Tuo Cha Pu Erh (pe)
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Commercial Description
(RateTea Translation) Tea pressed into "mini bird's nests" from Yunnan. Tuo Cha Pu-erh has a deep, almost opaque, reddish-brown chestnut color, a familiar earthy quality, and is full-bodied and light in flavor...One tuo cha is enough for a pot of tea.
Ratings & Reviews
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65 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 4/5Teuvo (63 reviews) on Sep. 21st, 2017
I would love to try sheng pu-erh since that seems to be so highly regarded, but I haven't been able to find any. Wanting that, I was also interested in compressed pu-erh of any kind, and De Theefabriek has these little "nests" of shou pu-erh.
They are individually wrapped in paper in the package, but I was hit by the lovely earthy fungal smell when I opened the package. I've read something about "waking up" compressed tea so I poured some hot water over the mini tuo cha and then put it in the teapot and added the water. It immediately turned very dark.
The colour of the first cup seemed all right but it tasted a little thin and watery. Still, it had the lovely fungal, earthy, forest-floor-in-autumn aroma that I know from my only other experience with pu-erh. It left my throat a little dry. I've also seen people talk about pu-erh giving them a raw throat but I got the impression that that was just a thing that very raw sheng pu-erh does.
The second cup was pitch black and tasted stronger but bitter. That really surprised me, since Het Gouden Randje's King of Pu Erh does not get bitter no matter what I do to it. Then again, those are quite large leaves, whereas these bowls decompress into very small fragments. The residue in the bottom of my teapot looks like coffee grounds.
Very nice, but a bit too bitter for me. The description says these are good for a pot of tea, but maybe they mean a larger teapot. Anyway, this is really nice!
EDIT: I didn't rinse the nest this time and didn't steep for very long - about a minute maybe, two at the very most. There is a hint of dull bitterness at the back of my tongue, but at the tip of my tongue it's sweet and almost fruity. Also, not really watery this time, but feels a little thick. Overall there is that pleasant fungal earthiness, but it's mild.
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