This tea has three entries on Steepster. I’m not very OCD. Only about some things. But I used to take pleasure in reporting duplicate tea entries so the powers that be could merge them. But then I remember hearing they weren’t doing that anymore because of some software issue. Which is a shame because the multiple entry thing is like a burr against my skin. I wish I could merge them myself and get rid of that annoying prickle.
To make it even more entertaining, each of the entries has a different average rating so it’s kind of hard to know what the consensus is on this tea, which is part of what Steepster’s value add is. Ho hum.
Anyway, I am 100 percent sure this was part of the tea of the month because it doesn’t seem at all like something I’d buy. In looking at my stash, I see that I do have some flavored pu-erhs, but that was before I knew my tastes better. Also, in general, strawberry isn’t a top flavor pick for me. I love the fruit (if it’s just the right ripeness), but I find the flavoring agents often taste fakey to me and I cannot abide strawberry ice cream under any circumstances.
That said, Teavana’s strawberry isn’t too bad. It’s been pretty good in things like the strawberry lemonade tisane.
I just came back from a long walk up a very steep hill. I intended to run at the high school track near me, but it was closed for some event (how dare they actually use the high school track for the high school!) so I went for a long walk instead. Somewhere along the way I thought about this tea and decided to try it when I got back.
I’m making it western style because I don’t have a gong fu brewing vessel big enough to make enough for the BF to have some as well and he expressed an interest. So I rinsed and then put it in the Breville. I’m assuming this is a shou, so I’m using boiling water, and the recommended steeping time on the package.
There was an amazingly rich strawberry fragrance coming out of the packet, and underneath a rather earthy tea smell. Not fishy, leathery, or salty, or if it is, that is masked by the strawberry.
It has a reddish brown, dark but clear liquor like some black teas. The aroma is strawberry first, something malty and earthy second.
The flavor is weird. It’s not horrible, not something I have to hold my nose to drink. Just weird. The strawberry flavor is the first thing I taste, followed by an undercurrent of malty tea. The strawberry flavor itself isn’t irksome to me, though it’s not overly natural either. There’s a sort of a creamy note to it that makes it more like strawberry vanilla than berry flavor.
I suspect serious pu-erh drinkers wouldn’t care for this much as this isn’t really about the tea. It’s about the strawberry, which is trying to be a strawberry/vanilla dessert and actually succeeding pretty well at it. I give it “very good” rather than merely “good” points for that.
I don’t love this, but I don’t dislike it either. I can see maybe having it occasionally for as long as it is in my cupboard, but I can’t see myself re-ordering it. Which continues my streak of not wanting to reorder things Teavana still sells, and wanting to reorder things they no longer sell.
I wonder what it would be like in the gaiwan? I’ll try that another time.
