This is the first pu-erh tea I’ve tasted, though this has so may extra ingredients added I’m sure any purists out there will cringe. Steeped for just over 4 minutes in boiling water.
Dry the smell of this tea is of nutmeg like whoa! When I added the water the nutmeg scent was still there faintly, but I could also smell cocoa. Neither of which were quite able to disguise a rotting, fermented sort of scent, which is what I’m told straight pu-erh tea generally smells like. It wasn’t too obnoxious and it doesn’t seem to translate to the flavour of the tea.
The brew is slightly cloudy and it’s about the colour of black coffee. I’m rather hoping the similarity ends there and this doesn’t make me violently sick like coffee does.
It tastes slightly bitter but it’s a rich, smoothly-pleasent sort of bitter. The tea tastes ‘dark’ if that makes any sense. At this point I don’t know enough to tell if what I’m tasting is the pu-ehr or the chocolate, spices, etc that were added to it.
This is not a tea for all occaisions but I’m still leaning towards liking it.
