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I made a pot of this to go with a cinnamon breakfast bagel this morning. My husband has been asking for black and puerh tea “just in case” it helps against Covid19, and I was getting tired of the same very mild ones all the time. I made this hoping it would pass muster enough, but instead of just passing (he usually wants oolong, white, or green) he said he thought it was really good. He was drinking it sans additions, too. So hooray!

Naturally I showed him some other black teas and rattled the tins, and then let me hear the lack of rattle of this tin. The leaves are too fluffy and light to make a sound! We made two steeps and mixed them together for one big pot. It was gone before we knew it. Good stuff.

This doesn’t have the roughness of some Assams that my poor tummy can’t handle.

Most of you know my husband prefers to drink oolong, green, or white tea. He likes black but has always needed milk and sugar to enjoy it so he asks for tea that he likes plain to keep it simpler and healthier.

Then I showed him the article about black and puerh tea extracts having efficacy against corona type viruses in a lab setting, just because it was interesting. But he has been super cautious because he is essential personnel and helped oversee setting a quarantine facility for the military as well as a drive through Covid testing site and has to keep working. Two coworkers got sick and were tested but no results have come through. He had little contact with them and isn’t worried, but a nine day hospitalization with near fatal pneumonia years ago has left him cautious, so basically I make black and puerh tea constantly while he is home.

While I am glad he is drinking black tea sans additions now, a wonderful wonderful takeaway from this situation, I was getting the screaming Mimis for something OTHER THAN mild black. So for supper last night, I made this.

I have two sample packs of it, and I desperately hope they still sell this because it was amazing. We tried to order Chinese food just to support the little family at our local restaurant but they have closed for now to stay safer, so I made mushrooms, onions, and red bell peppers in a veggie and soy sauce stock with Asian noodles. Basically it was a veggie lomein. It was delish. I love mushrooms, though, so…

The baked flavor was there, but with food it seemed only mildly roasted. It might be different if it was paired with sweets or served alone. The floral aspect was somehow heightened and oh my goodness, it was silky smooth and easy to guzzle. The food wasn’t heavy but it was substantial in texture and flavor, and yet still the tea managed to shine through and take a starring role in the meal. Definitely a re-order.

Huge pot made for breakfast. This is dark and woody.

I see a lot of reviews calling it fishy but it must have been that I got a better batch. It is a little tingly on the tongue after the sip, is going to resteep like gangbusters from the looks of these first two, and fills the need of something hot to drink.

I like it fine, but it is a daily drinker. I won’t have any trouble finishing it contentedly, but I do greatly prefer Adagio’s Pu Erh Chorange.

We finished this one today!

My husband had to go in to work for a little while this morning and then drop off papers at a coworkers house. I had told him about the article that said elements of black and puerh tea had been shown effective against SARS, and he texted me, “On the way back with bagels. Have some of that corona fighting tea available, please!” Ha ha!

He is being super careful, as he should be, and wants to fight this virus with everything we have at our disposal. He had a too-close-to-fatal brush with pneumonia years ago that left him hospitalized for nine days.

I made some honey walnut cream cheese and this tea. It is a really tiny tuo, but it does make a lot of tea. The recipe for the cream cheese is a copycat online for the one they sell at Panera.

I poured boiling water on it for about ten seconds and poured it off. I replaced the lid on the teapot and let it steam and open up for about five or ten minutes. Then I made two consecutive steeps of about four minutes each and combined them. The pot holds about 26 ounces.

The first steep was inky dark, and the second was still richly colored. Combined, they were a happy medium. It tasted great. I made a third steep and didn’t even time it because I thought it would need lots of time to extract whatever flavor is left, and we are drinking it. It is good, but it is a little lighter than I prefer. I should have used less water.

I am counting on the heat of the tea to make my throat a less hospitable place for viruses to thrive.

I noticed this tea is approaching its expiration date so I decided to concentrate on drinking it down. I have a LOT of it because it was soooo good and then I got distracted by other teas and let it languish. Time to fix that.

I had a very weird lunch of leftover barbeque (NC vinegar style from CookOut) and waffles with maple syrup. I told you it was weird. I had the bbq first and then made the tea and waffles.

My first sip reminded me why I bought so much all at once. Even though this is nearing its expiry date, it is still good. Tea needs to “cut through” the thick sweetness of the syrup for me, and this one did. Keemun does it by its raspy cocoa dryness, but this one was silky and sweet, with enough flavor contrast to make itself known through the maple.

I think it paired awesomely.

Has anyone seen this article? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142193/

It was about SARS which is a coronavirus, but basically what it says is that black and puerh tea did have an inhibitory effect on the virus by disrupting an enzyme, 3CL protease. Green and oolong not so much, as the tannins and theaflavin were the helpful bits! Well, any excuse to drink more tea, plus I am hoping the heat of the beverage makes my throat a less hospitable environment for viruses in general!

There are no confirmed cases in our county yet, though there are some in our state. Not worried too much about getting sick as we are taking reasonable precautions, but wondering how supplies of food and other necessaries will hold out with people hoarding.

Praying for all our steepsterites to stay healthy and well fed!

Sorry! Forgot to paste link first time around! It has been added.

My eldest daughter, Superanna, shopped for my birthday present here on Steepster using the wishlist. She noticed a tea from this company, and in addition to the one on my wishlist, chose this one. Floating Leaves also included a personal note and a nice sample of another pu!

This is the first one I am trying, as my youngest daughter gets tummy ache from sweets and wanted pu after the birthday cake yesterday.

I made it gong fu using my larger gaiwan. From one little tuo, we got 1.5 liters of good tea!

There was little of the horse-y manure aroma ripe pu can have. Instead this one seemed very woodsy like wood shavings from using hand tools that have lain on earth for a while. So earthy and woodsy.

It was super dark even with a very short steep around steeps two through five (I did pour off a rinse and let it rest) but it was smooth and mild. This is a good daily drinker type puerh that is probably hard to mess up.it didn’t seem at all finicky.

Thank you, Superanna, for the gifts!

I haven’t been having many epic tea experiences lately, just drinking lots and lots of what I often drink. But this tea stopped me in my tracks yesterday to sit and admire it.

The first times I had it years ago I noted it had strong sweet potato notes. Years later, I described it as creamy and smokey. That is what I got yesterday.

I was trying to clean up my tea shelves and saw a sample of this in the box, and I th8nk I have a whole bag in another box. I decided it was a good candidate to go with my cookies in the sunny spot in the yard. I didn’t expect to be bowled over, but I was.

The first year I tried it I said I would prefer it gong fu style without food, but this smokier season is brilliant with food. It is very nearly like Grace Tea Russian Caravan. I am having it again today because I enjoyed it so much.

Some fun news – mrmopar and I have been very, very busy digging around on the internet because I noticed some of the places he talked about visiting and one of them is a town where my grandfather’s family came from. My mother didn’t really know him as she was raised in an orphanage but we knew who her parents were. I decided mrmopar and I might be distant cousins in my Virginia line so I wrote to him and asked if he would share his grandparent’s names, which he did.

Well, surprise, surprise! We ARE related, but more distantly than I thought and from before the families moved to America. (Both sides have mostly been here since 1690-1750. They are primarily Scottish, Irish, English, and Welsh.)

My ninth great-grandmother is his eleventh great-grandmother, way back when they still lived in merry olde England! The generations are somewhat off because my mother was a very late in life child for her dad and I was also for my parents. When this happens over repeated generations, two people of the same age can end up being “removed” cousins, as happened with us.

I am tickled pink, even if it was so far back! We have had a lot of fun tracking these things down and I am proud to be a cousin, however distantly, to mrmopar!

I had this with breakfast today, which was just a buttered English muffin. I haven’t had it in a while and last time was probably gong fu. I really didn’t remember what it tasted like, and didn’t look it up, but just reached for it for a change of pace.

It was really good. I used my Kamjove and resteeped once. What surprised me was that when I sipped, it cut through the taste of the food with a fruity, citrus-y taste rather than the low scrape of chocolate-y black tea I expected. But really, that comes more from Keemun tea.

I have been trying to send a private message to some folks, including mrmopar, but it just isn’t working for me on steepster. Anyone else having a problem?

Also, I have discovered spill planes and the delightful history of spills and now I want one. How is that for a start in woodworking, to get a tool that purposely makes useful trash? Any woodworkers here?

I ordered this just because I wanted to get something from the Teavivre US warehouse to show support while their China warehouse is closed due to Coronavirus. They have been so generous with samples and such and have great customer service, so I chose a couple of things I knew I would love to have more of on hand.

I made this to go with lunch today. I have never served it to my husband that I can recall, and he usually takes milk and sugar with black tea. Since he has been drinking lots of roasted oolong, I didn’t mention that this was black and he drank it and liked it plain. It really is mild.

It had nice creamy texture and sweet potato aroma so lots of sweetness here. We made two steeps. I used lots of leaf since it was to go with food. This is best to me as an afternoon tea, I think, rather than a breakfast one. I expect we will plow through this bag in no time.

I think tonight I will use it for our gong fu session and see how well it goes for that!