Pu-erh tea
All posts in the Pu-erh tea categoryPu-erh Tea: From Harvest to Cake Pressing
Linda Louie from Bana Tea Company recently visited Yunnan Province, China — the home of pu-erh tea. While there, besides picking up some great new teas, she shot photos and video footage of the pu-erh production process.
With her permission, I thought I would share her two videos. The first shows the initial processing of tea leaves, and the second details the pressing stage, where the leaves are compressed into cakes. Enjoy!
Denong Brick from Bana Tea Company
From 2006′ autumn harvest comes this ripe pu-erh, a wonderfully smooth tea with one dominant flavour: almonds.
Menghai Aged Raw Pu-Erh from Bana Tea Company
When I first started drinking wine, one of the things that I most enjoyed was the feeling afterwards, once the wine had coursed through the throat and into the stomach. That warmth. It was amazing to me to feel how the body responded to the drink.
I had a similar experience this morning with tea. The tea is an aged pu-erh tea from Bana Tea Company, a Menghai factory raw (sheng) pu-erh that has been aging since 1996.
Denong Wild Ripe Pu-erh Tea from Bana Tea Company
Today’s tea: Denong Wild, Bana Tea Company’s newest offering. This is a 2009 pu-erh tea made from 100% rare wild ancient arbor trees.
With pu-erh, parameters are important. Here’s what I used: Six grams for the gaiwan. A twenty second infusion, the first time around. Add ten seconds for each of the next three infusions. Two minutes for the fifth infusion, and then add a minute for every infusion after that.
Brewing tea like this lets you experience how the tea opens up, as each infusion coaxes a little more out of the leaves.
Treasures from Five Mountains: Vintage 2008 Raw Pu-Erh Tea from Bana Tea Company
I’ve been writing about tea for almost a year, and drinking it for much longer than that, but sometimes I still feel like a kid in a candy shop full of sweets he’s never tried. There is an almost never-ending variation in the world of tea. How one tree can yield such an immense array of flavours never ceases to amaze me.
Proper Pu-erh Storage for Best Results
A good Pu-erh tea for brewing and consumption requires a quality base tea, careful pre-processing and well-designed post-processing. Pre-processing refers to the preparatory steps to produce the ?raw materials? (green mao cha) and post-processing refers to the storage condition under which Pu-erh teas are aged to enhance proper fermentation. In other words, it is not necessarily true that the older the Pu-erh tea, the better. A superior Pu-erh tea for brewing requires that one start with a good quality ?raw tea? that is carefully and properly pre-processed, and then aged under optimum storage conditions.
The Mini Green Tuocha Experiment
I am no expert on pu-erh tea, but I’m learning. Over the past few months I’ve tried several loose leaf pu-erhs, as well as a small pu-erh cake I picked up from Ten Ren here in Melbourne. Last week, I made my latest pu-erh purchase: a small bag of mini green tuocha, sold by Tea Leaves (a local Australian chain of tea stores).
Today, I finally got a chance to make this for the first time. As I said, I’m no expert on pu-erh, and for a minute there I stopped and realized that I wasn’t really sure how to brew this. Ardent pu-erh aficionados tend to prefer the gong-fu style of brewing, but I have neither yixing nor gaiwan, so I am yet to venture into the world of gong-fu brewing. In The Story of Tea
Special Deals for September
So call me slow, but over the past week I’ve seen a few different tea sellers promoting some great specials. If you’re looking to buy some tea, now’s the time!
- Mighty Leaf Tea
are giving a 25% discount off selected black teas. This offer runs out on September 25, so you have to act quick. If you’re looking for a good place to start, try their Organic Breakfast Tea.
- Numi Organic Tea
is offering a 25% discount on their flavoured pu-erh teas. Get 2 boxes of their pu-erh tea for $14.95 when you quote Coupon Code NMP99. This offer runs out after September 30.
- The Tea Spot are donating 10% of all their sales in September to prostate cancer survivors.
7 Common Questions about Pu-erh Tea
Darjeeling may be considered the Champagne of Teas, but it is pu-erh that has the most in common with wine. Unlike other teas, which are ready (and best) to consume straight after production, the best pu-erh is aged for years before it is used.
Pu-erh tea is fermented. It may or may not be oxidized, depending on the type of pu-erh (see below).
Pu-erh is sold in loose leaf or compressed form. It is compressed into many different shapes, from traditional round cakes to mushrooms, pyramids, coins and other shapes.