Maiden's Ecstasy

I have had this tea for at least a month and I finally closed my eyes and went for it…I steeped this one for a timid 1 minute. Suprisingly, I liked this one. It was warm and earthy and not fishy at all. The taste was full and to me, slightly sweet…I think this is on one of my favorite’s list…possibly…..

Steep Information:
Prepared in store. Served in a tiny yixing clay pot, with an iron pot of water and a small iron cup. The leaves kept getting clumped and blocking the spout. I had to swirl it around to get the tea out. I managed to make quite a mess of it.

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: Fall leaves
Steeped Tea Smell: Muddy fall leaves
Flavor: Fall leaves, Gritty
Body: Full
Aftertaste: astringent
Liquor: hard to see in the dark lounge

I do not like pu-erh, but everyone recommended this one for a non-pu-erh lover. I agree that pu-erh is best with food, I found it “meh” as opposed to gross. The muddy bit was less pronounced when i drank it while eating.

Ordered at the Zen Valley location for dinner with Squash Dumplings w/ Dipping Sauce (Handmade vegetarian squash dumplings w/ spicy sesame-soy sauce).

Pictures: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/12/samovar-loose-leaf-pu-erh-tea-maidens.html

This is my first puer without lots of fruit, spices, or other stuff added to it, so I had no idea what to expect. I don’t have the experience, palate or vocabularly to attempt to describe this. It doesn’t taste like anything else I’ve tried and it tastes of things I don’t recognize. So I’ll just say, made first pot at midnight. Whoowho, wild and crazy, no work in the morning. Beautiful rich, dark colour. Tasted good, fell asleep mid-pot. Heated remains of first pot in microwave this morning. Amazingly, still tasted good! Second steep, still good. Added cream. Yum, made cream taste extra creamy. I’m about to make 3rd pot.

I think I’m going to really like this as I get to know it. I don’t know what this tastes like, but it tastes right somehow, as though this will become a taste other teas will aspire to and that I’ll search for.

yummmmm ecstasy!

This was my first ever tea from Samovar and I was quite excited to have this experience!

I rinsed the leaves like Samovar suggested, then let the 2nd infusion steep for 3 minutes (Samovar suggested 2-5). The resulting liquid was deep, deep brown. Unfortunately, I smelled the fishiness that some people have talked about. Not so much just fish, but a whole seafood store whose air conditioning broke in the height of summer. And some seaweed.

From experience, I knew that smells can be very deceiving when it comes to tea, so I wasn’t afraid to take a sip.

This one is a bit difficult to describe, as well as being surprisingly tasty and very complex. It is earthy, dirty, but not in bad way at all. It works for this tea. It doesn’t taste sweet right up front, but the aftertaste is lovely and lightly sweet, just enough to make you want to take another sip. And of course, the fishiness isn’t a part of the actual taste, but the seaweed is.

Overall, this is probably the most complex tea I have tasted to date. And I like it.

Oh, and if your immediate thought after hearing that the tea tastes like seaweed is one of revulsion, don’t be turned off! Seaweed is an ingredient of ice cream, after all.

This is my “tried and true” tea that I always go back to after sampling different types of teas or even novelty ones. I think it’s kind of a taste that you have to learn to love — as with most pu-erhs — because it’s not flavoured and is simply earthy and dark. I like it because it gives me a very interesting and sustained energy boost for a few hours without any sort of crash at the end.

It was one of the first teas that I ever tried (I skipped the bagged teas) coming from being a coffee/latte kind of guy, so I guess that explains my liking for the pure darkness of this one.

I’m still playing with the steep times though. Sometimes I only leave it in for 45 seconds (the first two steeps) but then with later steeps I leave it in for longer, sometimes 5 minutes. I believe most of the caffeine comes out within the first 2-3 steeps, and the strength starts to drop after the 3rd or 4th steep. It’s good enough to last me through a long day.

Alright. After a little bit of advice from Takgoti, I decided to steep this stuff much longer. After about 5 minutes, the depth and character of this tea is much more accessible. The smooth and lingering sweet profile is definitely there now.

There’s not much I could add to the 83 descriptions of this Pu-erh that precede my entry other than to say:

Yes, it is a balanced and slightly-on-the-sweet-side Pu-erh.

I’m on the 7th personal-sized steeping of the sample that came in my purchase of the Samovar Pu-erh sampler and it’s still a delicious brew.

If you’re sitting on the fence about whether Pu-erh is for you, this is one to try. If you find it to be “too” something or other, you’re probably not inclined to enjoy other varieties of Pu-erh.

In the descriptions I’ve seen in Samovar’s videos – this is named Maiden’s Ecstasy because it’s reminiscent of tea traditionally given in a bride’s dowry. I now understand why a Pu-erh with this flavor profile would be so prized.

I’ll be purchasing more of this when my sample leaves are exhausted.

Let me say that this is my first time trying Pu-erh and it was certainly an… experience. I’ve heard a lot about this blend from Samovar and was pretty excited to try. In terms of smell, there really wasn’t too much until the leaves were wet; the dry leaves smelt earthy but weren’t strong by any means. I followed the suggestion Samovar gave to rinse the leaves before drinking, so I tossed my first steep. After I did that, the smell was much stronger in my infuser. To be honest, at first, I was a little put off by the smell; it was extremely fishy. However, after the second steep, the smell turned into more of an earthy, wet-forest smell. It was certainly different than any tea I’ve tried before.

The color was certainly new to me. I’ve never seen a tea so dark, almost coffee-like in color. It looked like a very bold tea, and certainly upon drinking I came to discover it tasted as dark as it looked. It had a very, very earthy taste to it. I steeped for 3:30 the first time and found that the taste was extremely dark, but smooth. It wasn’t bitter; just a very deep flavor. It wasn’t light or bright by any means. As I drank more, and the tea cooled down, I started to get a faint sweet aftertaste. At first, I’ll admit, I didn’t think I liked it. I thought it was too strong and foul-smelling. But now, seeing as I’ve had a few cups of it, I kind of want more. There is a sweet taste lingering on my tongue. I ended up trying a bunch of different steep times, again at 5 minutes, 6 and 7. I found that 6 minutes was the best for me. The tea didn’t taste as dark or dirt-like and was a little bit sweeter. Like a dark fruit sweet.

Overall Observations:
-Very Dark tea
-Smells of wet-wood, and a little fishy for the first couple of steeps. This smell lets less and less fishy over time.
-Extremely dark taste; much more earthy than any green tea I’ve had (I like to think of it as a very dark Hojicha), taste seems to brighten up more if you let it steep for longer.
-Easily get a lot of steeps out of a serving, and your cup will not get more bitter as a result of adding more steep time.
-Very different tea. I’m excited to try the Blood Orange Pu-erh blend. I think citrus will work nicely with this taste.

Everyone should try this at least once in their tea-drinking adventures. I seemed to enjoy it more and more as I kept drinking it.

Finally got a chance to try this and this is the best Pu-Erh I’ve tried yet.

No gross fishy smell or taste like I got from the Numi Emporer’s Pu-Erh tea bags and a fun and enjoyable brewing method too. Had the iron tea pot with boiled water and poured that into a small yixing clay pot which was a fun brewing method. The server suggested 30 sec brewing time so I followed that generally, or brewed up to 1 min or so. Did about 12 steepings.

At first the flavour was stronger, not quite in-your-face which was very encouraging. This does remind me a bit of Lapsang in the way that it’s more like you’re drinking a fancy hard liquor (like Islay Scotch, or something) than a tea. So a very interesting and fun experience out, and definitely nice vibe to have this outdoors at the fancy Samovar Tea Shop downtown in Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco. Don’t know if I’d make this one for myself at home if I got some, but it’s a fun tea to have out.

The flavour was rich and inviting but not overpowering which was really surprising. I found myself really enjoying the taste and making comparisons to Samovar’s (very strong) Yerba Mate as well – in the way that it’s sort of a “unique” tea, not an every day one, but it’s fun to have once in a while as you suspect it’s so strange that it’s epically good for your health.

I had a LOT of this tea, 2 full teapots full. I hadn’t had a ton of lunch beforehand so I started to notice the caffeine hitting me pretty hard – also it was a bit harsh on the stomach too – I suspect this might be better if not on an empty stomach. It was very nice while drinking it but perhaps I had too much, this might be a better one to share with someone, or perhaps have only 1 teapot instead of 2. In any case I still liked it and despite the very present flavours and strong reaction I would have it again, prob just with food next time.

Best Pu-Erh yet, but this is making me wonder if you’re not supposed to drink Pu-Erh like you drink Black Tea – I could have 3 mugs of black tea and never feel blech afterwards. Perhaps this is a bit more acidic or something and warrants a little more caution. But in any case it was fun, and I’d try it again.