Aged Chenpi Ripened Tangerine Pu-erh

I ordered a sample of this in my last order because I’ve been curious about these tangerine puerhs. So neat, but also kinda gross-looking. Haha! Like, why would I want tea aged in a withered up tangerine? Well, now I know! The answer is, because the taste is awesome!

So, the sample I got had a good number of pieces of dried up peel in it. I guess I should have read the reviews because I was really surprised by the taste. It’s very charcoal smoky and I didn’t expect that at all! It’s like someone just fired up the backyard BBQ, or that smell you get from other people lighting up their fireplaces. There is a nice juicy sweet tangerine taste also, which gets better and sweeter in later steepings. Surprisingly, although I’m generally not a fan of this kind of smokiness, I wasn’t put off by it, but kept enjoying steepings. I think this one would be good for people who like lapsang. I also wouldn’t mind having more of this one, and I’m no longer afraid of the weird-looking tangerine puerh! Yay!

Sample 4 outof 5 from Teavivre. Thanks! I am spending the day at home catching up on life. Between my two jobs, I have had only a few days off this month and I am rarely home to enjoy them. Evenings are equally busy with visiting family and so on. Today is the last official day of summer and after a massive torrential rain overnight I am enjoying some sun and warm temperatures. It’s just after noon and I’ve already made two loaves of bread and a batch of english muffins which will be gratefully enjoyed throughout the week when I have no time to make dough.

So, here I sit with a cup of this. I was pleasantly surprised to see massive chunks of tangerine peel in with the puerh. I used half the sample in my perfect tea mug for a few minutes with water that (apparently) cooled to 96 before pouring. The result is a deep brown like a stout or dark ale. The aroma is musty and barnlike, but not in the usual pleasant way. It’s overpowering. Shoot. I haven’t made puerh Western style in a while…shoulda done some sort of a rinse first. I’m going try drinking this but if it’s too strong, I can always pour it out and try again with a re-steep. D’oh.

Huh. This has a totally different taste profile than the aroma suggests. I get smoke. No barn or hay. Maybe something musty if that ties into the smoke. It’s strong with a sense of bitterness like a coffee edge but not unpleasant. This is a very potent mug. VERY strong. I am tempted to add a bit of milk to dilute it because I’m not super interesting in drinking it as is. Which sucks, because this is my fault and this is my first tea of the day. I will not rate this currently because I need to try again under better circumstances.

All I can say for sure right now is that it is very bold and strong with a smoky edge. No sweetness. Whew.

I ended up enjoying this tea a lot, but not the first steep. I added some of the tangerine peel to this tea so it was very smoky in the first infusion. By the second infusion this smoke flavor was dulled and I started to enjoy this tea. By the third infusion the smoke flavor was barely a memory. By the fourth infusion it was nearly gone. Once this smoke flavor dissipated I started to get the base flavor of the tea, a nice ripe, slightly sweet ripe puerh. Thank you Teavivre for this sample.

I brewed this six times in a 160ml teapot with 6.5g leaf, 1g tangerine peel, and boiling water. I steeped it for 15 sec, 15 sec, 15 sec, 15 sec, 30 sec, and 1 min. I think I could get about two more steepings out of this tea if I chose, maybe three. By the sixth steeping the flavor of the tea is somewhat weak, nearly but not completely played out.

It’s been a long day, & I’ve screwed up almost every cup of tea I made today: too much leaf, or steeped too long, etc. It’s been that kind of day.
This is a pleasant after dinner cup, & lightly sweetened it is juicy, rich, & satisfying.
Almost like having dessert :)

I’m loving the mulled and mellow taste of this. I got it as a free sample with my last order, used half the sample last night, and I’ve been steeping the other half this morning. It’s deliciously woody with a muted tang of orange in the aftertaste – there are pieces of dried orange rind in the sample, which I put in along with the leaves when I steeped, and as the rind softened, more orange taste came through so later steeps were more ‘mulled’ tasting.

It’s very warming and soothing; I drank this right up until bedtime last night and felt very cosy. I think I’ll be buying more of this before winter comes, and then hoping for snow so I can sit by the fire sipping it snugly.

I love the idea of a orange pu-erh. I think pu-erh would be a nice base for a TON of different flavors. I’m a little hesitant on having an orange filled with pu-erh around, it seems like it would me messy, but I most certainly wanted to try the sample!

Steep #1 // 2 tsps. // rinse //15 min after boiling (accidentally) // 3 min steep
I love the look of these pu-erh leaves, chocolate brown twisty leaves. I scooped two teaspoons out from my sample, leaving a decent amount left for next time. There was a big piece of orange peel in this, but somehow to me it seems more like pine trees to me than orange. I’ve never had a pu-erh smell like pine trees to me before, and the taste is there as well. Hints of orange in the background, even with this huge piece of orange, it isn’t much. The three minute steep time seems like a long time, but Teavivre actually suggests more than five minutes, and I had waited for the water to cool to long after boiling anyway.

Steep #2 // just boiled // 3-4 min
Another delicious pine cup… if you’re in the market for teas that taste like pine trees, go for this. I mean that in the best way possible. It’s very unique.

Steep #3 // just boiled // 10 min
Another intriguing cup that hasn’t lost the flavor yet. Very sweet, not bitter or astringent of course, since this is a pu-erh and the good ones don’t get bitter. There is a flavor here that is intriguing but I couldn’t tell why… it seems like all of the pu-erh teas over at Teavivre are all very unique. I’ve loved all of the ripened that I’ve tried so far.

This tea was intruiging from the moment I opened the foil packet. It seemed there was just as much dried tangerine rind as there was tea leaf inside! Now, this is my second flavored puerh. Before, I had tried a chocolate one by The Tea Spot, but I didn’t care for it much.

The scent is very interesting. The fruit is in the forefront, but it isn’t so much a fresh fruit aroma. It smells more like the tangerine tree itself. Sure, there are notes of citrus in it, but I also smell wood, dried leaves, and something very sweet.

As the tea steeps, it comes to a dark shade of brown, almost like coffee. The tangerine peels float to the top and rest there. The flavor of the tea is “cooked” for lack of a better word. The fruit tastes the way it would in a cobbler, sort of. There’s also a hint of something that reminds me of cereal. While this is very new and interesting, I can’t say I’m a huge fan. Maybe I still need to grow into puerhs.

Nice natural flavored puerh. The citrus notes blend nicely with the woody flavor of the ripe puerh; a little earthy as is typical of puerh; no offensive fishy or “barnyard” smells found. All in all a very pleasant cup.
I began with what has become my routine process with puerh (both sheng and shou): boiling water; two 5s rinses; then let it sit for 15m to open up the leaf. Tea liquor is quite dark; very smooth and fairly mellow but there is a bit of light astringency (which is quite pleasant in my opinion). I made sure that there were several small pieces of the tangerine rind mixed in with the dark leaf because I wanted to enhance the fresh taste of citrus. This is an easy way for those new to puerh to begin to explore.

I haven’t had any tangerine-stuffed Pu Erh since 2013 New Year’s Eve. I remember getting questions by my friends in a “what in earth is that” fashion but as I explained them how the tea got inside the tangerine they gladly accepted to try it. Some expected full flavour of tangerine, but in the end everyone was at least glad to have tried it.

About two months ago I saw this tea introduced at Teavivre and I didn’t wait long to order a sample along with some other recently introduced teas. I got this Pu Erh with some broken tangerine peel and it was quite unusual to me that the label said ‘steep 6 to 8 minutes’. My guess was that it’s meant for western-style steeping, in a large tea pot. I used one sample bag (10 gr) with my 250ml borosilicate glass teapot and set timer for 6 minutes.

First steep had a really deep black tone to it (due to 6-minute steep) with red-brown rim in my white porcelain cup. At the top there was a certain herbaceous, thyme-like note. With first sip I got a mild sweetness head on, which soon dissipated and morphed into very thick and mouthful molassy sensation with tad bitter end. Not long after swallowing the sweetness reemerge and sits for a short period. After a few sips the senses get acquainted with the bitter element which blends in with the rest and gets almost unnoticeable. Tangerine element is present, blends in very nice but can’t catch up with the rest when it comes to intensity.

As the brew cooled down I noticed more of freshness along with minty aftertaste, and what makes this tea uncommon when it comes to Pu Erh is that it didn’t had any elements associated to earth or dirt, but wood.
Second infusion (8 minutes) came out a bit weaker but with more balanced elements – tangerine was more prominent and minty aftertaste was ever-present.

In conclusion, a very good tea for it’s type (Tangerine-stuffed Pu Erh), which can get pricey and fishy in taste depending of where you get it (this one wasn’t).

Aroma: Citrus, woody
Liquor Color: Deep rusty red
Liquor Flavor: Juicy citrus, followed by a light woody taste that lingers
Notes: I was a little shocked at the steep time, but I followed the directions and it came out just fine. I actually kind of enjoyed this. The citrus notes really shined and the pu-erh was light but woody. Overall the tea was very smooth. There were chunks of tangerine which gave it a really nice dry leaf aroma.
Thank you Teavivre for the free sample!