I was on greens and flavoured white all day yesterday but today I wanted something rather more hale and hearty. I had a small discussion with myself whether to choose this one or the equally wonderful Tan Yang Te Ji from TeaSpring. Ippy-dippy ended up settling the issue.
I’m running a bit low on this one now actually. I have plans to make some Kusmi purchases in replacement for the package that disappeared once I get paid, but I’ll have to see if I can make room in the budget for a Nothing But Tea order as well, I think. I was looking through their remodelled webshop yesterday and discovered that I can keep a wishlist there. Let’s just say that it would have been easier with an ‘add all’ button and then weed out the things I didn’t want later…
But this orange pu-erh is definitely something that I’ll have to re-stock. It’s one of those things that I must have in the cupboard at all times, even if weeks go by sometimes when I don’t drink it. I haven’t actually defined an entire Standard Panel of stuff I’ll always have around, but this one is definitely on it. It’s my perfect orange tea.
I find that oranges and pu-erh are flavours that go really well together. Mind you, this is a cooked one. I’m far less certain it would work as well with a raw. But then again, I don’t really care much for the raw ones anyway, so that’s not really my problem.
I’ve brewed myself a strong cup today, so it’s very earthy and dusty in flavour. The orange is strong, sort of enveloping the pu-erh flavour without taking over. It’s sort of like each sip is a bubble that tastes like oranges, and all the pu-erh flavour is on the inside of the bubble. And then it bursts. The aftertaste is long and orange-y and it puts that funny fuzzy feeling on the tongue the same as eating a really good and sweet orange does as well. It’s not astringency at all, but it’s vaguely similar to that sensation.
The best thing about it, however, is that it doesn’t taste in the least bit synthetic. Not even a little bit. It’s proper fruit and there is a lot of it.
(I’ve mentioned before how sometimes I associate a flavour with a specific colour. How Senchas tend to be a dark pine green and Chinese green teas all taste somewhat more light-green/yellow-ish. This one is orange-tinted brown for me.)
