Yesterday was my One year Steepster anniversary and I am almost up to 1000 tasting notes, egads!
I haven’t been drinking a lot of pu-erh lately but today it’s raining so I thought this afternoon would be great time to try this sample cake I got from Mandala. According to traditional Chinese medicine, Pu-erh is a good cure for internal dampness.
I broke off a chunk and put it in the infuser mug after a quick 10 second rinse and then steeped it for about 60 seconds. I got a medium reddish-brown liquor. This seems like a very clean tasting pu-erh… a roasted coffee aroma with very earthy & mushroomy flavors and a creamy feeling in the finish.
My second steep was for about 90 seconds and this time I got a much darker infusion. This pu-erh now reminds me of coffee even more. I really think I used way too much leaf in my infuser basket so I decided to dump this infusion out and go for one with a little less time. I wasn’t really wanting such a dark tea so I resteeped it for 30 seconds and liked it a lot better this way. I really think that pu-erhs should be more of a reddish-brown color instead of black so if mine are very dark I know I probably used too much tea.
I’m not sure I am ready to give this a numerical rating yet due to the errors but I am enjoying it. I think I will retry this on another day with a smaller leaf to water ratio. It is warming me up and nice for this icky weather…
Still going strong after 4 steeps but I will probably end here. :)
