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I don’t actually have much experience drinking Pu-erh, but it has been on my to-do list for awhile. Drink more Pu-erh Check! Thanks one last time to Angel at TeaVivre for providing me with this sample and helping me to check one item off my to-do list.

I began with a very fast rinse before moving on to the first steep. The first steep is not nearly as dark as I normally associate with Pu-erh. This is the first time that I’ve used a Gaiwan so I am sure the color will darken on successive steeps. The tea has a very light mellow earthy taste, but is not nearly as strong as my previous experience with pu-erh.

With the second and third steep the tea continues to darken in color and the flavor becomes more bold. The third steep is when the tuocha completely broke apart. As I continued on with steeps 4, 5, and 6 I was surprised that although the color continued to darken, the flavor remained very similar. It is very possible that I could have gone past 6 steeps, however, I had unexpected (but very welcome) company today and one of the kids thought my pu-erh looked yummy tasting.

The flavor of this tea is very mellow and doesn’t have the depth of other Pu-erh that I have had, which is why I think it is perfect for someone just starting out with Pu-erh. I find that the less complex teas are a great place to start. I do wish that the rose flavor would have been present, I didn’t taste it at all once the tea steeped.

Dry this tea smells very strongly of strawberries and I hopped it would translate as strongly into the brewed tea, I was really disappointed when it didn’t. While this was hot I had trouble telling that there was even strawberry in this tea.

I was once again disappointed in the quality of chocolate used. It seems to me that Della Terra uses the exact same chocolate flavoring in all of its chocolate teas and I just don’t care for it. It also leaves every one of their chocolate teas tasting exactly the same.

Wow, this is really sweet, a lot sweeter than what I was looking for in my before bed tea. The main flavors are the peach and apricot and they were incredibly sweet. I was disappointed that you can only taste a hint of honey bush and even then not until the tea cools to close to room temperature.