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Thank you to GMathis for this sample from Nature’s Tea Leaf!

I reviewed this last night after drinking it at the house of a friend who likes puerh a lot, but has only had the ones I have given her. I left the leaves so she could resteep this morning and asked her how she felt about it. I thought I would share her “review” here even though she doesn’t have her own Steepster account…yet!

Melissa says, “I used to drink coffee every morning and really didn’t drink hot tea at all. Puerh is something I can drink in the mornings and not miss my coffee. I can’t say that about other tea, even black teas. This cherry puerh has a nice cherry flavor that doesn’t cover up the puerh base, and the hint of cherry aftertaste is really nice.”

Well put, friend! :)

I went to visit my friend who likes puerh tonight. I took the last of this sample that GMathis sent me because I thought my friend would really enjoy it. She loves Chocolate Strawberry Puerh from Lupicia, so I thought this might be right up her alley.

We made about 24 ounces with the remaining portion of this. I still enjoy it. I can taste the puerh, and it is a good, clean, dark and earthy base. It isn’t fishy or overly horsey, though I don’t mind horsey. The cherry is bright, fresh, and refreshing. It does not taste like cherry cough syrup to me, which I cannot abide in beverages.

My friend liked it a lot, so I told her to be sure to save our leaves for a resteep tomorrow as this will definitely give her some more great cups of tea.

My daughter got this as one of her free samples from Twinings. Then she decided she didn’t want to try it, because she likes almonds but not amaretto and she was afraid that would be the flavor she would get from this. She also doesn’t care for black tea with the exception of a few really good chai blends. She gave it to me to taste instead.

I made it when she was here and gave her the first sip just in case she did like it. She didn’t, so it was passed on to me.

Overall, it is pretty good for a grocery store bagged tea. I only gave it a three minute steep, so it wasn’t astringent, but the black tea base was also a little muted. The chai flavors are palatable and not terribly strong, and the almond is quite nice. It is very smooth and mellow tasting.

This isn’t something I would buy to keep on hand but I wouldn’t turn down a cup of it if this was what was available.

After getting so utterly wrecked and sore last night from cooking and cleaning, I feel great today. I also have been very lazy and have done little.

I have just finished the fifth steep of one teaspoon of these little pearls, and I must say they have added an elegance and enjoyment to this day as few things can.

The jasmine flavor is still present though fading, and the green base is showing its pedigree. It reminds me a great deal of Huang Shan Mao Feng. This is exquisite, and is one of my panic teas. I panic if it starts to get low and I place an order!

Having a much needed almond matcha frap tonight. I am tired and my back is aching and I just can’t seem to get comfortable.

My son and godson have arrived and my daughter is coming tomorrow to celebrate lil sister’s birthday. I have made a cake and two batches of ice cream, and after washing dishes and cleaning it still looks like an utter wreck in there!

I wanted something super tasty to wash down a bunch of ibuprofen. I put a wee bit of skim milk, and a teaspoon of sugar in a glass. I sifted in one half teaspoon matcha. I whooshed it with my aerolatte, then added milk to the top of the glass. Nice! Nice! The amount of milk I first put in is all that gets frothed so I don’t risk ending up with a big glass of nothing but foam. It is a great way to control the amount of froth.

I love to top it up with milk and then add ice. For some reason I just love these extra cold.

I didn’t know anything about ginseng when I first tried this tea. I fell in love with the way it coated my throat and tongue, the way the sweetness grew in volume with each swallow, the way the sweet somewhat floral (to me) flavor blossoms, going from a pianissimo on the first sip to forte after the third little “shot” from my Teavivre double walled glass cups.

Subsequent steeps become less ginseng and more oolong. The color stayed a good solid golden shade through all three steeps, and I will probably steep these leaves some more tomorrow.

My guests loved loved loved it! I love it, too, and right now I am wondering how I keep myself from drinking it every day.

When the second pot of Hot Cinnamon Spice by Harney and Sons had been polished off, a couple of folks started clamoring for more tea! Eeeeee! I was afraid I might be obnoxious always pushing tea on people, but they seem to really like it!

They told me to fix more, fix more! They said they liked trying new things, so I made two pots of this.

It is what it says, chocolate and strawberry, but honestly there is not a ton of puerh flavor. It is very good and the base tastes earthy, but not strongly like puerh. This is a decadent, richly flavored dessert type tea, very satisfying even for this crowd that adds no milk or sugar.

Two pots of this have disappeared rapidly and they are asking for more tea…

Coming up!

Well, I see I never removed this tea from my cupboard when I gave away the last of my loose leaf, but that’s okay because someone gave the gift box for Christmas! Now I have it in teabags and I must say I think it is not nearly as strong. Maybe my tastes have just changed.

I served this to a friend who loves cinnamon earlier today and he loved it.

Tonight we are under a winter storm advisory – ha,ha it is raining here and all the snow is staying an hour to the north of us. Nevertheless, the folks who came in for writers’ group tonight started asking for tea immediately upon coming in the door because of the wind and rain. I made this one first because it is so warming. There were only three people drinking tea at first and yet I had to make a second pot of this almost immediately!

This box of teabags will be gone in no time, and I will have to replace it again because even though I don’t really drink it, not being a fan of Red Hots, so many people who come over love it that I need to keep it on shelf. I understand it is Harney and Sons number one seller.

This tea smells absolutely identical to Penzey’s own blend of cinnamon.

Throughout the day today the memory of the taste of this tea haunted me. As I cleaned the living room getting ready for tea party I could just taste it. I really hadn’t planned to make this one but I started craving it. Why fight it?

This is absolutely heavenly. The green base is so good. I have had other dragon pearl jasmines that had a artsy or astringent base. This one is excellent and sweet on the tongue. The jasmine is a soothing, lovely addition that weaves a cocoon of weave around me. There is no perfume-y or soapy taste, just sweet, glorious jasmine and good green tea.

It is pretty economical, too. I used one tsp. of pearls and resteeped them and combined the steeps in a larger pot to serve it today.

It has been a loooong time since I had this one. I remembered liking it pretty well. It was the first tea of tea party today. Today was a special tea party day because we were celebrating youngest daughter’s birthday! We had butter cake with boiled chocolate frosting and ice cream and cookies.

I used boiling water but only a three minute steep because I couldn’t quite remember how I made this in the past and I thought I remembered it needing a shorter steep time than many of our black teas.

This tea smells like a great berry tea, and the first two cups we had were awesome. The tea was smooth and the berry flavors were fresh and sweet. After we had finished trying all three of our teas today I went back to this one for another cup.

Oh dear! It really got astringent as it cooled! I tried reheating it and that helped a little.

This isn’t a bad tea, but be sure to drink it fast! It takes a nasty turn if it sits too long.