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Origin: Southern Yunnan, China
Introduction: The Tuocha refers to a family of bowl shaped teas, commonly available as Green tea Tuocha, Black tea Tuocha and Puer (aged) Tuocha. More recently, Tuochas have also become commonly available by compressing the tea leaves and flowers together, or by heat infusing them together. In making the Rose Tuocha, more mature leaves of the tea plant are selected in summer, sun-dried, steamed, oxidized to turn dark, then compressed along with rose petals into small bowls. Wrapped with paper, the Rose Tuocha are an ideal size (3 grams) for individual serving.
Flavor Profile: Sweet, smooth, very mild rose flavor with little astringency.
I like this. I like it quite a bit. The flavor of the Pu-erh is rather light, I don’t get a strong earthy flavor (or aroma) from it. The rose is also quite subtle. Sweet and alluring.
Overall, I would say that this is quite an uncommon pu-erh, very light in comparison to others that I’ve tried. Sweet, woodsy, floral and very pleasant.
More infusions to follow!
Huzzah! A happy and prosperous new year to you and whoever produced this tea! This was perfect companion to our “leap into the new year” ginger-orange frog cookies. I must admit, the single serving size per tuocha is part of the reason we picked this.
(^_^);
I rinsed the tuocha for 20 seconds into glazed gaiwans. Taking Jenn-cha’s experience into consideration, the third steeping was one minute and thiry seconds (I’m wary of straying from the 2-3 recommendation of Tao of Tea but also 2-3 minutes?!) and lo! Jenn-cha knows more than Tao of Tea! It came out with sweet and complex wood flavors. There’s oddly more oak than rose. But I swear peat moss and turbinado sugar were part of the tuocha! This was so good everyone went right along wtih the “weird” smelling your teacup. The leaf in the teapot smelled bizarrely like seitan, vegan bacon and rose.
The third and fourth steepings were both two mintes and yielded more mellow flavors that crept towards timothy hay and very little rose. The leaf in the pot smells more like damp hay and old straw piles. It was interesting to taste the natural sweetness of the tea and the actual sugar in the gingerbread. I prefer the sugarless tea.
Fifth steeping-At the suggestion of my rose loving mother we added some rose hips to the pot. What the hay? It says four steepings and was wrong about that.
I highly recommend this little addition towards the last couple of infusions because the fruity, strawberry sweet flavors were amazing with the hay and raisin flavors in the tea (and replaced the now undetectable rose petals). It was like drinking a summer day at the horse farm without the barnwork.
Out of curiosity I’m putting the leaf in the fridge overnight to see if it lasts for a sixth infusion tomorrow. Partially out of curiosity and partially because I need sleep.
Edit: Sixth and seventh steepings were weak but still had mellow orchard grass hay, plum, turbinado sugar and walnut tones! Maybe if I don’t wait over night I could get eight steepings with shorter times.
Backlogging from yesterday.
15 second rinse, boiling water
1st infusion: 2 minutes, boiling water
The color is a deep, deep maroon. It was so dark I couldn’t make out my spoon at the bottom of the cup. A lovely color but I’m afraid I might have over-steeped. But when I went to take my first, hesitant, sip my eyebrows flew up and my eyes got wide. It wasn’t over-steeped at all! In fact, it was rather pleasant! The liquor had a mellow, earthy flavor with a hint of apricot. It reminded me of a sun-warmed woodland floor, complete with moss, ferns, loam, and crumbling dead-wood.
2nd infusion: 2 1/4 minutes, boiling water
The color is the same but now I’m getting something like…almond? And an unpleasant sour-bitter taste. I think the extra 15 seconds were too much at this point.
3rd infusion: 2 minutes, boiling water
The color is still the same deep maroon, the almond note and bitterness have disappeared and the apricot is much more prevalent than before.
4th infusion: 2 1/2 minutes, boiling water
The color is perhaps a tad lighter and the flavor is definitely lighter. Now it’s more like fresh-harvested hay or wheat with a slight raisin note.
5th infusion: 3 1/2 minutes, boiling water
Definitely a lighter color now and the liquor tastes a bit like plum.
6th infusion: 4 minutes, boiling water
The color has lightened to a lovely peachy-brown and the wheat/raisin flavor has returned.
I probably could have gotten another infusion or two out of this. I must say, this is much better than my first pu’erh experience. I’m glad I still have four of these little touchas left.
Thanks to joecool for sending this to me in a swap. So I have smelled rose black tea at the market and was somewhat turned off by it, but I was keeping an open mind since I like my Pu-Erh. First of all I love the tin it came int to see the little Tuochas. So I’ve tried one other Tuocha. I got it at a place called Special Teas ect in Volant, Pa and liked it a lot!
So it’s smells a bit sweet in the paper like sugar in the raw. I used too big of a cup for the first steep. Second steep was dark like coffee…..this is how I like my Pu-Erh! Very smooth and earthy. Third steep more orange-ish. Tastes kinda like mushrooms but still pretty good.
Batrachoid…THANK YOU!
1st infusion…
incredibly smooth with slight rose aroma and flavors.
And you know what…it DOES remind me of the aroma of Seitan/Vegan Bacon! Before infusing…
The taste is VERY good…VERY good. VERY smooth and almost sweet! YAY!!!!! An awesome Pu-erh!
