Ripened Aged Pu-erh Mini Tuocha

One word. Outstanding! This is another sample from Angel brewed in my Yixing clay cup. This is very smooth, dark, and lovely. This is very comparable to my favorite Imperial Pu-Erh from Dr. Tea just in the Tuocha format. You know when you have a good pu-erh when it does not taste fishy. Some lower quality pu-erhs that I have had are good…but you get a little fishyness to the taste. I’m starting off my day with this one going on my third steep. The first two have been great. I’m anxious to see how well this tea holds up to extra steepage. I am finding that with most pu-erh tea it’s helping after a few drinks last night while DJing. I’m not the connoisseur that I used to be of fine beer. Two Great Lakes Christmas ales…and I was feeling it. I’m such a lightweight. Truly though a great tea. I am continually being impressed by the quality of tea from Teavivre.

This was my first time drinking pu-erh tea and i did not really know what to expect. So far I haven’t had very pleasent experiences with black teas and I wasn’t sure how pu-erh compared to black. I can tell you now that they don’t. This pu-erh took me off guard and pleasantly surprised me!

The dry disk was a hard brick of dark tea with a noticeable earthy smeel. To be honest, the smell had me nervous but my fears were quite unfounded.

I rinsed the tea first then steeped it at 212 for 1.5 minutes. The leaves broke up pretty well I would say but I might rinse it more next time to provoke the breaking more. The liquid was an incredibly dark brown with a earthy smell. Now at this point I really had no idea what to expect. The taste was earthy with a slight fishy sweetness and not bitter at all!

The second was at 208 for 1 minute and broke the tea up completely. It did not lose any flavor at all! I’m sure this could be steeped over and over for awhile. I look forword to much more pu-erh in the future!

I made this in my gaiwan and did 6 steeps. I wrote more details in my tea journal so I’ll just give you the quick version. The first few steeps were very strong with a leathery/smokey sweetness and earthy undertones. The last few steeps turned earthy but there was still a nice, light sweet smokey flavor. The aroma was deep and woodsy through all of the different steeps. I liked the last few steeps the most.

I love these cute little tuochas! I made the mistake of using the term ‘tea cake’ in the hearing of my daughter and I had to make sure she didn’t try to eat one! Hehe
I rinsed this tea for about 20 seconds, then steeped for one minute. The first steep was very mellow and complex; the only word I can think of to describe it is wood. But, that makes it sound bad. It’s a good thing!
Second steep, 2 min. This was my favorite steep! Still had that woodsy taste but much sweeter.
3rd steep was a combination of flavors of the first two, but I think I needed to steep it a little longer as it seemed to lose the complexity it had at first.
This is a comforting brew that I enjoyed! Thank you to Teavivre and Angel for another generous sample from them!

I’m brewing this according to brewing instructions and I can’t say that I’m that satisfied. Comparing it to my previous note when I did shorter steeps with far less water, this one has a mild first infusion and second comes as kicking espresso. Third infusion is more down to earth, but still there isn’t that much of flavor and aroma complexity and it retains great deal of espresso character.
Gongfu FTW!

So, I should start this note off with the confession that I’ve never had pu-erh tea before. It’s not that I didn’t want to try it, it’s just that it seemed a little intimidating. But I got this as a sample, and took to YouTube to learn how to prepare it (yes, I am a nerd) and gave it a shot.

The smell is interesting and almost like wet earth. I’m picking up a bit of fish, too, but the good smell of fresh fish, not awful like a fish market. For some reason, I’m reminded of Monterey; kind of the woodsy, oceany atmosphere together, I guess? I’m not sure. I was really surprised by how dark the tea got, almost black.

I do think this was a great first pu-erh, because I am really enjoying it! I wasn’t sure what to expect. It starts out like a standard black tea (or at least, how I think good black tea should taste!), but gets very complex after that. I can see why people describe pu-erh as earthy, because it’s definitely that, but there are some spicy, subtle, almost chocolatey hints. It’s pretty nice. I don’t know how it would stack up to other pu-erh teas, but I like it.

(Sample provided free by TeaVivre for review.)

I like pu-ehr. It gives me wonderful flashbacks to the acupuncturist I saw in Chicago, who had me drinking daily cup fulls of it in a brew she called “Liver Peace Tea”. It was also a component in a beauty tea she told me to drink if I wanted to soften my smile lines.
Anyway, I came to associate pu-ehr with feeling more relaxed, and as a comfort during what was a particularly severe Chicago winter.

This one comes in beautifully wrapped single serving pucks that can be steeped around six times a piece. If you’ve never tried pu-ehr, this is a good one to start with even if, like me, you mostly drink bizarrely flavored rooibos and honeybush blends. It’s gentle, with a slight backdrop of sweetness to it. Pu-ehr is always a bit earthy, with kind of mossy, loamey-ness to it, but even if that turns you off at first, reading about the health benefits might coax you back. On the first steeping it’s not too strong at all, and would pair really well with all sorts of food.

This was my first attempt at a Pu-Erh, to start I love black tea’s and the idea of a fermented aged black tea more then appealed to me, I went into this thinking it was just an…extra-black black tea, and while it is by far the darkest tea I have ever seen, extra-black certainly dose it no justice.

The little brick itself is certainly a bit intimidating even if its only the size of a nickel, the leaves a very compressed of course and pitch black, it has a very earthy smell, like old hay, I dropped it into a flush in-mug infuser with boiling water over the top and it quickly started to break apart.

The tea seems to steep very quickly, you can actually watch it bleed into the water as if you dropped in a slow dye (If you have a glass pot or mug to steep in do it), boiling water for three minutes seemed to be more then adequate, I’d say it actually might have been a bit too much but there was not bitterness at all, I’ve read the fermentation process makes pu-erh very resistant to oversteeping, which is good because I’m pretty negligent about my timing in the morning. The little brick seems to contain an extraordinary amount of leaves, easily five or six times its volume in heavy wet earthy smelling happiness comes out.

The flavor itself is distinct, no pu-erh fishiness at all, the taste is far smoother, far more distinct and delicate then the very dark color would suggest, most of the reviews say that there is a leather taste, and I agree although I think I lack the words to describe it properly it’s a very earthy taste.

Tl;dr: The Pu-erh Mini Toucha from Teavivre is a distinctly delicious, easy to make Pu-erh tea, that from my first experience doing a Pu-Erh is as amusing to steep as it is to taste.

This is my first pu-erh, and I am so happy Angel picked this one out for me as part of my free sample package! The smell is of fresh, clean, wet hay. I specify “fresh” and “clean” hay because some reviewers liken the smell of this tea to that of a barnyard, but that makes me think of manure and sweaty farm animals. Strangely enough, the smell of this pu-erh reminds me of the fog machines in haunted houses. They have a particular smell that this is reminiscent of. I know, that’s very weird, but bear with me! :)

The very first odor that hit my nose when I opened the package of dry tea was “fish food.” But the smell and flavor of the tea once it’s steeped is not fishy at all. It’s actually very mellow with an earthy aftertaste. I imagined pu-erh would be very pungent and strong, but this is smooth and almost has a slight sweetness to it. I think I’m in love…

(Sipdown to 2014!)

I got this pu-erh in a very generous sampler box from Teavivre. This pu-erh has a much more pronounced leather taste as opposed to soil taste and less sweet then most. I love drinking it after dinner and find it incredibly relaxing. A one minute steep brought out the interesting leather flavor while a second steeping at two minutes has a sharp cooking chocolate taste. Nice late night tea.