Numi Organic Tea

Steeped in hot milk. Like reliving my childhood… only better.

How’s this for a drink? 1 tea bag, 6oz milk, 2oz cold coffee concentrate, 1TB white chocolate coffee creamer.

I not only needed to compensate for the milk and creamer, but also the 2oz of extra liquid so I bumped the steeping time up to 7 min praying it wouldn’t get bitter.

No bitterness- YAY! The coffee flavor is strongest which kinda surprises me since my normal coffee/milk ratio is 2:4 (oz), not 2:6. The chocolate comes next just as it would in a regular cafe mocha flavored by syrup. The milk provides a texture and a mouth feel instead of an actual flavor (yay!). The pu erh, spices, and white chocolate are there, but play supporting roles to give the drink complexity and depth preventing the chocolate from being flat.

Forgot to log this last nite cuz I went to bed right after drinking it. Didn’t have Bailey’s or Irish Creme creamer so I used 3TB Irish Creme instant cappuccino mix to make a variation on one of my favorite coffee drinks, an Irish Creme Mocha. The chocolate really seems to pop tonite and blends wonderfully w/ the Irish Creme giving it richness and also cutting out some of the artificialness and weird after taste that this mix seems to have. This is my favorite way to prepare this mix so far.

Steeped in milk tonite. This is so good… I just wish I could get rid of the milk’s aroma.

I love twist lattes so I decided to make a variation of one out of this tonite by adding 1TB vanilla creamer. Served w/ a pock stick of course:) The chocolate and vanilla compliment each other perfect and I’m even noticing the nutmeg more. I’m finding my pocky stick bitter though…

Satisfying my chocolate craving w/ this served w/ 1tsp white chocolate creamer and a Pocky Stick. Yummm…

I’ve been feeling stomach, head, and body achey the past 2 days… just blech… This tea sounded good to my tastebuds, I just hope my stomach agrees tonite…

You know how a lot of adult beverages have really nasty names? Well here’s one w/ no alcohol in it. I normally can’t stand those names, but this beverage walks right into it. It is, by definition, a Dirty Pu (ok- since Pu is only short for Pu Erh, it’s not exactly by definition, but it’s pretty close). 1 bag steeped in 4oz almost boiling water for 5 min then add 2oz cold coffee concentrate and reheat if needed. I drank this w/ one of Den’s Tea’s Pocky Sticks (on a side note, why are there only 2 servings per box??? That’s like 20 sticks!).

The liquor is blacker than black and the consistancy is thick. The flavor isn’t as pure chocolately as if it were served neat, but it’s definitely rich and indulgent.

YAY!!! So I took ROT’s Get Clean! off Jillian’s hands and when I opened the package I was ECSTATIC to find this as well!!! I’ve been giving this some thought and this is a chocolate pu erh w/ spices so I wondered how this would taste w/ milk. Then I wondered if I’d be committing some form of Chinese tea crime… which gave me the absolutely hilarious mental image of an old Chinese woman chasing me around w/ a cast iron frying pan for my assult on a wonderful pu erh. LOL! Ok, anyway…

I notice the spices are stronger in this bag than my 1st. Last time I could only smell the nutmeg, but now I can smell the cinnamon as well.

1 bag steeped in 3oz water. I could have added the milk right away, but I find it easier to get water extremely hot (but not boiling) than water. I also plan on resteeping this so I wanted to keep the bag clean). After removing the bag, I added 3oz milk and heated for 40 sec and stirred.

This is definitely worth risking getting hit by a cast iron pan. The chocolate is strong and the spices come thru just enough to add smoothness, depth, and complexity to the chocolate. The spice level is not that of a chai, but it makes a very comforting adult version of hot chocolate. I’ll definitely prepare it this way again.

Well this is my 2nd attempt at Pu Erh. My 1st was adagio’s pu erh dante which was absolutely vile. But ya know… something just dawned on me. It’s almost exactly a year since that experience. I made my 1st online tea purchase, which was w/ Adagio, on Dec. 28th of 2008 and that (along w/ white cucumber which is now one of my faves) was one of them. Although I have to be careful to not analyze this analogy too much cuz then I start thinking about howe my life has changed since then and I get depressed.

Anyway, this is the 1st Numi tea I’ve had so I can’t tell you too much about them beyond what my observations for this particular bag will be. Yes, bag. Now I’m not a fan of bagged tea so bagged pu erh worries me even more. I’m also surpised the front of the bag uses “velvety and vanilla” to describe a chocolate pu erh.

Ingredients: organic Pu Erh, organic cocoa powder, organic vanilla, organic Theo chocolate cocoa nibs, organic rooibos, organic orange peel, organic nutmeg, and cinnamon.

Wow… the ingredients surprise me. This isn’t just a chocolate pu erh, this is more of a chocoalte chai/spice pu erh. Not what I was expecting, but it sounds good! I also love that all of the ingredients except for the cinnamon are organic. I’ve never heard of Theo chocolate before though. As if I couldn’t be more worried, they throw rooibos in here! I’m desperate to learn to love rooibos because it’s so healthy, but I just can’t seem to.

I open the bag and smell it. While I can smell the complexity and depth of the chocolate and pu erh, the only ingredient I can specifiically smell is the nutmeg. Not a bad thing, just interesting.

The odd thing about the steeping directions is they don’t tell you how much water to use. They don’t even use the vague term of a “cup”. So I weigh it. I would have anyway because I’m learning a lot of bagged teas are incredibly light. Wow! 2.5g! I’m impressed! It’s between the weight I prefer for a 6oz cup (2.25oz) and an 8oz cup (3g) so I decide to steep it as an 8oz cup for the higher suggested time of 5 min. (It suggests 3-5). I also steeped it just under boiling (205-210) instead of at boiling because I don’t want to kill the health benefits. I don’t think it’ll make that much of a difference.

The liquor is one of the darkest I’ve seen. Easily mistakable for black coffee. And that’s what it smells like. It smells like a chocolate chai steeped in black coffee. Sweet, spicy, rich, creamy, decedant, and very complex. After a quick stir, I take a sip. I have never been so glad for a tea to taste exactly the way it smells! I LOVE THIS! And pu erh is supposed to help you metabolize fat? this seems like it should add it!

For you to fully grasp what’s going on in my head, you need to understand that not only was I terrified of pu erhs, but aside from chais I don’t care for black teas in general. Normally I say who I think would like a certain tea, but this time I think I’m going to say who I think won’t like this because the list is much shorter. I think the only person that would not like this would be a person who doesn’t like coffee or chocolate.

Serving Suggestion: While this is wonderful on it’s own, this tea would make a wonderful latte steeped in a ratio of 2 parts milk to 1 part water or steeped completely in milk as an adult version of hot chocolate. 1TB of white chocolate creamer instead of milk would also be divine.

Light and slightly earthy.

Some of the other reviewers loved this tea. I thought it was rather drab. I don’t know if that is because I don’t appreciate subtlety as much as some or if my tea-bag (sent to me as part of a holiday letter) was old. I got the earthy taste, but could not pick up on the promised overtones.

I know that Numi has some enchanting bagged teas so I might try to revisit this was a bag I know is new. I’ve had other teas that do earthy and chocolate-y in a much more intensely pleasing way.

I drink this all the time at work. Its mellow, nutty flavor reminds me of the green tea served at my favorite sushi restaurant.

Sometimes Green Puerh can be a bit acidic for me, but this blend is awesome! It’s smooth, floral, and surprisingly easy on the stomach. If you’re in Oakland, try some @ NUMI – 2230 Livingston St.

A random teabag that I picked up from I-don’t-know-where….

The aroma here is of jasmine, but the taste is of green tea. It’s okay, but I wouldn’t buy this one. The leaves in the teabag aren’t quite dust, but they’re aren’t whole leaf, either.

Entirely drinkable, moderately enjoyable.

My last bag. I’m having it for dessert tonight and I’m trying to make it stretch to my entire little teapot rather than just a cup. Hopefully it won’t be too thin. Nothing wrong with the aroma though, so I’m feeling confident.

Mmmmm. Nom.

My immediate leader in the lab also happens to be one of my best friends at work in spite of her being a couple of years older than my mother. We are so similar in so many ways. Today after work we went and saw the Percy Jackson film and ate a lot of sweets. A LOT of sweets. Let’s put it this way, I have more or less had sweets for dinner, okay? Things got out of hand.

I need something to wash all that sugar down and yes, I’m aware of the irony of having chosen a chocolate tea for the purpose. I just really wanted this tonight. Fortunately I still had one of the two bags that Jillian sent me AND TeaEqualsBliss also remembered that I liked this one and added a bag of it to the package I got from her yesterday. So I’m having it now and I still have a bag left. Lovely.

Oh, and the film? If you like adventures like Harry Potter and similar, go see it. It’s
awesome and I need to read those books like whoa! It can seriously not go fast enough.

Jillian sent me another couple of bags of this yummy yummy stuff. It seems fitting that I should have one of them this morning just as I stumble out of bed to find the winter olympics ceremony is on tv. I’m not sure if it’s a direct transmission or not. If it is, it must be seriously late in Vancouver… But hey, I turned it on just a few minutes before the danish delegation came in. How’s that for timing, eh? :)

Of course I did mess up the brewing of this. Yes, Angrboda can’t even brew a teabag! It was a minor incident involving me pulling the string off the bag and then managing to poke a whole in the bag with a fork when trying to fish it out of the cup. Oh well, I’m used to having leaves in my cup. Just now this size. And I can probably resteep it, but I’m not sure it would be a good idea under these circumstances.

I was a little worried about whether I would like this less now that it’s not christmas considering how it had initially reminded me of a liquid christmas cookie. I’m glad to report that even with christmas behind us and with a small teabag-mishap, it’s still yummy.

Cheers, Steepsterites.

(Oh yeah, btw Jillian, your package arrived yesterday)

Also backlog. Had the second bag of this yesterday while waiting for the rest of the guests to arrive. It was of course still very yummy, but somewhat overshadowed by the hope that it would be dinnertime soon because I was starving half to death at the time. It went really well with my mother’s brown biscuits and vanilla hoops, though.

I’ve saved the bag since it was only used once for one cup, so I’m trying out a resteep of it for breakfast this morning.

ETA: Resteep was successful. It could probably have handled one more, but I didn’t want to keep saving the bag. My mother already seemed to think it was slightly odd that I had saved it in the first place.

Insteresting letter from Jillian in my letterbox today!

I’ve been trying to figure out what to try first and decided I was more interested in this. When I sent Jillian my ‘wishlist’ of things I’d like to try from her cupboard, this one mostly caught me by being pu-ehr, and I haven’t had any of that in ages, and a flavoured one at that, which I’ve never had. Little difficult for me to imagine flavoured pu-ehr, for some reason. But then, I initially felt the same way about green, white and oolong too and I can’t come up with a logical reason on why it shouldn’t be possible. Anyway, I didn’t pay attention to what else was in it at the time, so it’s not until now that I notice it has rooibos in it. That’s a bit worrisome, since I don’t really care much for that… Oh well, if you don’t try, you can’t win, so here we go!

It’s bagged and the bag smells like christmas biscuits! Do I have to drink it? Can’t I just sit here and sniff the bag? It seems almost a shame to get it wet. On the other hand, if I did just sit around, sniffing the bag, sooner or later I’d forget to pay attention and try to take a bite. Reflex, see.

Luckily, after steeping, it still smells like that. Chocolate and cinnamon are the dominant smells, and underneath it the earthiness of pu-ehr. It seems very dark in colour for a pu-ehr. I can’t really spot that reddish brown colour that it usually gets, but then that might be because the cup I’m using isn’t the best for looking at the colour.

The little satchel the bag was in says that the chocolate might sink to the bottom of the cup, so I’m giving it a little stir before tasting.

It tastes like sweets! Chocolatey and cinnamony like the blend I made yesterday (fate perhaps? Preparation for trying this?), but sweeter. I can pick up pretty much everything they say is in it, except possibly the nutmeg, but then I’m not really entirely certain which flavour I’m supposed to be looking for with that one. It’s not a spice I ever use for anything at all in my kitchen. And to my great relief, although I can defintiely find the rooibos, it’s only there to sort of add a little boost to the other flavours. If I hadn’t known it was there, I wouldn’t have noticed, but knowing that it is, I can tell what it does.

Great choice, me!

I don’t drink too many teas that are pre-bagged, unless it comes to work or when I’m lazy. However, I’m very happy with the Monkey King Jasmine Green Tea. Its one of the best jasmine green teas i’ve had that is pre-bagged, and the flavor is great. The jasmine flavor isn’t overpowering so you can taste the green tea which is pretty decent. Sometimes I drink this one with a little honey, but usually I drink it plain since the jasmine flavor isn’t too strong.

I wasn’t a fan of the honeybush. While it had a pretty good flavor, the smell was off-putting to me.

Pretty decent tea, first steep was too short for me. Has a nice clean malty taste to it.