Art of Darkness

I was excited about the prospect of a really dark tea with some chocolatey notes from the cocoa nibs, but I’m just getting musty/fishiness. I did 2 rinses, but I’m still getting a mustiness, and no chocolate notes at all. I’ll have to revisit this at another time.

Thanks so much for allowing me to try this one, Kawaii433! I love the name. To be honest, I don’t love WP’s Ontario pu-erh base for this one. Ontario is GOOD, but not one of my favorite dark pu-erhs. I certainly don’t think it’s dark enough for the awesome name of this tea! Nothing distinct about Ontario for me and my original note says I “wrote a note to remember I tried it”. It’s at least smooth with no offending flavors! I’m not sure how cocoa nibs will help this but it probably can’t hurt! Somehow the Ontario seems stronger and tastier than I remember, though before I used two teaspoons rather than the 1 3/4 teaspoons that I used today. Go figure. Otherwise the parameters were pretty close without me checking the old tasting note beforehand.
This time around, the flavor seems darker than I remember, not specifically chocolate from the cocoa nibs but if anything, this blend gives me the awesome idea to throw in some cocoa shells with some other ripe pu-erh or even some cocoa powder like I’ve been trying with some chai lately, especially if any ripe pu-erh needs a flavor boost. Cocoa pu-erh! Not chocolatey enough for me with or without the cocoa, but as usual, I appreciate trying it. By the extremely long third steep, the flavor was mostly gone.
Steep #1 // 1 3/4 teaspoons for a full mug // 12 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // 6 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 10 min
2019 sipdowns: 55

Upping this puppy from 90 to 93. I already wrote a review of my gongu experiences but today I had 2 tsps in 8 oz, 3 min and then 5 min second steep. It is so good. A clean, yummy pu-erh with cocoa nibs that really come through with long steeps.

I visit a few times daily but haven’t written much. You know all that sipdown work we all slave away to do hehe. My life is always same ol’ same ol’, no complaints. Peace and quiet (except for the new upstairs neighbors that has a crying kid and loves to jump up and down while he’s at it lol) is always this girl’s preference.

I hope you are all well. Thank you all who share their life on here. Good or bad. That is one of the purest joys to me. Helps this anti-social girl connect. ^^

Since my recent cocoa nib awakening, I have been obsessed and, in turn, delighted with the sweet, creamy, chocolate flavors I have found that they impart.

This tea falls right in line with all of this. A puerh that is also sweet and chocolate-y? Well, yes, I would like to drink that all morning. And I have! This tea really does combine the best of both ripe (smooth, creamy, dark, earthy) and cocoa nibs (creamy, sweet, chocolate).

I am going to have to play around with my own cocoa nibs and other “plain” puerh and see what I can create. Thanks for the inspiration and great tea, Brenden!

This is a lovely cup. Flavorful, not too bold or over the top. It’s been a while since I’ve tried this one so I couldn’t remember whether or not I liked it before. I was thinking that I didn’t love it before, and I wouldn’t say I love it now, but it’s really a smooth and balanced tea. I taste a bit of caramel and some chocolate, but oddly enough I’m also getting some apple. Not candy apple, but more crisp autumn apple. It’s not a must-have for me, but it’s really nice so I think I’ll be adding it back to my wishlist once its gone.

This tea is strange! I’m not sure how well the two of us get along. I’m not getting all the different notes that others are getting. In part of the sip the taste seems really flat and then further along it seems really heavy and full. I’m somehow getting a hint of seaweed which doesn’t match any of the descriptions others are experiencing. A little bit of hay on the after taste. Sadly I’m not really feeling this one.

The first sample I’m trying from the puerh plus TTB.

1st off if this box has taught be anything it’s that I can’t say no to a tea that smells like chocolate. I grabbed samples of all three teas where I whiffed some cocaoy goodness. This being the only tea that contained actual cocoa was unsurprisingly the best smelling of all of them. So much so that when I added hot water the room started to smell like I was making brownies.

This tea brings out all the cocoa and the puerh adds a good dark base that keeps it from tasting watery. I brewed this in a gaiwan and through 10 steeps the nibs were present in every cup from the first light colored one to the later dark cups. The aroma cannot be talked about only experienced. The puerh did not get in the way of the chocolate which might happen with western style brewing. I may have ate all the nibs out of the tea when I was finished.

One note with this tea. It contains cocoa butter in the nibs which will slowly come out of the tea leaving a slight sheen on the top. Because of this you’ll want to make sure to use glazed teaware and give everything a good wash afterwards to keep from contaminating your next tea.

Well, it’s the weekend at last! I must admit that it was a LONG week dealing with cranky kids. However, Summer Camp is going pretty smoothly, despite the small mishaps that happen with moody children.

Anyway, I wanted a tasty cup of tea (I must admit that I’ve been drinking coffee all week in the mornings). Ugh, I know. The ‘Art of Darkness’ from Whispering Pines was poking itself from the top of the cupboard. Therefore, I made a batch of it in my gaiwan.

Yum. There are so many chocolate/cocoa notes. Nice smooth dark chocolate flavors. Pretty sweet on its own. I’m thinking about buying more of this sometime before the summer’s over. It’d be a great winter/fall tea.

This is a rich warming blend, malty creamy deep cocoa flavor from the real nibs, not fake at all. When I was running low on both this and one of the plain black teas i just mixed them up, it brewed up nice, so actually this tea can be a multi tasker. nice to get a few steeps out of too.

I had a ridiculously awful few days this week. I agreed to take care of a couple of infants my in-laws are fostering, so they could drive their college-age kids back from college a few states away since it’s the end of the school year. So laugh at me all you want, because I should have known better than to agree, even though they promised that I wouldn’t also have to take care of their hundred or so farm animals (yeah . . . you can imagine how that turned out). But when I got home yesterday there was a box of Whispering Pines tea waiting for me, so the week wasn’t a total loss and I’m reconsidering my professed hatred of the entire world (present company always excluded, because I’m not trying to be inflammatory when I say that I hate the entire world, lol).

Anyway, I prepared this tea as directed (Western style) and I think I can safely say that it’s the darkest tea liquor I’ve ever seen. So good job on the name, I guess. And I’m greatly enjoying the flavor as well. It’s not too heavy, but manages to blend actual cocoa with good shu pu-erh in a very effective way so that they complement each other and present a unified flavor profile; the chocolate notes don’t seem out of place alongside the woodsy pu-erh. I realized immediately that I’ll surely end up buying a lot more of this, and I’m now trying to decide whether I should steep the rest of the sample today so my husband can try it too or hoard it all for myself so I can put off my next tea order until next month . . . lol.