Pu-Erh Candy Bar

Sipdown! Was craving pu’erh all day today, and now than I’m home, I’m feeling very satisfied.

Rinse: 200 mL hotish water for 10 seconds

Steep 1: 200 mL hot water, 2 minutes
Lots of fermented tea (pu’erh) for sure, but also sweet honeybush. Notes of cocoa, sweet honey, honeysuckle flowers, quite woody. No astringency of bitterness anywhere, but I find at the end of a sip of pu’erh it almost burns my sinuses and throat like chili or alcohol. I notice it with all of the varieties and flavours I have tried.

Steep 2: Very woody still, brew smells strongly of honeybush and rooibos. Slight flavour of Earth, but not mossy or dusty.

Wet leaf smells strongly of raw cocoa and honeybush. No fermentation smell, just a bit of Earthiness.

Thank you Liquid Proust for the generous sample!

I’m trying this one first as a cold brew. I remember when LP was in the process of blending this one I made a note to myself that while it didn’t quite sound appealing enough for me to buy it (no offence) it WAS something that I wanted to eventually get a chance to sample, so seeing it included in my most recent package from LP was definitely exciting!

It’s funny, he wrote something along the lines of “I know it sucks” on the sample but I actually quite enjoyed it! I found that it had the sweetness/richness I’d want out of a tea named for a candy bar but that it wasn’t cloying/artificial tasting and the the primarily Pu’erh base really grounded the flavours in a positive way! I loved the mellow chocolate notes paired with the earthier, almost game-y Pu’erh. Though, I did just finish reading Daylon’s review and I agree that because it’s a pu’erh blend it falls in a weird “in between” zone where it’s not gonna be fully appreciated by hard core Pu’erh drinkers or novices. It’ll take someone with a sort of ‘medium’ familiarity…

You know, like me.

GCTTB
this one is kinda fun. It’s sweet but also has a strength to it from the puerh. there’s honeybush in here certainly…but it’s just a delicious cup. I might prefer this as just a straight up puerh, but as a blend this is pretty tasty. I can see puerh noobs finding this one pretty tasty if sweet is up their alley :)

GCTTB5

Thanks again Liquid Proust for adding this tea to the box!

Blends like this are perfect for pu’erh noobs like me. I want to like pu’erh but for me, it is a bit of an aquired taste. But, I’m definitely getting to like them!

This one is fairly sweet with notes of woody earthiness from the base. I had no idea what steeping parameters to use so I just winged it… I steeped this four times (resteeps at 3.5,4,4.5 min.) and poured them all into my thermos because I was busy reading books with my toddler!. It was delicious.

Non tea related:
I got a new Bonavita kettle last night!!! My trusty old Oster kettle just has too much mineral deposits that have built up over many years of usage. So I thought I would try something different:
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B008YE3RNG/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB
I was so excited to get it ready to brew tea today and learned that it doesn’t even get to 100degrees. It gets up to 99 but won’t get to a full boil. WTF? This isn’t that big of a deal because usually I drink tea at less than a boil, but sometimes I do. And what kind of kettle doesn’t even boil water???? Anyone else have this problem? I should contact the company I guess. Sorry, rant over.

This is a interesting tea. I have never had honeybush before, so I can’t say I know what it tastes like, but I think I at least could find myself tasting it.

I gave this a nice rinse—probably 45 seconds.

The first steep was very good. I did about a 15 second steep. There was no fermentation flavor in here. It was slightly sweet, and has that candy flavor as named. There was a hint of chocolate.

Second steep: i found myself wanting some vanilla, so I added some to it, and this was a nice addition. I liked this steep a bit better.

I really enjoyed the blend. The puer was there, but not overpowering like it easily could be. It really let the other ingredients come out.

Anyone out there reading this, adding some vanilla was a good idea. I think I’ll try blending this with the Peppermint Nom Nom. That’d be a solid combo.

I am not always into chocolate flavor in tea, but I liked this a lot. I like that it steeps well more than once, and a drop of honey helps sell the whole candy thing pretty well.

Thank you so much Andrew for the sample! I was always curious about this one.

This is a very unusual tea. Definitely tastes like candy. I’m mostly getting the Pu-Erh itself and the honeybush followed by the black and cocoa nibs. Imagine a cross between Mandala’s Noble Mark and Whispering Pines Art of Darkness if you can. As with any Pu-Erh, it got sweeter in the later steeps making me like it more.

Keep in mind that I’m totally biased in rating it. I like sweet teas, and knowing that this has honeybush, cocoa nibs, and Dian Hong influences my tastes. Mind over matter. I also have a real hard time with Pu-Erh- I either love it because of the way it makes me feel, or I really don’t like it because of its character. Pu-Erh is really the mummy of teas. Caffiene shall come on swift wings to those who drink past this threshold.

I liked it, but a lot of people would probably be put off by it. Newer drinkers would have a hard time with the Pu-Erh. More experienced drinkers might be Pu-Erh purists and appreciate the raw ingredients of this, but prefer the Pu-Erh itself.