Mordor

It’s just after 12 noon here and I’m finally sitting down to breakfast. I’m not sure why it takes me so much longer to cook than it does most other people but here we are. Having this really lovely chocolaty blend from Liquid Proust which is proving to be a great accompaniment to the fried egg and Conecuh sausage on my plate. No more resting after this though, as I have multiple piles of laundry to fold and put away this afternoon. Before I know it, it’ll be time to start dinner! But I do plan to drink tea throughout, so that’s something to look forward to. I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend so far!

After several days of blueberry and coconut, I wanted a straight black. Somehow, I pulled this one out, thinking that the Jin jun mei here would be more prominent with the ripe puerile acting as a delicate accent. Nope, in this cup, the puerh is right in your face.

I think I will add some Jin jun mei to my next cup of this to tone it done.

Note to self—When you crave a straight black, do not steep something with a good dose of ripe puerh.

I miss Liquid Proust and his presence here. And his experim-ents.

Made this as my Halloween tea in my Halloween mug because (1) Mordor is scary and (2) pu’erh is scary to me. So, it’s all sorts of festive.

After a couple sips, I will say this is alright. It doesn’t really taste like to pu’erh to me which is a big plus. However, it also doesn’t have much more than malt, which is bad. Maybe a bit leathery, which could be the combination of the two.

It’s fine but nothing special. Nevertheless, I am always happy to try something new so thank you Arby for sharing!

TTB #1

This was my first pick from the TTB, as I haven’t sampled much from Liquid Proust and am a huge Lord of the Rings fan! I was expecting this to be a smoky black tea, but it’s actually a black tea/puerh blend…disappointing to me personally, since I’m not really into puerh. The flavor is earthy and musty with a dry finish, reminding me of a forest floor blanketed with dead leaves. An interesting flavor experience (and actually fairly appropriate to the inspiration!) but not something I’d choose to drink again.

I love the name of this tea! It’s also the only tea on Steepster with that name. It was hard to pick out the smell of the tea dry since it came to me in a traveling tea box where it mingled with the scent of other teas. Once steeped it has a light puer smell with a hint of cocoa and just the slightest touch of leather. The taste is sweeter than I expected and smooth. Sweet with a cave like quality; earthy, musty, lots of base notes with a touch of leather on the finish. The taste kind of reminds me of those indoor water rides at amusement parks! Those have a particular smell. I’m thinking Small World and Pirate’s of the Caribbean types where you are in a boat indoors. The smell isn’t something I thought I’d enjoy in a hot beverage, but here I am!

Backlog. Sipdown 2/10/19
212F, 12oz, 3-4 min
This tea is better with longer steeps. I find the shorter steeps to taste too much of dirt and dank. Which is very true to name, but not in my desired flavor profile. Long steeps smooth out the tea.
Dark earth, sweetness, cocoa, with a lingering sweet aftertaste.

Sample from Evol from a few days ago. I’ve been slacking at getting notes down/tracking teas as we’ve got a lot on the go these days. Still drinking tea but i hope i have a weekend soon to just get organised again. This one was sort of middle of the road for me if i recall. Not a bad tea, but nothing that leaves me wanting my own supply.

This tea really lives up to it’s name. First steep today was a full 3 minutes in a gaiwan and it was really strong. Second steep was 1 minute and I enjoyed that much better. It instantly takes me back to when I was a child and the old barn that we had on the farm. Dark, dank, musty, wet. Who knows what all is lurking in the darkness. The second sip takes me back to some woods we used to play in. An overcast, dark sky, rain falling, piles of rotting leaves. It’s getting dark.

Time for another sip…