Mini Pu-erh Tea Bar (50 Gr) from Teasenz

pu_erh_chocolate_bar_tea_brickTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Pu-erh

Where to Buy:  Teasenz

Tea Description:

Made from 2012 “gift-tea grade” leaves selected by the Teasenz team and pressed into a tea bar. Easy to break and steep right away, or store and let it ripen for years. A perfect gift to surprise your favorite tea drinker.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

I was quite pleased by the aroma of the dry bar, because usually when I take a sniff of the dry leaf of a pu-erh, it smells very earthy, to the point where it smells … well, it smells like earth.  Like potting soil with um … well, with maybe a little bit of fertilizer mixed in.  Yeah, I’m not all that into that smell.  But, while there are some earthy notes to this dry leaf (which has been pressed into a bar shape with little squares, similar to what you might find if you were to unwrap a bar of chocolate), this doesn’t overpower my nostrils with the smell of a greenhouse during planting season.

And the brewed tea doesn’t have a heavy earthy aroma either.  Nor does it have a heavy “briny” or fishy smell.  BONUS points for that.  The aroma here is very soft, almost indistinguishable, which some might find a bit weird, but it’s much more agreeable to this tea drinker than the aforementioned potting soil.

The flavor is so nice!  It has a deep, rich, mellow flavor that is a pleasure to drink.  There are notes of cacao which is especially nice given the comparison I made to the chocolate bar a bit ago.  Absolutely no bitterness.  No astringency.  Just a smooth, well-rounded, mellow flavor.  While there are faint notes of earth here, this isn’t what I’d categorize as an earthy tea.

The flavor is very interesting because it’s quite unlike any pu-erh that I’ve tried to this point.  The notes of cacao are there, it’s a very mild dark chocolate note.  It’s almost like raw cacao, except that I taste a very subtle roast.  Like perhaps they started to roast the cacao but then changed their minds shortly after the roasting process had begun.

The cacao notes are softer than the overtone of molasses that I taste.  This tastes to me very much like molasses, with hints of mushroom.  Imagine a mushroom that has been slow-roasted to dry it out a little bit (so that it has a slight dry, leathery sort of taste to it) and then topped with raw cacao, and then topped with a heavy drizzle of molasses.

Yeah, it sort of tastes like that, only better, because that description sounds kind of weird and this just tastes unique and lovely.  I mean, if a chef put a plate in front of me with a slow-roasted, leathery mushroom that had been dusted with raw cacao and drizzled with molasses, I would think that the chef had lost his mind.  It is sweet, rich, a little leathery with a very slight earthy tone.  Overall … a really splendid tea experience!

This tea keeps going and going too.  I managed eight infusions, and I think I could have gotten even more, but I was ready to move on.  The flavors got deeper and deeper with each infusion, until about six.  The flavors pretty much began to stabilize at that point, and then wane.  My eighth infusion is where I started to notice a loss in flavor, but it was still quite flavorful.

Pure Indulgence Cinnamon Pu Erh from Palais Des Thes

Pu ErhTea Type:
Pu Erh

Where To Buy:

Palais Des Thes

Product Description:

Pure Indulgences Cinnamon is an exceptional new flavored tea featuring a single natural ingredient.

This deliciously novel pairing combines a magnificent Chinese Pu Erh with subtle, sweet cinnamon for an exceptional blend.
Pu Erh, also called dark tea in reference to the deep brown infusion it produces, gets better with age. These teas come from the Yunnan Province in China and are widely renowned in the Asian pharmacopoeia for their many beneficial properties.

Pure Indulgences are the result of a lengthy process of selection and development, motivated by the quest to find the perfect balance between the tea leaves, which have their own gustatory characteristics, and the finest ingredients (delicate pieces of fruit and flowers and only all-natural extracts).

Tasters Review:

Most of you already know that I LOVE all types of tea…Black, Green, White, Yellow, Purple, Rooibos, Oolong, Honeybush, Tisanes of all sorts, even Pu Erh.  But I have to be honest – out of all of them I probably reach for fruit-hibiscus-herbals and Pu Erh’s the fewest of them all.  No real reason…I just tend to lean towards the others more often.

But when I come across a Pu Erh I do enjoy…I tend to write and talk about it.  Just as it is with this tea from Palais Des Thes and their Cinnamon Pure Indulgence Pu Erh.

Upon first glance – the dry Pu Erh was brownish/black with a rusty, dusty textured finish.  There was a pleasant cinnamon aroma to it but not overly so.

After infusing for a bit I took my first sip and thought to myself…WOW…this is MUCH better than I anticipated!  I shouldn’t have been surprised because most if not all of the teas from Palais Des Thes I have enjoyed up to this point.  Again, this tea, followed suit.

The post infusion color is that of a medium brown much like some black teas I have seen.  When I infused this Pu Erh it didn’t go “Coffee” Black as some tend to infuse.  This doesn’t have a fishy or woodsy or muddy aroma either.  It’s just a touch of Cinnamon.  It’s also not TOO Cinnamon like a Fire Ball for example.  It’s JUST right, really.  Warming, welcoming, and tasty!  A Flavored Pu Erh for the books!  Two thumbs up!

Da Ye Xiao Qing Tuo (Big Leaf Mini Green Tuo Cha) from Seven Cups

BigLeafMiniTouChaTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Oolong

Where to Buy:  Seven Cups

Tea Description:

This tea has a light aroma and rich, smooth flavor with a long finish through multiple infusions. The liquid is light and clear, and the infused leaves are the color of bamboo leaves. You can feel the sweetness of the tea in your throat after a few sips. 

Learn more about this tea here.

Subscribe to Steepster Select here.

Taster’s Review:

I’m love LOVE loving this Da Ye Xiao Qing Tuo Pu-erh from Seven Cups!  It’s so remarkably sweet – one of the sweetest Pu-erh I think I’ve ever encountered.

The sweetness was strong from the very first cup, and this sweetness only developed with each subsequent infusion.  I taste a very light vegetal tone to the first cup as well, but mostly what I taste is a honeyed sweetness that is absolutely delightful.

The second cup was where I noticed the sweetness developing into a creamier note.  I could also taste the vegetal notes a little more with this cup.  The combination of the cream and the veggie notes gave it an almost “creamed spinach” type of flavor, although the vegetal notes were sweeter than spinach.

The third cup was a little less sweet and a little more vegetative.  The creamy notes were not as noticeable this time.  The flavor is more of an earthy vegetation this time.  Still very flavorful, but, I found myself missing the sweet creaminess that I experienced in cup number two and the joyful sweetness of the first cup.  This is still good, just not as delicious as the first two cups.

I decided to have one more cup to see what flavors were in store for me, and I found that with this cup, there were no creamy notes and the sweetness was not the same.  It was more of a sweet vegetative taste rather than a honeyed sweetness or a creamy sweetness of the earlier infusions.

I am sure that this Pu-erh could have gone through many more infusions, but, I think that because I so enjoyed the first two cups so much, that I found myself missing what those two cups had to offer and I couldn’t appreciate the later infusions as much.

A really nice Pu-erh, and I’m glad that I got to try it.  Another great tea offering from my Steepster Select box!

Pure Indulgences Cinnamon Tea from Le Palais des Thés

cinnamonpureindulgencesTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Pu-erh

Where to Buy:  Le Palais des Thés

Tea Description:

Pure Indulgences Cinnamon is an exceptional new flavored tea featuring a single natural ingredient.

This deliciously novel pairing combines a magnificent Chinese Pu Erh with subtle, sweet cinnamon for an exceptional blend.

Pu Erh, also called dark tea in reference to the deep brown infusion it produces, gets better with age. These teas come from the Yunnan Province in China and are widely renowned in the Asian pharmacopoeia for their many beneficial properties.

Pure Indulgences are the result of a lengthy process of selection and development, motivated by the quest to find the perfect balance between the tea leaves, which have their own gustatory characteristics, and the finest ingredients (delicate pieces of fruit and flowers and only all-natural extracts).

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

This Pure Indulgences Cinnamon Tea from Le Palais des Thés is a little misidentified on the website, as it’s called a black tea as well as a Pu-erh, and while there are some that consider these two teas to be one in the same, to those serious about tea, they certainly are not the same thing.

I love the aroma of this tea.  That’s not something I generally say when it comes to Pu-erh teas, especially darker Pu-erh like this one.  But the cinnamon overpowers the earthiness of the loose Pu-erh and the two intermingling parts that comprise this tea create a sweet cinnamon note.  It doesn’t smell spicy, it smells like a sweet cinnamon, like the smell of cinnamon baking in a peach cobbler or something.

When I received this tea, I thought it was this tea that I reviewed back in 2012.  But I think that this is a wee bit different.  The cinnamon here seems to have a stronger presence in the cup than in the tea in the Cinnamon Wood Caddy.

I love the way the cinnamon is represented in this tea.  It’s a smooth, rich flavor.  Sweet and spicy, but it’s a true to the spice flavor – that is to say, it tastes like something that would come out of your spice cabinet and not something that came out of a bag of candy.

The tea is a mellow tasting tea.  It’s slightly earthy … but here is where this tea becomes very interesting to me.  This is where the cinnamon really shines because the earthiness that I can sometimes find off-putting in a Pu-erh melds in a very harmonious way with the earthiness of the spice.

The first two infusions were like this.  I found these two infusions to be pleasantly balanced between the two components – tea and cinnamon- and I liked the way they played together on the palate.

In the later infusions, I noticed the cinnamon notes began to wane and I started to notice more of the Pu-erh notes.  The tea is deep and very smooth with no bitterness or astringency.

I enjoyed this tea, and was pleasantly surprised to find that this tea is different than the aformentioned Pu-erh in the Cinnamon Wood Caddy, and even though I really love that beautiful wooden “tin”, I preferred the flavors of this Pure Indulgences Cinnamon Pu-erh, especially the earliest infusions where there was such a perfect balance between cinnamon and tea.  It was quite a lovely experience!

Hazelberry Pu’er Blend from Simple Loose Leaf

hazelberrypuerTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Pu-erh

Where to Buy:  Simple Loose Leaf

Tea Description:

The earthy smoothness of Pu’er creates a warm foundation for the rich flavor of hazelnut while playful, tangy-sweet strawberries peek through the nutty opulence. A hint of cream adds a soft, dreamy note to the blend.

Pu’er Tea, Strawberries, Cocoa Nibs, Natural Strawberry Flavor, Natural Creme Flavor, Natural Hazelnut Flavor

Learn more about this tea here.

Learn more about Simple Loose Leaf’s Selection Club subscription program here.

Taster’s Review:

When I opened the pouch of this Hazelberry Pu’er Blend from Simple Loose Leaf, I didn’t smell a strong earthy aroma.  Instead, what I smelled was hazelnuts!  Hints of fruit in the background, along with a slight earthy tone that mingled with the hazelnuts in way that was agreeable to the olfactory senses.  The brewed tea smells strongly of hazelnuts with notes of earth and a berry note.  

This is a really tasty Pu-erh blend!  The hazelnut flavor is well-defined and stands out.  The earthy notes of the Pu-erh meld with the nutty notes to create this really intense nutty flavor that is quite yummy.  It has a deep and mellow flavor, something that you just want to curl up with and enjoy.

The strawberry notes are not as strongly pronounced as the hazelnut, but, they are sweet with a tart note toward the finish.  I don’t know that I’ve ever had a hazelnut and strawberry blend before, but these two flavors work well together.  There is a creamy backdrop to the cup, and this seems to bring out the cacao flavors a little bit (as does the earthy tones of the Pu-erh and the hazelnut).  If I were to change anything at all about this blend, I’d want a little more chocolate.  But when do I ever want less chocolate?  Never.   More chocolate is always better.

This is really good.  I didn’t brew it the way I traditionally brew a Pu-erh (in my gaiwan) but I did take it for a quick rinse before the first steep, and I do recommend doing this to help wash away some of the stronger earthy qualities of the tea.

I got this tea in my April Selection Club box and I am just thrilled with it!  Wonder what it’s like to get a Selection Club sampler box?  Click here to see what teas I received this month!  Awesome, right?  Well, I’ve got even more good news:  Simple Loose Leaf has a special April promotion.  Get your first month of the Selection Club for just one dollar!  Use this code:  1DOLLARMONTH and enjoy up to five samples of different teas next month for just one dollar!  You can also opt to receive a larger quantity of one or two teas rather than the sampler box that I usually choose. Interested?  Check it out here and enjoy some great teas at a really great price next month.