership is to expand my horizons after all. All of my notes on this tea should be viewed through that filter.
This tea still has that weird pu’erh aftertaste that I always get in the back of my throat, but upfront it’s actually not bad. I taste fig and raisins mostly. Maybe a little bit of vanilla in the tail end of the steep but I can’t tell if I actually taste it or if it’s the power of suggestions since I read the description. In any case, I don’t hate this, so I’ll probably continue drinking this and actually steep it more than once.
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One thing I’ve found with pu’erh is that I used to waaayy overleaf. Or just overleaf. And the flavour was not pleasant when I did that. It improved when I reduced the leaf by a fair bit, and kept to a short infusion time (looks like you did that part, though). It certainly still tastes like pu’erh, but was much more palatable.
That might be it. When I used a gaiwan for pu’erhs, I would put in about as much as they would recommend and it taste extremely gross to me, even if I tried to add sugar (and that was hard to judge with the tiny cups). This time I used 4ish teaspoons (and it was really clumpy so there wasn’t much in each teaspoon) for 750 ml. Hopefully tomorrow when I try the shu, I can replicate my efforts and that won’t be gross either.
One thing I’ve found with pu’erh is that I used to waaayy overleaf. Or just overleaf. And the flavour was not pleasant when I did that. It improved when I reduced the leaf by a fair bit, and kept to a short infusion time (looks like you did that part, though). It certainly still tastes like pu’erh, but was much more palatable.
That might be it. When I used a gaiwan for pu’erhs, I would put in about as much as they would recommend and it taste extremely gross to me, even if I tried to add sugar (and that was hard to judge with the tiny cups). This time I used 4ish teaspoons (and it was really clumpy so there wasn’t much in each teaspoon) for 750 ml. Hopefully tomorrow when I try the shu, I can replicate my efforts and that won’t be gross either.