Scottish Caramel Pu-erh

Backlog from vacation:

My cousins took me to Selah tea Cafe in Waterville, Maine. Went through two french presses of this as we sat and chatted for a few hours. Pretty good! Strong earthy pu’erh base and a nice, creamy caramel flavor- not overly sweet or fake.

I don’t often have a craving for this tea, but today, I did. I’m glad I was able to pull it out and brew it up right (because this tea done wrong is a travesty beyond words). When it’s right, it’s SO right…

The brew is very dark, typical for a pu-erh. The leaves have an almost smoky scent to them, but even in the dry leaf you can smell the caramel, which is not normally a strong scent. The almonds come out in the brew, where the smoky, woodsy flavor is kept more at bay by adding sugar (I’m not fond of having TOO strong of a pu-erh flavor, but that’s just my personal taste).

This was my first English Tea Room tea… and it will live in fame and glory for me. It was my first pu-erh, also, and thanks to its delicate but firmly convincing flavors, it will not be my last. :)

Not a tasting note…:
So I pulled the paper bag of this out of my tea cupboard since I haven’t had this in a while. I measured the leaf out into the strainer and while the water was boiling. I noticed a worm inside the bag and some webbing stuff. This seriously grossed me out of course and I dumped the tea and stuff out. I’m just thankful I noticed it before I finished making the cup and drank it. Ugh I’m pretty sure all my other tea is worm free as everything else is in airtight containers. I’m going to check everything just to be safe though tomorrow.

When I cash my next check I’m definitely going to start looking for some containers to store my small amounts of tea in. So this doesn’t happen again EVER!. Hopefully I didn’t gross anyone out too bad. I mean I noticed it before even adding water to the cup. If anyone has any small storage container recommendations for little amounts of tea please let me know!

Ah, Scottish Caramel Pu-erh. I think nearly every independant teashop I’ve visited has had this on the line-up, and if you search it here on Steepster, you’ll probably get a good twenty iterations of it because of that, but I’m fairly positive they are all wholesaling it from the same popular teashop wholesaler — Metropolitan Tea Company. What I find most fascinating is how many of these teashops put butterscotch or caramel (or both) on the ingredients list (the one I purchased it from did!) yet inspecting the leaf, there isn’t a trace of caramel or butterscotch pieces in it (only chopped almond), meaning these are flavorings. That makes a big difference to those with dietary restrictions, preferences, or allergies; my BFF is Vegan and the difference between caramel flavoring (often non-dairy) and caramel pieces (typically dairy) is huge, and simply listing “caramel” on the ingredients list is not very helpful! The consumer shouldn’t have to dig through their leaf to figure out what is in their tea, especially after buying… /end rant

In any event, I picked up my go at this blend from Shakespeare’s Corner Shoppe and Afternoon Tea last year when I was on vacation in San Diego. The leaf does have a bit of the “fishy” smell I find tends to be a problem with the bases in flavored pu-erh blends, but thankfully it mellows out in the brewed cup, and doesn’t leave any lingering flavors (at least that I notice, and that can’t be said for some other flavored pu-erhs in my collection). The tea brews up very thick and dark as coffee, has a damp earth flavor with a bit of a mineral finish, but is very sweet. The pu-erh base is a bit strong so I don’t get a heavy caramel note, but more of a sweet, burnt sugar finish, with a slight caramely taste left lingering on my tongue afterwards. During the sip, something about the sweet flavorings and the earthiness of the base gives me this coconut flavor on my tongue… I realize there is nothing in the tea to produce a coconut flavor, but the caramel notes read to my palate that way more than caramel. (That isn’t exactly a bad thing, I like coconut, but I find it interesting). I’m not sure what the diced almonds are doing for the blend, since I don’t get any nutty notes from the tea. The tea comes off as a cheap pu-erh that uses its flavoring to pre-sweeten the leaf and hide the unappealing notes that typically come with a cheap pu-erh. It’s drinkable, but not something I’m going to miss once I manage to finish it off.