Ripened Aged Pu-erh Mini Tuocha

Mini tuocha, please help a fairy in needs of relief! I ate too much. When I do, puerh always comes to rescue. I don’t know how it can be so soothing, but it just is. I don’t have digestion problems at all. Usually. But…from time to time, things happen.

Oh, I was a bad, bad, fairy tonight, yes I was…

If you’ve been reading my notes for a while, you know I’m some kind of a health freak. Proud Vitamix owner for many years, name any fruit/veggie combination, I have had it. I don’t care much for sugar, eat lots of fish, love quinoa and leafy greens.

Having said that, I do like me some piece of meat every now and then, and I have been known for eating anything dark chocolate in excess…

But I have another flaw…( wine doesn’t count, it’s a fruit portion, Roughage said it, and he’s very smart and knowlegable) It’s a big flaw…to this day, a secret one. I’m willing to share with you Steepster friends, but husssssh, please keep it quiet: I’m a sucker for boxed KD mac & cheese. I know, I know, its no good…but I like it. There. It’s out.

Today being a migraine day (all gone now, thanks to a friend who kept my mind busy in the right way!), I needed something to indulge for dinner. After a lot of consideration, I’ve decided to open THE cupboard, the one locked under a secret code and pulled out an «in case of emergency» KD box.

I crushed some Herbes de Provence and parmesan cheese to make it «gourmet» (yes, there is such a thing as Gourmet KD in my kitchen!) and put the dish under broil for a few minutes. Needless to say, I ate the whole thing. No veggies. Just 100% pure carbs. I’m full. Burp. (Oops!!!)

Thanks mini Tuocha for supporting me.

Steepster fellows, please don’t judge me…

(See previous note)

I has a happy! Tomorrow is a birthday in the family, so my son and his girlfriend, and my godson are all staying here for a few days. Today we had the birthday pizza, and my son told me to make some puer so he wouldn’t feel bad from all the fat!

His girlfriend, though she is Asian, doesn’t drink tea, but she told me she likes coffee. (Does that sound bad? I don’t mean it in a bad way, just surprised that so many of the Asian people I know are coffee drinkers, not tea drinkers, even though they cook primarily Asian food at home.) Today when I made this I offered her some but she said, “no, thanks!”. But I thought, hmmm, she likes coffee, so…I told her she might like this if she liked coffee. And guess what? She did! We have now had ten cups of puer, all made gong fu style. She really, really likes it. We had two different kinds and this was their favorite. They said the one from another company we tried was too weak for them.

I would never have guessed that these young college kids who totally nix tea would go for puer, but I am delighted!

For part of my Christmas my son put a program on my computer called Kerbal Space Program. You design and launch spacecraft. So far I been able to attain a good circular orbit and today I even made it to the planet’s moon and returned safely. The learning curve is very steep. I have blown several craft up while launching. I have much to learn. I think my son is almost tired of answering questions.

Any way I thought this flavorful tea would go well with amateur rocket science. I brewed 4oz for the first cup. It was light and sweet. The next three steeps I have dumped together and it is much darker and leather. A nice enjoyable toucha.

And there we go. The second steep completely opened up the leaves and a much better cup results. Why do tuocha get packed so tightly? Are they “superior” in some way to fermented pu-erh which isn’t pressed?

While I’m intrigued by puerh and the fact that the tea has aged, I’m always a little apprehensive when trying one. I tend to shy away from teas with even a hint of fishiness, and puerh is notorious for it.

The cute little cake itself smells great, though it definitely smells different from fresh black tea. It smells like dried grass and promising maltiness, but with a hint of that aged flavor. Before I made this tea, I read that it only needs about a minute to two minutes to steep. I didn’t believe it, but I went with what the professionals said. By the end of the first minute, the tea was darker than a seven-minute-chai. I panicked and decided to stop it at 1:30.

It smells like sour honey and wood. But the taste is like something I’ve never had before with a puerh. I definitely taste leather, like others have said, but it’s a good thing. It’s incredibly smooth and flavorful, and like many Teavivre teas I’ve had, it’s naturally a little sweet. I can taste the same sort of flavor that I associated with fish, but it’s different in this blend. I’m glad I still have one cake left.

OK… this was the Pu-erh I was a little afraid to try, because I had a feeling it would end up being a very earthy tasting tea. I think it was the “Ripened Aged” part of it, because the tuocha itself doesn’t have that strong, earthy smell to it.

Yes, it is earthy, but, it has a really nice sweetness to it too and that makes it very enjoyable. My first couple of sips I tried without any sweetener and it had a nice, caramel-y kind of sweetness to it, then I tried it with a little turbinado sugar and found that this addition gave the sweetness a molasses-y kind of taste. Very nice.

I really do enjoy pu-erh teas and this one is pretty high on my list. Especially of the ones that I can identify, seeing as I have a few at home I just can’t figure out what company made them!

In any case, it’s been another long, stressful day at work and I felt the need to relax. I had just eaten a large lunch and clocked back in when it became eminently clear that I needed some nice pu-erh to help keep my stomach settled and my senses alert.

Once it was brewed, I smelled the tea and actually said out loud, “Yes! This is exactly what I need!” It was sort of silly. I guess it’s a good thing there aren’t too many people near my desk.

What I love most about a good pu-erh like this is how it transports me. I smell the tea and have a sip and I’m camping in the woods, huddled in a warm sleeping bag as a fallen tree falls apart eaten by termites next to my tent. * sigh * This is where I want to be right now. And this is where I feel like I am when I enjoy this tea.

Delicious!

Okay, finally trying my puerh sample from Teavivre. Thank you Angel! I have only encountered puerh a few times before and I didn’t like it – the aroma was always fishy and I couldn’t get over it. I understand that to mean that the puerh was of low quality and lately I’ve been wanting to try some better stuff, so here I am. I also have one from Peony Tea that I hope to try soon. The tuocha (henceforth to be known as the bird’s nest) is adorable and has an aroma that reminds me of hamster cages – not pee or poo but sawdust and maybe the grains that I used to feed Jake. (We had a hamster who died a few years ago, he has a very fond place in my heart. The smell of this actually makes me miss him).

I did a thirty second rinse to awaken the leaves, and hopefully rinse away anything that I might find particularly yucky. :) Surprisingly, the bird’s nest basically crumbled. My gaiwan is full of small pieces of tea leaves, it almost looks like ground coffee. I didn’t really expect that.

First official steep went for 1 minute and yielded a DARK liquor. It truly puts me in mind of coffee, that is not something I’ve had in tea before. I am predominantly a black tea drinker and puerh seemed like the next step for me. My tea pet (a pair of feet) are getting a really good bath today! Anyway, the first steep smells like a barn to me, old wet wood and damp hay/sawdust. It smells like cows and horses coming in from the rain with damp hides – while this description may sound unappealing, there is something comforting about it too. I don’t necessarily want to drink it, but the aroma is very familiar. There is no fish at all, but just damp nature – wood, earth, animals, cloth. Interesting. The taste matches the smell astonishingly closely. Still no fish, but strong earthiness, very natural and organic. Strong without being bitter, and not like any tea I have had before. I like this, but it’s way out of my comfort zone. It doesn’t even taste like tea as I know it. I would like a bit of sweetness here, a honey note to offset the earthiness. I don’t even know if puerh HAS honey notes!

Second steep went for 1.5 minutes, yielding an even darker brew than the first time. it’s almost black! Are we sure this isn’t coffee? The leaves are so small that a bunch escaped the lid of my gaiwan. It may be silly, but I hate leaves in my cup. The aroma this time is very similar than the first. Initially it seemed a bit muted but then I got a strong hit of leather, like I’m in a shop filled with freshly worked boots. While I LOVE the smell of leather (I was a biker baby, I had leather jacket, chaps, all that good stuff) I feel a little weird about drinking it. Bravely, I persevere and am rewarded with a better brew than before. The taste is very similar to the first steep but more palatable. The edga has been taken off the earthiness and I am getting something more like the tea I know and love. There is some sweetness here that I appreciate, though there is also a hint of bitterness. It’s strange that both of those notes can be present where they weren’t before. I’ll finish this one quickly, I fear it may be becoming bitter because of the leaves that slipped into my cup. I almost expect a bit of spice, cinnamon or nutmeg but I get nothing like that. This remains very organic, tasting entirely of the earth. This is definitely better than the first, for me.

Third steep went for 2.5 minutes (whoops!) and yielded a much lighter cup. This time I am enjoying a deep amber. maybe the extra time was a wise accident. The aroma has gone back to hamster cage, wet sawdust and maybe even garden mulch. As I’ve said before, very earthy. The taste is a muted version of the aroma, no bitterness but not any sweetness either. I think I am getting close to the end of my run with this bird’s nest. The beau says this one is by far the best, while I am not sure. The boldness of the second steep was remarkable, but this one comes across as drinkable. I am starting to get a cumulative hint of bitterness which is clouding my judgment of this one.

I’m going for a fourth steep of 3 minutes. I’m too lazy to get up and re-heat the water so it has probably cooled quite a bit at this point, but the extra time seems to balance that out. This liquor is considerably lighter than the others and has very little aroma. There is a whiff of barn animals, but that’s about it. The flavour is similarly weakened. I’ve reached the end, I think. I do prefer my pu a little lighter (for now) so the second and third steeps were the best for me, but they were all enjoyable.

All in all, puerh is definitely not an everyday tea for me, but this bird’s nest has taken away a lot of my fear. There is hope for me in the world of pu! : ) As for the rating, since I have little experience with puerh, I will just go with how drinkable it is for me and perhaps adjust up or down as I try more. Since previous puerh blends were undrinkable for me, this rating is actually really high!

Free Sample from Teavivre.
First steep I decided to drink instead of use as rinse – leathery, not fishy at all other than slightly very slightly in aroma and if you can get past that which I did easily it is quite rich and lovely!
Tastes of wood, sandalwood specifically come out.
Slightly perfume like flavor.

The following steeps still tasted dark, chocolate notes come out, the leather like flavors still present and I am feeling very relaxed!

Pu-erh is a very lovely special tea which I always throughly enjoy.
Thank you Teavivre for this sample!

sipdown! (back to 160) This is not the tea for me. It’s not a bad little puerh, but there’s a peat sort of taste hanging about this one that i don’t much enjoy. I like the format of this one, and the scent is really nice. As i sip it, i find that the initial sips are tasty, but it’s the after taste that i’m not a fan of. While not quite the mini tucho for me, i wouldn’t turn it down if it was offered to me in the future. There’s no fishiness to this one either, for those that are worried about that :)