Will someone explain the pu-erh thing to me?

Yeah Its definitely an acquired taste. Took me a few years to truly appreciate (and crave) a decent fermented shou, or the bitterness of a sheng. – As Rob said, its like whiskey & tobacco. Add beer (most alcohol), olives, mouldy cheese. All acquired taste to a lot of tongues. Also like beer, people move from light lagers to more bitter/sour or stronger flavours.

I liked lighter sheng in the beginning, but now enjoy a bitter tang to go with the added complexity & depth of a stronger one.

I’ve had apricots & cream, wonderful medicinal tastes, tangy sour punch in the face, and magical sweet gummy mouth huigan from different shengs.

As John added, ‘the worst thing that could happen to someone is finding a pu’er that you like’ – ‘Magical sweet gummy mouth huigan’ & ‘apricots & cream’ were both really expensive. Like good quality Dan Cong Oolong prices

After trying my fair share of pu-ehrs, I’ve concluded that young raws are my favorite. They’re not too expensive and they’re fairly tasty as long as you don’t brew them too harshly. I’m just meh about ripe ones.

If you don’t like pu-erh, don’t feel like you have to. As someone else said, your wallet will thank you.

Raw is the way to go if you are looking for better quality when you don’t know too much and are just starting out. The problem is where to find them. Some of the posters have posted great sources here already so I won’t repeat those.

You should definitely try more and not be discouraged by what you’ve been exposed to so far because the tea world is a vast one :)

You’re not the first one to refer to those negative tastes. Without knowing what you drank exactly it’s hard to say but I would bet that you’re drinking low grade or pretty low quality puerh, which is why I encourage you not to give up and try more from other trustworthy sources.

For a tea to be called pu-erh, it must be made from the large-leaf subspecies Camellia sinensis var. assamica and grown in Yunnan Province in China’s southwest, where Han Chinese as well as many ethnic minorities share borders with Burma and Laos. It’s one of the few teas to be designated a protected origin product by the Chinese government, a rarity in an industry run wild with loose, unregulated terms and limited oversight