eyes and ears.
On this very gray and damp day I have finally conquered enough inertia to taste a new tea.
This one comes from Life in Teacup and was a small gift with my last order. The tea is in the form of a toucha, which looks like a small thick-walled bowl or bird's nest, about the size of a thumb nail. Generally these are Pu-erh teas, which I expect this to be. There wasn't any scent from the dry tea, but as the tea began to brew it first smelled like cherries, then tobacco, then a more earthy aroma with a sweet overlay. All that and I haven't even tasted it! It is a rich, deep amber and the little toucha, after only 2 minutes, is no more. As far as I can tell from Gingko's website, this is a Shu Pu-erh, meaning ripe, and is from 2007, Yunnan Province, China
As I begin to sip the tea, there is the unmistakable scent of white kindergarten paste, along with some cinnamon and maybe a bit of mint. At first there is a taste of banana, of all things, then white paste, dark cherries, earth. What a super interesting tea this is. You could be charmed for hours, drinking this. I let some brew for nearly 5 minutes and the color is much deeper, as is the taste, which has become more earthy, but a clear, clean earthiness. This is most definitely a good tea and well worth the money, which is only $4.50 for ten of the little goodies, enough for many small pots of interest.
Not that I have great experience,with Pu-erhs, which I do not, but this is really a good tea.
American Tea Room is having a 20% off sale until Jan 31. Their web site is http://www.americantearoom.com/ I haven't had any of their teas, but other bloggers generally rate them highly.
There are some very cute kangaroo teacups over at http://teaandcompany.wordpress.com/ . The site is in Spanish, but pictures are multi-lingual.
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