Cherry Pu-erh

This was a surprise in the mail from the talented GMathis! First of all, it came in this amazing card!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24998856@N06/8342846753/

Second, I really do like puerh. This is a funny thing because I dislike coffee, yet when I have a guest who says they really don’t like tea but love coffee, I serve them puerh and they love it! I was told puerh was an acquired taste, and while the smell of the first fishy Tuocha I bought scared me, I liked the taste from the get-go. Then when I found better quality puerh, I was eager to get to know more.
I like unflavored puerh just fine, but most of the flavored ones I have tried have been good.

This one is more exciting because I have loved everything I have tried from Nature’s Tea Leaf.

I steeped this in boiling water for about two minutes. I don’t mind my puerhs being inky black so that was a short steep for me! But the smell….ah, the smell. Even in the card, it smelled so good and juicy. Last night, I kept it beside me and sniffed and sniffed.

I am not a fan of weird cherry flavor. I don’t care for Cherry Coke. I don’t like rooibos because it tastes like cherry cough syrup to me. I love good cherry flavor and lay in a stash of cherry lollipops at Valentine’s.

This tastes like my Black Cherry Matcha! Well, the cherry part does anyway! And the puerh is a beautiful grounding for it and they have blended it just right. I could have sworn I even got a little natural chocolate-y flavor in the base. There is no fishiness at all – this is an nice earthy puerh. Good golly, this is tasty! I made 16 ounces and swilled it down in no time! This has great balance. If you are afraid of puerh, you should try this first!

This is great puerh and is the first real rival for position with Lupicia’s Chocolate Strawberry Puerh. I will be serving this tonight for Writers’s Group. (We really should name ourselves. Maybe it should have something to do with tea!)

I have been trying to whittle down my stash but every time I try a NTL tea I think, “Well, this has to go on the list for my first order.” Same for this one – it is definitely on the list and is probably also going to be the birthday gift for my puerh loving friend.

mmmmm Another sample that NTL was kind enough to send my way. I probably won’t get to the third tonight but it’s on my list for this week. This tea is another wonderful tea from NTL. If you like cherry flavoured things, this is a pu-erh for you to try! The aroma even before the water hits the tea is CHERRY! What i also like about this pu-erh is that it’s more like a deep rich black earthy base to complement the cherry flavouring. Pu-erh newbies need not be afraid! I’m not nearly experienced as others with pu-erh but this is a wonderful blend of the deep pu-erh taste that I’ve come to associate with the puerhs that i’ve tried, and the fruitiness of the cherry tea.

Thank you so much Nature’s Tea Leaf for this sample!

Contentment. Warm, full, mildly sleepy, schlepping around in sweats in the early afternoon.

This tea is as cozy as your favorite fleece blanket. The earthy pu-erh is a perfect base for the cherry flavor. Gives it a wonderful black cherry personality. Not artificial tasting at all. Another Nature’s Tea Leaf winner!

My new tea arrived – hurrah!

Okay I was skeptical of this from the get-go, but I really wanted to try it. I opened up the bag to take a whiff… to me this really smells like cherry cough syrup.

I steeped it for around 2 minutes and after tasting it, I still got cough syrup flavor. I decided to steep it for around 1 minute more and then added a bit of turbinado sugar to it, which definitely helped the flavor somewhat. From what I can tell the pu-erh is good but the cherry flavor really overpowers it. I will be tempted to find some chocolate syrup to put in this.

It isn’t as good as I was hoping and seems a bit artificial to me but overall it’s fairly decent. If anyone else wants to try it I’d be happy to swap some of it.