Thanks to Zen Tea for a sample of this!
My sample / new teas to try pile is out of control! That’s what I get for being sick for almost a week.
DRY: Smells like sweet mint.
STEEPED: Very earthy sweet mint smell coming from a dark red brown cup of tea.
Annoyingly, this sample did not have steep times on it, but the other samples did. I was too lazy to walk up to my computer to check, so I guessed. Apparently I was wrong, it should be boiling + 5 mins. DERRRP!
TASTE: Creamy taste! Lightly earthy background (lightness could of been my fail steeping) that has a robustness to it – with the mint gently hitting me last. Lingering creamy mouth feel! oh yeah! No bitterness or astringency.
Zen recommends to prepare this with sweetener and milk, I added some rock sugar to a cup and found the creamyness was brighter and more vanilla taste. I personally like this without sweetener.
Second steeping I did for boiling, 5 minutes. Less creamy taste and much more earthy pu’reh.
WHO’D LIKE THIS: I’m thinking back to all the bagged vanilla mint black teas I’ve tried and this one kicks them! I think the pu’erh is a great idea to this tea with the vanilla and mint calming the strong earthy a bit. A great tea for a black drinker to try a good flavored pu’erh. I did mention I prefer this without sweetener, but sweetened it’s not bad – so this be good for someone who likes to sweeten their tea.
COMMENTS: Not bad! I love pu’reh earthyness so this was good!
