Tea: Tiny Orange Tea (TOT) 2007 Ripe Pu’er Stuffed Xinhui Mandarin Orange
Company: Bitter Leaf Teas
Price per Gram: $0.29 ($5 per piece, or $13 for 3-4 pieces)
There are no pix for this post, because apparently I didn’t take any good ones… Whoops~
Brewing Method: Bitter Leaf’s website has a video (linked above) showing an optional brewing method, but otherwise left no instructions. Because TOT is both a ripe pu’er and a dried orange, I decided to steep it with 100 degree (Celsius) water. The largest gaiwan I had at the time was around 120 ml. To expose more of the leaves, I took the top of the orange off and cut horizontal slits into the orange rind. The idea was to have the orange act like a filter. I added 10 -15 seconds to each brew after the first one.
Appearance & Smell of the Leaf: It’s….so… small! Bitter Leaf isn’t joking when they say the orange is tiny. A small package doesn’t mean a small aroma though. The fragrance hit my nose as soon as I opened the packed. It smelled like a sweet tart. TOT didn’t smell particularly like dried orange or ripe pu’er. It was oddly sour, but in a good way. I could tell right away it was a mandarin orange by the smell (mandarin oranges are superior oranges, don’t @ me). TOT also smelled similar to “ugly oranges” (丑八怪橘子). The leaves themselves looked like Bitter Leaf’s Black Beauty. They were pressed into the orange, so of course it was difficult to get a good look at them.
First Steep: I rinsed like one would normally rinse a pu’er then steeped for 45 seconds. The aroma of the liquor was sweet yet strangely earthy. It smelled like what I imagine cooking red meat in a roasted oolong would smell like. The liquor was a cloudy, coppery orange. I was super nervous about tasting the tea. Perhaps not surprisingly, the first steep tasted overwhelmingly of orange, with only a hint of pu’er. The flavor was medicinal in character but it wasn’t unpleasant.
Second Steep: This steep was about a minute long and I was in love with the color of the resulting tea liquor. The orange gave way to a red, and the coppery tone intensified. The brew was also much more clear than the previous one. As expected, I could taste more of the ripe pu’er in this steep. For some reason, though, this steep came out bitter. I still detected more orange than pu’er, but the pu’er was definitely there (I think that’s where the bitter note was coming from). I was not in love with this brew, but I didn’t hate it either.
Third Steep: I brought out another fairness pitcher so I could have one for fresh steeps (the ones I’m writing about in each section) and one for cumulative steeps. I collect the cumulative steeps by pouring the leftover liquid from each brew into a separate vessel, then after a few brews I try the tea from the secondary vessel. When brewing gongfu style, certain characteristics will come and go depending on the temperature of the water and how long you’ve steeped the tea. Tasting the cumulative brew gives you an “average” of the tea, and is similar to what you would taste when brewing western style.
The third steep was incredibly red. When I tasted the third brew, I audibly gasped in surprise. The flavor was so balanced. The orange was no longer dominating, the pu’er was coming into its own and the medicinal note also calmed down quite a bit. There was no more bitterness in the tea. I still detected something I didn’t quite like, but it wasn’t a bad flavor per se.
Fourth Steep: The orange got fat. The leaves were really trying to break free but the orange was not letting it happen. By the fourth steep, the orange color had left the liquor; it was becoming more brown. The tea was swelling to fill the gaiwan. This is the steep that marked the transition from orange to pu’er. The tartness was gone and the soil flavor increased, but the brew was still relatively balanced.
Fifth Steep: More surprise: the orange flavor made a strong comeback. It may have been because I was playing with the orange after the previous steep. TOT didn’t blow my mind but I liked it. It’s a nice, casual drinker. I hadn’t brewed a tea for so many steeps in a long time.
Sixth – Twelfth Steeps: There was a battle over which flavor would come out on top: ripe pu’er or orange? At times the bitterness was overwhelming, and I noticed that the hotter the water (I had to boil more partway through my tasting) the more bitter the tea. Normally I can’t drink this much tea at once, but because I was only drinking one three-sip cup per steep then pouring the rest into the other pitcher, I could handle it. The orange got so big it was difficult to cover it with water.
Around steep nine, I randomly started to think TOT would be great for cold brews and for cooking. It would go great with chicken, fish or tea eggs. I imagine it would also be awesome to stew pork (I cannot verify this) or lamb. Basically, it would be awesome with everything, lol. I imagine it would go well with lemon grass and black pepper, with a bit of garlic.
Please don’t take my cooking advice. My food is terrible.
For steeps ten – twelve, I took the leaves out of the orange. They were tightly rolled still, and they filled the gaiwan almost completely. There were easily 5 – 7 grams of tea in the orange. TOT’s leaves were the first ripe pu’er I’d had in a year that I actually liked. After brewing the leaves by themselves, I brewed the orange by itself. It tasted like weak candy, but it didn’t have a lot of flavor but itself. Tasting the orange alone, I finally figured out that one of the flavor notes I caught was prickly ash, minus the spice. Prickly ash is technically in the citrus family and I love prickly ash so this is a win.
The conclusion: All in all, TOT was pretty awesome. It’s not on my favorites list, but I enjoyed the experience. I’ll most likely buy it again someday. Bitter Leaf’s tea’s international shipping is pretty gui (expensive), though, so I’ll have to wait a while. Besides, I’m craving some Teasenz products right now.
Perfect Leaves 