Special Dark

This is probably the only Shu Puer to really have earned my favor. I like Shu Puer in general, but aside from this one, none have ever really stood out to me as being unique or particularly enjoyable. Admittedly, I’ve probably had less than 10 different ones.

After a rinse this tea smells strongly of cacao and stone fruits. The brewed infusion tastes quite like unsweetened cacao, and in later infusions this is balanced by a dark fruit flavor something like dried fig or bing cherries. The aroma of the brewed liquor is like sugar cookies.

This one lasts plenty of infusions and delivers such a nice, rich flavor, with very little of the mustiness that most shu Puer have. I really like this. Best ripe Puer I’ve had so far!

So after about a 2 month break from caffeine, I have decided to slowly re-introduce it because I truly have a passion for tea and I miss brewing my good stuff :) so today I am having a western brewed cup of this lovely tea. 20s rinse and a 20s steep. Smooth, creamy milk chocolate flavor with a hint of mushroom today. I so missed my puerh!

Hopefully I don’t get too anxious reintroducing caffeine, and gone are the days I would have a ton of cups of tea a day, but my health has to come first. See previous notes on this tea!

Mandala Tea sells several excellent loose leaf puer teas, and this one is my personal favorite of the bunch. Can be made strong but still remains perfectly smooth with no overpowering flavors. One of my current favorite teas ever, and maybe the best one I currently have in my rather extensive tea drawer. Leans quite far towards the dry & woody side of the puer taste spectrum rather than damp & earthy taste that is more common. An awesome tea if you prefer this flavor profile.

Today is a sad day. A childhood family friend who I used to play with during summers at my Aunts cottage died in a snowmobile accident. He was my age (32). Since I stopped hanging out at the cottage so much, I saw him only once every few years or so… in truth I didn’t know him well at all in adulthood, but my Aunt and cousin consider him a second son. They are family. I always regarded him fondly.
This is all so surreal. Larry was a good kid, he’s been riding since before he could walk! He knew all the rules and always took care to be safe. He never partied or anything like that. I’m so confused…

The tea: I need to try this again, preferably in my gaiwan. It was a little too thick for me and left me feeling unsettled- backlog from yesterday

This tea is so appropriately named! Finally getting around to this one from the sampler that I bought months ago and it really does taste like dark chocolate without tasting like chocolate. So that means it tastes like dark. Wait, what?

Made this is my yixing and my tea pet thinks it’s delicious!

Quick rinse and then brewed for around 30 seconds. I re-steeped this a few more times; probably a minute on the second one then much longer and finally left the leaves in for over 15 minutes. No bitterness at any point and although the last cup was considerably weaker, it was still delicious and flavourful.

Tastes like chocolate and caramel, especially at first, and has the tiniest hint of gentle earthiness. Very smooth, with a soft aroma. I am not good at describing more than that, but this has been a favorite of the mandala ripe sampler so far… I like the gentleness of it, especially the smell.

A great Shou featured by Mandala in a limited time sampler, very balanced, smooth and mellow, easy to drink from first steep to fourth. Chocolate and malt notes, along with leather and wood in early steeps. I would recommend this to people (like me) that are new to Pu-erh.

mushroom and chocolate what could be better? That’s what I am getting from this tea. Its about to be very very hot out but for this moment hot tea is good and puer seems both hot and cooling to me. This sample from the riper sampler mandala sent out. I sent one to my sister too and so across the country we are sipping together. Once the weather cools I’ll be drinking a lot more of this! The head pains are clearing and now I’m ready for my day! Brewed gongfu style.

I have to admit. I got this tea awhile ago and have had it a few times, but never left a review. It was just one of those teas that had so many good reviews. I didn’t really get it ,and so wanted to try steeping it many different ways before doing my review. I originally tried this with short steeps. I remember it was good but didn’t get any chocolate. This morning I did a long steep – 5 min. The first 5 min going to Hubby since he’s enjoying it now too. After having some amazing black teas from WP that have a chocolate flavour, it made me appreciate this tea and how it is different. No , not like the chocolate from the black tea but definitely chocolate notes—dark cocoa more like. This tea has an earthy flavour like other ripe puerhs, but not anywhere near as pronounced. I didn’t get any mushroomy flavour from it either. Very smooth. This is the kind of tea that slowly works it way into being one of your favourite cups. It didn’t knock me over right away when I first had it; but I enjoyed the many times drinking it ,and working through the tastes in my head.

The folks in the chat room kept saying I should try this on. So today I finally got to. It smells like earthy dark chocolate. There is a flavour like rich, dark, slightly sweet hot chocolate, and the name makes me think of a certain candy bar.

Since I joined the Dark Side long ago, it was certainly time to try this tea.