"Bad Idea" Sheng / Raw Puerh Tea Dragon Balls

Yeah, this tea is a bad idea. 🤣 You like bitter? This tea is for you. I mean it's not really bad bad, but you won't forget this tea. This tea is like the last pet at the shelter that no one else wants. It looks at you with those eyes and you say to yourself "what's the worst that could happen?". Then that pet comes home and wrecks everything you own, but you still love it. This is that tea.

The full story with this tea starts with our love of bitter teas. 😝 We're always looking for a really nice sheng that has that special bitter edge that balances with everything else. This tea is just the edge. There's no balance, it's just all bitter, but that's ok. We picked this material up to creatively work into some blends. A little bitter tea tossed into a super sweet tea can be magic. This tea though... it walks straight into the room and promptly marks it's territory right on your leg. It overwhelmed any tea we blended it with. We've sat on this material for years without knowing what to do with it. This year, I was drinking this tea and I looked at Lamu and said "Buying this tea was a bad idea." Then a light bulb went off. This tea is a "Bad Idea". 😯

Yeah, ok, it's bitter, but how does it taste? Well this tea has some very intriguing aromas. It has a nice introductory aged sheng aroma going on. It is for sure smokey. I swear there are some hints of a dutch oven cooked peach cobbler in there. Lamu thinks I'm making that up. It comes out strong! 😣 First steeps and your first thought is "Oh this is much more bitter than I remember it being." Honestly I say that to myself every single time. Lamu and I look each other in the eye without blinking as we take the first sip and see who will make a sour face first. It's always her. 

The tea can brew very smooth with a silky body. There's no real taste other than bitter though. Surely the aftertaste can't also be bitter can it? Yup! Bitter. The wet leaves even smell bitter. After a lot of steeps the tea really does mellow into something smooth and pleasant but you gotta work for it. Can you work for it? Hah! 

Yeah, this tea is a bad idea. You gotta try it! Challenge your tea friends to see who can steep it the longest and still drink it without making a face.

This tea has been pressed into 5 gram dragon balls. That it turns out is a very handy size. If you want to solo brew just use one. Please don't try to break these in half; you're just going to hurt yourself! If you've got some friends over do a double ball brew. 

You get 8x 5g tea balls in one cutesy little plastic packet for one low price! That's 40 grams of total tea for the mathematically challenged.

Brewing Instructions

These steep super easy! Drop one ball into your brew vessel of choice 75-100ml or so. Add boiling water slowly. Let it steep for 30s and watch the ball open up. Discard this initial rinse; or drink it if you're super brave! Wait 5 minutes with the lid on and the tea ball will be open and ready to brew. Start with quick steeps under 10s. With each re-steep adjust the steep time to your taste. Enjoy and don't say we didn't warn you! 😜