8681 Tangerine Wrapped Pu-erh Tea

Tommy The Toad Thanks so much for this one!

To me…this smells like semi-burnt rice, pu-erh, and tangerine.

It infuses to a medium-dark brown.

This is better than I thought it would be. The Tangerine flavors are a nice compliment but not overdone. There is some sort of burnt rice flavor in there, too. The Pu-erh isn’t overpowering either. There are even bit of cocoa powder type flavors I am picking up right at the beginning of the sip.

The more I drink this the more I am liking it. Not bad at all.

I infused it for about half the time TTT did – at about 1 minute.

I thought i would realy like this one but i just didnt care for it much, i think maybe i dont care for the flavor that the orange gives to it i also broke up some of the peel to steep with it and to me it gave it an almost spicy flavor, it reminded me of the instant teas in a jar with powdered Tang mixed in that my mother use to get around the holidays, i havent drank it since its been cold outside tho so maybe it will be better in the wintertime. i got 3 of them and gave 2 to my brother and i still have my 1 lol.

Orange puerh is one of the few flavored teas that I still drink where I break up the orange peel that it was packed into and brew it with the tea leaves. The result is a sweet ripe puerh with heavy citrus flavor, which results in a very enjoyable casual drinking ripe puerh.

Quick Review: Old leather shoe with a touch of smoke, wood, and dirt…. I could just brew it up for the aroma that’s left in the pot. Reminds me of tangerine scented potpourri.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BDRe4XnA-xZ/?taken-by=sgsanders1

Revisit: Okay, I was a little harsh at first. The first steeping was awful; however, the more I drank the tea, the better it became. It was smooth, had a lot more citrus notes hidden within the tea, and was very rich as the session went on. I like it. I might have to rinse this a couple of times before diving in.

I’m currently bowl steeping this, but I had the pleasure of a gongfu session with this tea on Lunar New Year a couple nights ago with some friends. I will do my best to sum up my thoughts on how it tastes both styles.

Really the biggest difference is that the continuous steep brings out a much stronger flavor. The taste of the gongfu infusions was not remarkably different from one to the next. Also, the tangerine taste comes through much more strongly with the long infusion than with the gongfu infusions, which may be a consideration for how you wish to brew it. I am brewing this with pieces of the tangerine rind in it as well, and I recommend you do it this way to get the full effect of this tea’s character.

Really the tangerine comes through strongest in the aroma, where it really smells like a fresh tangerine peel, despite being aged and oxidized until it’s entirely dark brown. In the flavor it comes through mildly and a bit tart with the gongfu infusions, more as a backdrop to the very forward flavor of the shou, which predominantly tastes like cedar and earth. When bowl steeping this, the tangerine flavor is much more tart and involved, and the first few sips of this tea had an almost meaty flavor that reminded me of smoked salmon with a squeeze of lemon. This Puer lacks sweetness, though I don’t find that it suffers from this. I think this could be good with sugar in it for people who like sweet tea. I tend to just drink things straight these days.

This is not a tea I will likely buy again, as I find it lacks the complexity and nuance of unflavored higher quality shou Puer, but this was a curio and a fun experiment to try for the first time, and I thought it fitting to serve to some friends as a part of a tea spread for Lunar New Year, since small citruses are a very common symbol of the holiday.

This is fairly tasty but I used a little too much of the tangerine peel so it’s fairly smoky tasting. The tangerine peel imparts a bit of a sour note too. This only got brewed western style tonight as I am tired and lacking time for a proper gongfu session. This is tasty and hits the spot though. The nice thing about this is you can dial the smokiness back by simply using less tangerine peel or none at all.

I brewed this once in a 16oz Teavana Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 12g of tea and tangerine peel with boiling water for 30 sec.