2006 Jujube Aroma Puerh Tuocha

I’m keeping the pu-erh addiction alive today… lol

One reason these are great for the office is I can use the same leaf for hours and keep going back to the hot water dispenser to steep it for 30 seconds or so which cuts down on the amount of times I have to get up. :)

Normally I’m not so keen on touchas especially since they can be made with inferior ingredients….

I thought this was great, very flavorful and nice shu with the chinese date, or jujube aroma. Supposedly a very smooth Menghai taste, I’m just starting to learn what that is. :)

It’s smooth and mellow with no grit like you sometimes find after steeping a tuocha (is that from dust, I don’t know?) I am enjoying the redwood type flavor with fruitiness in the finish. It reminds me a bit of raisins rather than dates, but you get the point.

No weird off flavors or fishiness… and no camphor. I only got four of these but I wish I had gotten more – they’re nice!

This is a very pleasant and pleasing puerh, with its full and dark brew. The color of the liquid is a deeper reddish coffee and comes off silky smooth from the cup. I found no hint of aquatic or fishiness in the aroma or flavor. There was no discernible bitterness, but rather a good dry astrengency after the sip.

Very nice ripe dark tea with good age and maturity. It can only get better from here!

A handful of these little guys showed up in the mailbox today. They are cute little flat disks. I told my little boy (5YO) that they were candy. His excitement was short-lived.
Anyway, I tossed one into my Yixing pot,and gave it a quick wash. The dry tuocha aroma was unremarkable. With the addition of hot water, the tea comes to life. I was surprised to see the cake break apart so quickly, but this doesn’t seem to affect its endurance. I’m on number 6 or 7 steep, and this tea is showing no signs of waning.

The aroma of the wet leaves is fairly typical puerhy. Leather, wet soil, barky are my first impressions…all favorable and not overwhelming. There is a hint of ….hmmm… maybe soapiness, in a nice way. A slightly refreshing aromatic ending. Maybe they say this is the date, but its kinda soapy for me.

As for the taste, this one is smooth. In my opinion, this relatively thick, deep mahogany colored liquor is one of the smoothest and mellowest I’ve tasted. This attribute is the high point for this tea. What it has in smoothness, it lacks in depth of flavor. From steep to steep, there is a certain monotony in this tea. An expert would refer to this as “lack of rhythm”. With an undoubtedly pleasant taste, I am not too disappointed. I just would like to be able to decipher an evolution of flavors. This tea leaves me with a reasonably clean finish, but without that certain numbing pleasantness we can see in really good Puerhs.
The positive: clean, pleasant flavor, good endurance, nice aroma.
The negative: lack of rhythm.

Overall a nice tea and well worth drinking. Also the quality/price ratio is very high.

Thanks to Tommy for sending this one. Today I’m working on trying to load some new books onto the kiddo’s tag reader. If you are familiar with these…then yes it not going quick. Had my first two cups before we went sled riding yesterday. Thirty second rinse and followed by one minute steeps. I have to admit I’m liking the flatter Tuocha. It’s pretty coo. First steep I was a little bit concerned there was an overwhelmingly fishy aroma emanating from the cup. Not to worry though. After it settled for a bit there’s the deep dark earth like smoothness that I love from the Pu-Erh. This one is quite a treasure. They only cost .35 per tuocha and I’ve gotten 10 good steeps out of one tuocha. I’m on number eleven and it still hasn’t gone full mushroom water. An excellent brew.

I wasnt sure about these when i ordered then but when i got them they were great, ill get more for sure.

This one proved to be a very tasty mini tuocha with a very nice light and smooth Menghai taste. Clearly not made from cheap broken leaves and dust as this mini tuocha easily beats out a lot of cheap bricks and even cakes that I’ve run across.

“Aroma” is right, but it’s funky…quite fishy and maybe a little smoky….not exactly inviting. The tea is quite drinkable, but for all its “aroma” has hardly any flavor. Seems mild in effect also. Every time I steep a pot it’s like I’m standing outside of a fish-processing plant. Hard to believe anyone really enjoys this smell. Tea is brownish red in color, which gets deeper by the potful. I find that as the day wears on, I’m not looking forward to drinking more….it’s a little bit like drinking sewage. It’s basically a caffeine delivery vehicle.