I brewed this tea from a sample that came in a ziploc bag after sitting around the previous owner’s house untouched for a few years so lacking air to breathe this tea’s “real age” is probably younger than 4 years. The first thing that struck me was the mixed grades as while I can taste the sweet mellowness of the gongting puerh on the outer layer it is mixed with a stronger almost rubbery maltiness of the cheaper grade of puerh that made up the center of the cake. While this is normally a practice that I heavily frown upon as deceptive of hiding lower grade puerh in the center where it can not be seen till its broken up, this time, maybe because of the extra age it has rounded out with more complexity to the brewed tea than a pure gongting grade puerh. Maybe cakes like these just need a bit more age than the very short lifetime that puerh generally has around me.
Preparation
Comments
“Hiding lower grade in the center” is a tradition of puerh making. Consistent inside out is more of a new fashion. But usually the manufacture will tell if the cake has same leaf materials from inside to outside.
Gingko, I know it is an established practice for a lot of factories. My bias is more from some of the cakes from the less than honest minor factories early on that had a thin layer of gongting puerh on the outside and very low quality puerh on the inside that rendered the entire brew to be almost too bad to drink. I have since learned when it comes to buying ripe puerh to stick to the better known factories and to avoid the so called “bargain cakes” from relatively unknown factories with deceptive names like “Menghai Gongting” which I was fooled into thinking was gongting grade puerh from the Menghai factory.
Oh I see what you mean. That’s bugger! Especially when some producers use chopped low grade leaves in the center, it’s outrageous.
“Hiding lower grade in the center” is a tradition of puerh making. Consistent inside out is more of a new fashion. But usually the manufacture will tell if the cake has same leaf materials from inside to outside.
Gingko, I know it is an established practice for a lot of factories. My bias is more from some of the cakes from the less than honest minor factories early on that had a thin layer of gongting puerh on the outside and very low quality puerh on the inside that rendered the entire brew to be almost too bad to drink. I have since learned when it comes to buying ripe puerh to stick to the better known factories and to avoid the so called “bargain cakes” from relatively unknown factories with deceptive names like “Menghai Gongting” which I was fooled into thinking was gongting grade puerh from the Menghai factory.
Oh I see what you mean. That’s bugger! Especially when some producers use chopped low grade leaves in the center, it’s outrageous.