Thank you mrmopar for this pu-erh sample!
Yikes! What a hardened packet of pu-erh nibs! I had to SOAK the little devils for a bit to soften them enough to break apart, all the while letting no color from the nibs leech into the water.
As I said, “Hard!”
Once they were pliable, color began to swirl rapidly in my glass pot and timing began.
A minute later, I pulled my basket and took a sip of the dark coffee brown liquor.
The flavor was savory mushrooms, sweet and salty. When I moved my head back from the cup, I smelled vanilla tobacco as the scent of the mushrooms mixed with vanilla wafer.
Late in the tasting, the feel of spice tingled my tongue the way cinnamon feels.
I wasn’t expecting this much complexity out of the work I put in breaking up the nibs. They were pretty ugly and the liquor was uninteresting to look at.
People can be like tea. Not much to look at and uninteresting on the surface. Some are very hard and take time to get to know! If time is taken, and if we can look past that initial hardness they can be the most interesting, unique and memorable people of our lives.
Like always, tea is an awesome teacher.
