i actually brought a pu-erh cake and my small glass gung fu to work today.
it won’t be the classiest steep of all time, but i realized i was never gonna drink my unflavored or traditional teas if i didn’t start putting a little extra effort forth and make some compromises. and i’m pretty excited about this.
i did one 30 second rinse. then one 30 secondish steep. i realized a little too late i should have done both shorter. but this is learning! and it’s still a good tea experience i get to have.
the cake loosened and dissolved into little tea flakes immediately. after the rinse, the fishy pu-erh scent was immediately present, but not strong!! it really wasn’t.
again, i’m not very pu-erh knowledgeable yet, but i can immediately tell that this is much better than the crappy davidstea pu-erhs i’ve tried. (don’t get me wrong, i like davidsteas a lot! and they have a ton of great teas but really they do not do pu-erhs well at all.)
i steeped the next cup at 20 seconds, and then the next one at 30 seconds, etc. and my pu-erh innocence tells me that this is a very very good tea. my other great experience with pu-erh is a blood orange pu-erh from Carytown Teas that i tried once and then couldn’t get it out of my head. (so of course i own 2oz of it now.)
this is a rambley review i realize.
i think i have gained perspective on how a good pu-erh should taste. i’m excited.