I know this is a weird turn of a rating considering I gave it a 95 before. For whatever reason, I haven’t been able to get the same taste as I did the first time. The cocoa, mushrooms, leaf piles, broth, and creaminess are all still there. But the maple sweetness is gone. This is due to how I’ve been making it, but even when I follow the directions, I’ve gotten a much blander tea. Maybe I’m not using enough leaves, or drowning it in too much water, or over-soaking by few seconds. Another reason could just be preferences because I’m leaning towards oolongs now more than any other tea. Then I must be very picky with aged teas.
I still recommend this tea for those looking for a creamy, good quality pu-erh blend, but it’s otherwise been mediocre for me. I also don’t recommend it for new drinkers, because it may taste like the dish water of plates covered by chocolate chip pancakes. Unfortunately, both the romantic description of maple, nuts, wood, cocoa and the unappealing broth of dish water are equally accurate.
This remains as a good quality tea. It just require really careful brewing which you’d expect out of any Whispering Pines Tea. I’ve also become more preferential. Not snobby, just preferential. You’d think that I’m more snobby or persnickety for not enjoying a tea out of being harder to please. But I’m really not that hard to please in terms of tea, and I actually think that there’s an element of refinement and snobbery in enjoying aged teas (though oolong drinkers can be REALLY hard to please because their preferred tea type is so particular and complex, while black tea drinkers can become classical snobs-and I’m totally both).
Rant end.
Flavors: Broth, Dark Bittersweet, Dark Chocolate, Dark Wood, Mushrooms, Musty
