Dark Tea

Half-litre pot at home, brewed from a tuocha, i.e. a pill of compressed fermented leaves. Pours nearly clear fudge brown with negligible brownish sediment. Clear aroma of tea leaves, with mild notes of fermentation. Bitter, but not aggressive, flavour of black tea, with leafy notes and barely discernible touches of fer...

Prepared tea from 8 g, coarsely ground, of a 357 g cake. Used 18 oz boiled water and brewed for 6 min; added 4 oz ice. Final = 2.9 g/8 oz. The tea had a strong earthy flavor, not acidic or astringent, and no mushroom flavor like some Pu-erhs. Very full bodied, and great taste! The tea liquor is black, which is why ...

SECOND UPDATE: I'm pretty sure now that this tuo is counterfeit and not really from the Xiaguan factory. I'd been drinking leaves from the surface, which were good, but just broke through to a second layer of chopped up leaves and twigs. I'm rather surprised at the amount of effort that went into counterfeiting a tea t...

I'm not sure how others determine their point ratings for tea, but for me, an 85 is an above-average everyday tea. At first, when I tried this, I didn't like it. Something about the notes just didn't appeal to me. It took getting more used to rougher, young raw pu-erh for me to really start to appreciate this one. It ...

When the holidays came around (and the holiday sales) and I was treating myself to one of the more expensive cakes, I picked this one out of all of those available on TeaVivre. The reason that I picked this one was that it's drinkable now, it tastes like it has potential for the future (not all currently drinkable cake...