Onyx is a single leaf pure aged sheng pu’erh from Physique Teas, online seller of bagged slimming teas.
Onyx blend is promoted as a detox type tea due to it being a pu-erh. I believe it! I find pu-erh during or near the end of a cold does wonders as it gets all the slime out. I can see it being good for hangovers, but I’m not much of an alcohol drinker these days to test it. I’m a tea drinker!
DRY LEAF: Surprisingly Onyx is very light on smell. If I get my nose right on the bag and take a huge sniff, I get some woodsy leaf smell.
STEEPED: Faint classic fishy smell that comes with pu-erh. Lovely dark oak colour here, with a nice peachy colour pour. I love the colour of pu-erh! /swoooon
Is it weird to like tea colour?
I did a 3 minute steep with boiling water, the suggested steep time. I totally agree with this steep time as I dislike long steep times with pu-erh teas.
I did not do a rinse with this pu-erh. Usually I do the usual 2-3 second rinse, but since the smell of the dry leaf was pretty mild, I thought it should be okay. I also crossed my fingers, hoping I don’t drink pure fish pu-erh.
TASTE: This is probably the most gentle pu-erh I’ve tried despite the dark colour. The woody, oak flavor is strong at beginning of sip then gently washes out to a crisp, juicy crystal taste.
There is no bitterness or dryness in Onyx.
RESTEEP #1 – identical to the first steep.
RESTEEP #2 – really close to the first steep, might be a touch lighter.
RESTEEP #3 – Finally Onyx is beginning to lighten in flavor. No changes in what I tasted since the first steeping other than the flavor starting to lighten. I’m impressed the tea bag is holding up perfectly. I can see many other tea bags falling apart after steeping so much.
Kinda looks like mountains in fog
RESTEEP #4 – Much lighter flavor now! The woody oak flavor is in reverse order – I get more of a light juicy taste, which powers to the oaky wood flavor at end of sip.
RESTEEP #5 – Pretty close to resteep #4 but lighter – the flavoring is more of an aftertaste. I’ll stop here, but I think I could get another resteep if I really wanted to. I think Onyx outlasted me, lol! Despite all these infusions, Onyx did not get bitter or dry.
After this bag of Onyx being steeped 6 times, it still has lovely colour!
COMMENTS: Hmmm. I have 2 different perspectives on this tea.
Onyx has a nice light pu-erh taste – no fishyness or crazy strong robustness. The tea bag performed well here and did a good job letting out flavor and keeping all the leaves inside. The resteep ability for this tea is big – very good for a bagged pu-erh! Also, the tea bag held up perfectly with all the infusions – the durable physique tea bag was made for this tea!
I think this tea would be great to take to work, I’m thinking a Monday after a weekend of too much fun. Or, you are just coming back to work after a nasty cold. This tea is no fuss, reliable, easy to steep and keeps putting out flavor.
My other perspective is as a tea-obsessed drinker. For me, pu-erh is about the journey – flavors changing cup to cup, revealing hidden pearls and new tastes. Onyx stayed pretty much the same flavor the entire resteeping process. This reliability of flavor could be a ultra bonus for some tea drinkers.
Spazzy tea drinkers like me would want to switch to another tea after a couple infusions to have something new, despite this tea’s ability to resteep like mad. Better yet, save the tea bag for the next day. Maybe I just have like Tea attention deficit. Or I see my stash of 190 (gah!) teas and I should really stop resteeping and sip down others so I can buy more tea!
Overall, very reliable, solid tea. Onyx is a good starter pu-erh and does its job. Every time I drink pu-erh I think I should really drink this stuff regularly.
