AprTea sent a couple mini tuochas in their awesome sample package, problem is they weren’t labeled. So I had to ask them what they were. Luckily they knew the two tuochas I was describing and gave me the links to them (they were switching the wrapping on the tuochas). This one is lotus, which isn’t the ideal tea for me to be tasting – I’m not sure what it should taste like. The ripe tuocha has little lotus leaf pieces within it. I couldn’t really detect a different fragrance or taste to distinguish lotus, but again, I had no idea what I was looking for. Even if I knew that I was drinking lotus leaf at the time, I wouldn’t have been able to taste it. The pu-erh itself was great, if anything lighter than I would prefer, but the biggest flavor note I could mention is earthy. Definitely none of those offensive pu-erh flavors. I like this enough, but lotus wouldn’t be my go-to flavor for a mini tuocha – mostly because the lotus included probably made the flavor of the pu-erh itself weaker when there was less pu-erh leaves in the tuocha because of the lotus.
Steep #1 // 1 tuocha// 15 minutes after boiling // rinse 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 minute steep
Steep#3 // just boiled // 8 minute steep