Everything about this tea should have pointed toward me enjoying it. Vanilla, yes. Mint, yes. Pu-erh, yes. Favorable-ish reviews on Steepster, yes.
I should say at this point that something in this tea made me feel a bit ill, which is puzzling because mint typically does just the opposite for me and this tea was quite heavy on the mint. This no doubt is going to affect my rating, but I’m hoping that the next time I try this I won’t end up with a stomach ache and a scowl.
I actually wasn’t getting a lot of pu-erh taste on this at first, though I could definitely smell it. It was giving rise to a kind of chocolate-y taste, which was nice, since I like chocolate and mint. And oh, there was mint.
Mint, mint, mint, mint, mint.
The mint was loud. It was doing its best Tarzan impression and I was trying to smother it unsuccessfully to try and get other tastes out of the tea. The pu-erh, and I’m not really sure how to explain this, was giving it this earthy undertone without really being singular. It was giving the mint a little dimension, is another way of putting it, and I guess I found that enjoyable, but here’s where the good ended and things began to sour.
One, I couldn’t taste the vanilla. It just wasn’t there. I convinced myself that, at one point, I could taste it on the tip of my tongue because I was getting just a hint of sweetness, but the mint was doing a really good job of drop-kicking anything else that tried to compete with it in the arena that is my tongue, so there wasn’t enough for me to be happy with it.
Two, about half-way through the cup my stomach started to become very angry. I don’t know what caused it; perhaps it was mutinying illogically against the excessive mint, but it started to ache unpleasantly. I suspect that it might have been the pu-erh, but pu-erh has never upset me before and I don’t have any way of confirming this.
Because I’m a masochist, I continued to sip the tea, thinking that maybe it was something I had eaten, until I realized that I’d had, like, oatmeal and toast that morning and there’s no way that was what was upsetting my stomach. At this point I had to acknowledge that it was the tea, so I dumped it and brewed up some Moorish Mint, which was both tastier and quelled the stomach leprechauns.
I’m going to give this another try, but on a day when I’m feeling brave and know that the possibility of stomach issues won’t disrupt my day. For now, the rating shall suffer my wrath.
ETA: Picture | http://bit.ly/bqQoti
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Aww booo. I was hoping that this one would be good! It was going on my Rishi order, and now I think that I should take it off. :\
Awww… @Tokgoti, I love your reviews! Except for this one :(
I love this tea! And oddly, so does my entire non-tea drinking family.
@Teaplz I recommend you sample it for yourself. :)
@teaplz Don’t remove it on my account! Plenty of other people seemed to like it just fine! This may have been a misnomer – I have yet to try it again. I’ll let you know!
@Oh Cha! HAHAHA, I wouldn’t have rated it so low if it hadn’t left me with cramping aches! Hopefully a second run on it will leave me with happier results, but in the meantime, I need to rate accordingly, unfortunately.
Aww poor takgoti! My stomach always gets queasy with tea. It might be because you didn’t eat enough before drinking it? Pu-erh does help digestion soooo yeahhh….
This is a strange tea. The first time I drank it, I was getting more of the flavors. The second time I drank it, I was getting a strong pu-erh taste to it.
takgoti, it’s less the flavors, and more about the evil stomach issues. D: My stomach is super-delicate, and gets upset fairly easily (and tea can set it off sometimes), so… yeah. Sorry this one made you feel so awful!
I never understood that “aid digestion” thing. Is that a polite way to say that it’ll make you go, go, go, or does it mean that it’ll regulate you? So. Strange.
Haha, no no. The whole aid digestion basically means it helps you digest the food! Well it breaks it down / makes you hungry again. So it’s like hey drink some tea and eat some more food.
I also find that if I don’t eat enough before hand, black tea can sometimes make me queasy. I’ve never tried pu-erh before, though.
@Ricky That’s a good point, I hadn’t thought about that. I had a big bowl of oatmeal a few hours prior to trying this, which is usually pretty filling for me, but maybe I need to drink it RIGHT after I eat next time.
@teaplz Ah, crap, that’s right. Hrm. If you do get it maybe get the smallest size?
Aww booo. I was hoping that this one would be good! It was going on my Rishi order, and now I think that I should take it off. :\
Awww… @Tokgoti, I love your reviews! Except for this one :(
I love this tea! And oddly, so does my entire non-tea drinking family.
@Teaplz I recommend you sample it for yourself. :)
@teaplz Don’t remove it on my account! Plenty of other people seemed to like it just fine! This may have been a misnomer – I have yet to try it again. I’ll let you know!
@Oh Cha! HAHAHA, I wouldn’t have rated it so low if it hadn’t left me with cramping aches! Hopefully a second run on it will leave me with happier results, but in the meantime, I need to rate accordingly, unfortunately.
Aww poor takgoti! My stomach always gets queasy with tea. It might be because you didn’t eat enough before drinking it? Pu-erh does help digestion soooo yeahhh….
This is a strange tea. The first time I drank it, I was getting more of the flavors. The second time I drank it, I was getting a strong pu-erh taste to it.
takgoti, it’s less the flavors, and more about the evil stomach issues. D: My stomach is super-delicate, and gets upset fairly easily (and tea can set it off sometimes), so… yeah. Sorry this one made you feel so awful!
I never understood that “aid digestion” thing. Is that a polite way to say that it’ll make you go, go, go, or does it mean that it’ll regulate you? So. Strange.
Haha, no no. The whole aid digestion basically means it helps you digest the food! Well it breaks it down / makes you hungry again. So it’s like hey drink some tea and eat some more food.
I also find that if I don’t eat enough before hand, black tea can sometimes make me queasy. I’ve never tried pu-erh before, though.
@Ricky That’s a good point, I hadn’t thought about that. I had a big bowl of oatmeal a few hours prior to trying this, which is usually pretty filling for me, but maybe I need to drink it RIGHT after I eat next time.
@teaplz Ah, crap, that’s right. Hrm. If you do get it maybe get the smallest size?