Red Dragon Pearl

I have a sixth sense about teas that I know I will absolutely love. Without a moment’s hesitation, I plunked down the dough to get 16 oz of these pearls without ever tasting a one!

They arrived on Saturday (fantastic service, thepuriTea!) with 3 nice samples (thank you!)!

I am trying them for the first time today (4 pearls, about 9 oz water, 3 min) and wow – they taste exactly as I hoped. Molasses-y on the first steep, and oh my god the second steep is so dark chocolatey that I had to pause and blink! (blink, blink! Oh this is good!).

I’m sorry but I have to end this note. This second steep is so good that I don’t want to do anything but drink it!

Thank you moraiwe for the hot tip!

GOT BALLS!?

I do!

:P

I’m just finishing up the infusion of 3 of these balls or PEARLS and am REALLY excited to try this!!!!

At first I could smell – ever-so-slightly – something that smelled fruity but like cocoa. This completely intrigued me!

While infusing…it smells a little like cocoa…but very slight. The wet leaves smell like Assam.

The taste is very unique. They mention ‘chocolate’ in the description…I would say it would be a dark chocolate because it is really bold and – well – dark. It’s not really sweet. There is a tad of bitterness to it but I am comparing that to a dark chocolate type bitterness.

I can ‘find’ the apple comparison they spoke of. And I can taste a bit of oak or other like woodsy type taste.

This is VERY Malty! Even in the aftertaste.

What a FUN tea! Nifty!!!!

If Sil (or any other black tea lover) were sitting here with me, we’d be giddy with joy! I received a ridiculous amount of tea today, the results of one crazy evening of falling off the wagon & ordering from several venders. I got boxes from Mandala, Smith, thepuritea, & to top it all off, I got my swap from Nofar (Tel Aviv, Israel). There’s 35 samples from a bunch of companies I’ve never even heard of, & they are all unflavored, mostly black teas. I’ve been smiling all afternoon.

So I’ve decided that the next 100 or so posts should be all new teas that I’ve never tried, since I have SO MANY to sample now. Here’s the first one.

I’ve shared recently that I do have a think for Black tea pearls. I don’t know what it is about them, I guess in part it’s the novelty, but also the first ones I ever had were SO delicious. So part of my ordering frenzy included Dragon Pearls from 3 places: Adagio, Mandala, & thepuritea. I’d like to also get a few more, just because it would be fun to compare them to one another.

These are quite tasty! The aroma is fruity, but like roasted stone fruits, the flavor is a mix of Malt, chocolate, & molasses, & there is also an unexpected smokiness. Going back for the resteep now. :D

This a sample from the box that LiberTEAS sent me forever ago (I always forget to thank her for all the wonderful samples she included!). I’m trying to work through all the samples that I have because quite frankly there are too many to handle and it overwhelms me sometimes. I guess that’s kind of good, though, because it just means that I have a LOT of different kinds of tea to enjoy.

This is nice. I don’t think it’s a secret that I really enjoy a good black tea (it’s my favorite tea variety). This is no exception. The little balls brew up a beautiful, dark red-brown liquid that is very delicious! It’s very bold and malty, and reminds me a lot of an Assam, though the website states that it’s from Yunnan. I don’t get a lot of the nuances that they state. The main flavor I taste (I’m on my second infusion now, boiling water for 7 minutes, and the leaves have held up the same flavor as the first) is the cocoa note. It’s more of a dark chocolate, as others have said. It’s full bodied and has a slightly sweet tang at the swallow. There’s pretty much no astringency.

I did enjoy this and I hope to try more teas from thepuriTEA soon!

Time for more tea and this shall be yet another sample that I can remove from my cupboards. I have been busy trying to find some cool designs to make with my laces on my new shoes but there are so many designs out there I’m just not sure what to pick. I also made an orange sponge cake this morning to surprise my husband with when he gets home.

Anyway let me get to the review. I have 5 pearls/balls and shall be using my new teapot again to brew them. Unfortunately they have very little scent whilst raw so at this point I can only imagine what they will taste like other than the musky malt scent I could detect.

Once steeped the tea is dark brown/red (mahogany) in colour with a rich malt aroma with a musky sweetness.

So far this tea is very similar to other black tea based pearls/balls but this one seems to be a little muskier and not as sweet. The malt is rich with a cocoa like sweet/sourness to it and dark musky tones. It’s smooth in body with those sour tones coming through just before the after taste of thick malt.

It’s so similar though to other pearls that I am wondering if they all come from the same manufacturer? I mean they are from the same place being Yunnan, China.

Malty! I love a malty tea and this is no different. It does remind me of a similar tea from Teavana, but I like this one better. I’m getting the cocoa hints as promised with this one. I’m really picking up the malty flavor and a hint of spice too. I used two too many balls in this cup. But thankfully I was looking for a strong wake-up call with my first cup of tea. I must say we have a winner here! This is a really great full bodied tea. It will be on my next order with thepuriTea!

This is another one I got from Wombatgirl.

I didn’t read the description of it first, and I didn’t consider the fact that balls need time to unfurl as well as steep for the best result, so the first steep of this was rather on the weakling side.

The second steep, however, seems to be very similar, only not weak. There is a fair hint of dark cocoa in the aroma, although not as much as I find in a Certain Other Part of China. ;) It smells very smooth and chocolate-y. Smells a bit creamy even.

There’s a nice cocoa-y flavour to it as well, but it’s not the dominant flavour. You know how this one has the word ‘red’ in the name? Well it has a reddish brown sort of flavour too. It’s not bright red, it’s more like a reddish kind of wood colour. And yes, flavours can have colours. Other than its colour, however, I’m having a hard time really identifying it. It’s sort of slightly wooden, slightly spicy and maybe a teeeeeeensy bit semi-cinnamon-y.

Yes, the more I taste it, the more convinced I am that it’s got a cinnamon-esque quality.

That’s interesting because I don’t usually care much for cinnamon in tea, but I’m surprisingly pleased with this cinnamon-y-ness.

These balls are very nice indeed. And I have only used half of the ones I was given. Win. :D

Tea of the morning……

I got my first samples from thePuritea yesterday, and this one has been calling my name. (Thanks to those who posted about their recent offering of free shipping….it definitely helped!) I would call this something in line with Gongfu Black from Zhi, although it is slightly maltier and less chocolatey, and is very smooth. It is very cool to watch the pearls unfold. Definitely on the shopping list for my next order.

12 pearls in my 24 oz teapot (this was the entire sample), boiling water, 4 minutes. Lightly sweetened. Will be trying a resteep of this one….it might be the edge this one has over the Gongfu Black which is not a great resteeper.

ETA: Yep…the resteep for 6 minutes was just as good as the first….

Got a new shipment of tea last night from the puriTea. Wow – that was a lot for not very much money.

This tea is neat and yummy. I need to play with it a little more to learn more about it, so I’m going to hold off on rating right now, but get dark cocoa from it and wow… very yummy.

Only problem I’ve found so far – the label direction say 5-7 minutes while the on-line say 3-5. That could cause issues.

I won these in the Art Contest that AmazonV held – thanks AmazonV!

Having tried (and loved) something similar from Teavana, I was very curious about these pearls. Alas, since I don’t have the pearls from Teavana anymore … I can’t do a side by side.

Anyway… this is nice. There is a slight smokiness to it but I don’t find it off-putting, perhaps because it’s paired so nicely with the chewy, bake-y flavor of it. And the malty note is quite pleasing.

I like!

Yikes,what an odd tea!
I’m generally not a black tea fan (get that out there). This one smelled and tasted strongly of chocolate and cocoa powder to me. I may have made it a bit strong (used 4 balls for about 12 oz). A tad astringent and as described bittersweet.

Yet another good, I like this one a lot. It has character, it is not your grandmothers tea and I like it. It is rich, bittersweet as described, robust, and earthy. Not at all boring. Some really good stuff. :-)

Like another reviewer said, this is a nifty tea. I need to spend more time with it, but I like its sweetness and its light body.

Steep Information:
Amount: ~6g
Water: 8×3oz filtered boiling water
Tool: Swivel Teapot
Steep Time: 3 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: black tea, fall leaves
Steeped Tea Smell: black tea, sweet, reminds militiajim of orange pekoe
Flavor: crisp, clean sweet black tea
Body: medium
Aftertaste: fall leaves, in a good way
Liquor: translucent orange brown

It’s not remarkable, but is it a crisp clean black tea that reminds me of fall.

Pictures: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/07/thepuritea-loose-leaf-black-tea-red.html

TeaEqualsBliss was very kind and sent me a sample of this. I was then kind and let my husband drink it. :) We were making tea today and he really loves black tea so I let him have it. He really loves the Teavana Black Dragon Pearls so I thought this was right up his alley. It looks identical so it could be the same tea. I did have a taste of it and liked it well enough. It has a lot of depth and earthiness but had a touch of bitterness to it. I think I like the Teavana Dragon Pearls better (but its been a long time since I’ve had that one, so hard to tell).

I was surprised by this tea. There was an initial astringency, but it faded quickly as the tea cooled. It was then smooth and sweet. I only had a sample, but i’d like to get more.

Hi, fans and followers. Your fave little teapot is back on Steepster getting caught up on posting teas my humans and I have reviewed. We don’t rate teas on our site anymore, but apparently we can’t post a tasting note here without a rating, so we are just randomly picking a rating. In this case, this really is an excellent tea! TOOOOOT! Review: thepuriTea.com’s Red Dragon Pearl Tea http://lyt-tea-reviews.blogspot.com/2011/04/review-thepuriteacoms-red-dragon-pearl.html

A bright, juicy tea with a nice malty bottom end. The “fall leaves” comparison may be a nice way of saying “slightly brassy with a middling flavor profile”. It’s actually a good tea for those who do not prefer any real pronounced flavor or characteristic. It is well rounded though just not quite enough of anything to blow my mind.

(Oh darn-it, I went and put this log under the wrong company and didn’t catch my error before at least a couple of you read it. Oh well. It’s where it belongs now.)

What a neat looking tea. The pearls are much bigger than I thought they would be. I wasn’t sure what an appropriate serving size would be, so I just went with a default teaspoon which fit about 5 pearls. I steeped them for 3min30sec and it made a very strong smelling cup. It smelled like a black tea alright, and a bit earthy too. Something about it was even reminiscent of a pu-erh, but not quite. The flavor is quite malty, but not quite as sweet as other malty blacks (like the Hong Jing Luo also from thepuriTea). It’s a good robust cup of black tea nonetheless.

EDIT: as I near the bottom of my cup, I can’t help but think that this tea really could use some sugar or honey. I prefer my tea straight, though, and would rather drink a cup that doesn’t ask for extra frills.

The aroma of the dry pearls is intoxicating, and the aroma of the brewed liquor is no less so. In the first infusion, there’s a pronounced winelike flavor and aroma, with deep chocolate undertones, smoothed by a faintly sweet, almost-vanilla flavor. As the liquor cools, the tangy-sweet taste of baked berry pie emerges, and when it cools to lukewarm there’s the creamy flavor of a chocolate malted milk shake, but with just the right amount of natural sweetness. If you enjoy self-drinker teas that need no added milk or sugar, you’ll love this one.

In the middle infusions, the chocolate and fruit gradually give way to the flavor of malt. In the later infusions, there are some light toasted tobacco notes in the aroma, but the flavor is pure malt. Surprisingly (for a red tea), the flavor becomes progressively sweeter (although lighter) in the 4th and 5th infusions, much like a fine ripe pu-erh. But there’s no pu-erh earthiness here.

I infuse for 2:30 for the first infusion to get the pearls to open, then drop to 1:30 for #2, and lengthen the steeping time for later infusions.

Red Dragon Pearl is truly an extraordinary and unique tea—very complex and more interesting tea than most other black teas I’ve tasted. I’m hooked for life; I will never be without this tea.