Special Dark
This tea has been retired/discontinued.
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Commercial Description
We call this Special Dark for good reason. This decadent tea is hand crafted in small batches within cotton bags, and fermented more extensively requiring great attention and intention. Creamy, rich, dark, and smooth. This cocoa-y indulgence is one of our most unique pu'er teas. An excellent change-up from the norm for you lovers of the shu.
Ratings & Reviews
Page 1 of 1 page with 1 review
87 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5SarsyPie (119 reviews) on Jul. 3rd, 2014
Method 1: 1.5 tsp, 4 oz, 208 degrees, seconds: 30, 45, 60, ru kiln gaiwan. Then I blended these together to make 1 cup of tea
Method 2: 1 tbsp, 8 oz, 208 degrees, grandpa style
Method 3: Slightly less than 1 tbsp, 8 oz, 195 degrees, 2 and 3 minutes, Forlife brew-in-mug strainer, Dr. Who mug
Dry Leaf Aroma: chocolatey forest. This smells like Pennsylvania forests when you’re out for a nice hike. But then someone came along and dumped chocolate in the forest!
Brewing Aroma: Cocoa and stuff. It smells pleasant, but earthy. I can’t pick out the exact thing it reminds me of.
Flavor: The first method used shorter steeps. It was good, but it didn’t knock me off my feet. I could taste some of the chocolate notes, but it didn’t seem to have as much complexity as I expected.
The second method was quite unpleasant. The package says you can’t oversteep pu’erh. Since I love grandpa style tea so much (lazy), I decided to just let it sit and see what happened. Well I beg to differ, but you certainly CAN oversteep pu’erh! LOL. I call this one: The Burninator. It tasted like burnt dirt.
The third method was the goldilocks. Finally, woo! I took a sample out at one minute, two minutes and three minutes. Two and three were the best. I think I actually liked two the best, but you can’t go back! So I drank it at 3 minutes. The flavor is kind of hard to describe. I can taste a little cocoa, and some earthy flavors, but I can’t put my finger on them. I haven’t had many pu’erhs, so maybe I’ll get better at that as I go along. It’s a very rich tea. I suspect it would go well with some decadent dessert. I’ll be trying that soon! I would definitely buy this again.
Page 1 of 1 page with 1 review
More Pure Tea (Camellia sinensis) from Yunnan, China from Mandala Tea
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| Style: | Raw (Sheng) Pu-erh |
| Region: | Yunnan, China |
| Caffeine: | Caffeinated |
| Leaf: | Compressed |
Heart of the Old Tree Sheng Pu'er 2012
| Style: | Raw (Sheng) Pu-erh |
| Region: | China |
| Caffeine: | Caffeinated |
| Leaf: | Compressed |
1 Rating
