Obviously this is not a desperately serious thread.
DP's started drinking Pu'er Tea occasionally.
Fine, better than acquiring oneself a home Coffee Wanker as they seem to spend thousands to fanny around at geologic pace to produce something that's just a by-then too small, cold coffee. As long as he can manage to make sure there are bags of Yorkshire, English Breakfast or something that doesn't only taste of the ashes of disappointment put through three rinses Tetley and one systematic removal of all tea and pleasure related molecules decaff available for my many cups a day, then merely waves a lactose free milk at the mug from across the kitchen for a second, all is good.
Anyhow, he's made me some and for all the florid descriptions of 'fruity, earthy, herbal, plummy, wisps of cherry tinted butterfly wings in an Easterly breeze sweetly caressed by nymphs', all I'm getting from it is 'decently strong tea drunk in a stable whilst mucking out on a sunny morning'.
I don't mind the smell, as there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the smell of warm wood, hay, straw and horseshit, but I don't think I actually want to drink it, any more than I've ever felt the urge to take hutch sweepings and soak them in hot water for three minutes whilst a couple of rabbits are having a nice hop around on the grass.
I'm not a complete Philistine, as I agree that Goat Cheese tastes how goats smell and like it for that reason - and for a moorland boy born and bred strong in the arm and thick in the head, I can see why he probably likes it.
He agrees with my description - or is at least indulging my lack of sophistication - and now calls it Barn Tea. Shite Tea is obviously reserved for supermarket basics ranges and Not Even Fucking Tea is for Decaf, Rooibos and those fruit monstrosities that all taste of rosehip with a Body Shop shower gel top. Chamomile, mint and ginger (with fresh components, not just ancient dried nothingness) all get a Tea Pass because they taste of something.
Anyhow, because I've got bugger all going on other than pontificating about beverages today, I wondered if anybody else had similarly strong opinions about Pu'er Tea or there's something I'm missing about it?