Pure Puer Tea

First I’d like to say that I’m not sure if this was the exact tea I tried but it looks pretty close. When my aunt heard I was in a tea class she brought me a puer tea her friend gave her as a souvenir. She didn’t know if there was a fancy way to prepare it so had just been holding onto it for years. This, like a similar puer tea I tried in class a week or so before is definitely not my favorite. It has an earthy flavor that isn’t the most appealing to me. It’s like dirt honestly.

9/19/18

After learning about Puer tea in class, I ordered this tea from Amazon and was very excited to make it. I made it after dinner, around 8:30 PM. I regret making it this late, because the caffeine definitely gave me some energy and I had a harder time falling asleep this night than most. I really enjoyed the taste of this tea though. It was a bit watery, and next time I think I might steep it for a bit longer and add some more tea leaves. It had a slightly sweet taste and there was also a bit of a floral aftertaste. I have found that I typically do not like teas with a strong floral taste, but this one was light enough that I really did not mind it. This is a tea that I would definitely make again, but I would probably make it in the morning next time.

Personally, I did not love this tea… but, I deeply appreciated the experience of drinking this tea. I learned a lot about the complex process that goes into making and fermenting puer tea, so that helped me gain perspective on why this tea has such a bold and distinct flavor. This tea has intense flavors of earth, and dirt. I also found it to be quite bitter. I could see it being a wonderful alternative to drinking coffee. Nevertheless, I would definitely recommend this tea for the experience.

We tasted this tea in class and it has been my favorite tea so far. It is most likely one of my favorites because I am a regular coffee drinker and it provides the same tasting notes as most coffees.

I think this is the right one … Tasted at the San Francisco Tea Festival. It was very rich, but not bitter, although slightly less smooth than the older vintages.

Here’s Hoping TTB (round 5)

Ripe with flowers? Well, I had to try this because the last two osmanthus teas I had made me feel sick. That made this a testing tea :P

While this was nice, I think that this plus many other pu’erh have made me decide that ripe pu’erh does not go well with flowers for my taste buds.

I’m happy to say that I didn’t feel sick after drinking this!

Thanks AllanK for including this in our swap. This tea is compacted so well! I went to bed drinking this and woke up this morning to steeping it :)
The liquid has yet to lose it’s color, aroma, or brisk taste. This is a very nice pu’er and I will probably end up steeping it 15+ times to be honest.

It has been a long time since I have had this puerh. The last time I had it was so long ago it was before I was brewing gongfu style. This is a really good tea with a sweet note from the beginning and little bitterness. A slight bitterness crept in in about the third steep after the tea had opened up. Only lasted about two steeps. There was a fair amount of fermentation flavor to this tea. It needs another five or six years of aging in truth. The fermentation taste was not unpleasant or fishy in nature. If I had to describe the sweet notes to this tea in one word it would be dates but it really is more than that. The sweet note changed over time. I am glad I bought three or four of these teas when they were only $65. Now it goes for $100. Still I think for any big fan of ripe puerh it is worth the cost. Aside from ripe teas that purepuer gets $400 or $550 for this is probably their best ripe. I really should drink it more often. I am tempted to buy another one to compare my storage with Larry’s storage at purepuer. I find myself wondering if the one stored in California has lost more of it’s fermentation taste. Overall, this is one of my favorite puerhs. Larry at www.purepuer.com doesn’t have the largest selection of teas but I have found has teas range from excellent to phenomenal. This one I think qualifies as phenomenal. I steeped this twelve times and if I wanted to go back for more I am sure, judging by the color of the tea in the twelfth steep that I could get at least four more steeps out of it. And I may do just that.

I steeped this twelve times in a 160ml Solid Silver teapot with 14.6g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min.

This tea is one of my favorites. It has a touch of natural sweetness and no bitterness or astringency. It has notes of dates or such under the tongue. I brewed this with 12.5 g in 18 oz water for 25 sec. Water temp was boiling.

For the past few days I’ve been drinking shu in the evenings. The weather here has been so foggy (what else is new?) but I forgot until recently how good shus are for having after dinner. I should try to keep drinking them because I have a whole shoebox full (shubox?) :)

Today was very relaxing since I went to a 3 hour yin yoga workshop with this friend of mine and then had dinner at a South Indian restaurant. I feel like I’m all ready for bed but it’s only 7:20 pm… ha

These are nice little tuos, I especially like the square shape of these. I put one in my xiying and after a quick rinse I did two steeps of about 20-30 seconds each and combined them in a glass cup. This is a fairly mellow shu… it has a lot of coffee flavor in my opinion, smooth but also a little bittersweet in the finish.

The second steep seemed to get a lot more mellow and also darker. It definitely doesn’t seem to have a lot of fishy or funky flavors like some shus can. The flavor started getting lighter around steep #5/6 which maybe means I should have steeped it a bit longer but I might be all puerh’ed out for this evening!

This would be a decent tuo to try, especially if you were ordering other stuff from Pure Puer…

This one, for me, is hard to rate. Upfront it has a really pleasing earthy taste and enjoyable complexity to it. The problem for me is, as I continue to drink it, I start to get a bitter taste. As I continue to steep it, the tea does start to mellow but there is still a slight bitterness to towards the end. I would really love this tea if I could just capture the pleasing taste that it has and lose the bitterness that develops toward the end.

I chilled my second steep of this and, while it’s still very mild, cold, I’m getting more of that rocky taste. (Again, that’s not bad—it’s just the distinguishing mark of this variety.) My experience with the Great and (Not So) Powerful Os-manthus has been a pleasant one, as well. Citrusy floral, not perfumey floral like heavy jasmine.

On this beastly hot afternoon, thoughts of clear springs and damp caves are wonderful indeed. Took a short country drive after lunch and I saw some french-fried cornfields that nearly made me cry. If you’re a farm kid, you’ll understand.

Our mutual friend ashmanra is helping expand my pu-erh horizons, and tucked a lovely little packet into a card a few days ago.

If I didn’t know what it was, I certainly wouldn’t classify it as a pu-erh. Nice amber color, gentle base (none of that cave-y peat moss stuff) with an orangey finish. Loving it!

(Unrelated and probably not as funny to you as it was to me—-mentioned to my non-teaist teen that I’m drinking pu-erh and he quipped, “Pooh Bear tea? Wouldn’t that be anything with honey in it?” BadumpBUMP.)

This is from Amy Oh! Thank you, Amy!

Too much fatty food and not enough steamed or raw veggies make ashmanra a dull girl. First there was the frenzy of cooking for Thanksgiving. Then leftovers, but I kept eating turkey and gravy and gravy, and dressing and gravy, and mashed potatoes and gravy, and turkey sandwiches. Finally I ended the leftovers with turkey divan, and talk about fatty food. Oof. So I feel like a slug, and then made it worse by eating two fatty meals today and having leftover Halloween candy for a snack. My tummy is NOT happy with me. I should be in bed, but I am giving my tummy some puerh as an apology for the way I have been treating it.

I didn’t look up the instructions on this and it has been a long time since I had it. I rinsed it for thirty seconds and then gave it a thirty second steep. Hey, don’t beat me! I LOVE most shu puerh at three minutes or more! Ad it wasn’t bad at all. As they said, a little bitter, a little hay-like. Nice and light, though, and I am counting on its ability to soothe a digestive tract.

Second steep was forty seconds, still good, not much different from the first. Now I read the instructions and see it was supposed to be a three second first steep. Seriously? Oh well. But I see Amy’s comment about lowering the temp and steeping longer so I try that.

Now the brew is twice as dark. We have achieved dark oolong color, nice and light caramel color, and the bitterness has increased a little. But there are more layers playing about now. THEREIS also a powerful aftertaste that is so sweet and unexpected! I would love to see how it ages.

I think so far I prefer shu puerh. Do the two types of puerh carry the same benefits?

This was a swap from AmyOh. Thank you, Amy!

I am going to sound like a sycophant, but I do agree with everything Amy said, and the company description. First, I love the little square, I love the sticker, I love the paper. Nothing to do with the tea, I know, but these are really cool! And I am saving the wrappers to decoupage onto a tin for holding some puerhs.

I experimented with it a bit. I did wash the tuo Cha because it felt quite hard and tightly compressed. The first steel went for 2 minutes, highly contrary to the company instructions but as I changed my parameters I found that there wasn’t a huge difference in the different times and slightly different temps. Hubby said he tasted hay very strongly. I agree that it is bitter, but I didn’t pick up a lot of the sweet aftertaste they mention. When I smell the leaves I am reminded very strongly of Thai restaurants or perhaps Indian cuisine…definitely some exotic cooking spice notes floating around there.

I am new to sheng puerhs, but this one is very different from the one I had from Harney and Sons that is a few years older. I would love to buy some sheng puerhs and put them aside for years and years. Makes me wish I had started this hobby a lot sooner!

Thank you again, Amy! I can’t wait to try the bamboo steamed puerh!

Last year, my hubby gave me the bamboo tea tray from this company for Christmas. This year, I received two of their tea sets to use with it.

I must say this set is more beautiful in person than in the pictures, and I loved it in the pictures! The finish is so smooth, the color a bone white, and the lines and contours are captivating. Furthermore, it is perfect for making my oolong and white teas. Since it is ceramic I can use it with more than one kind of tea, while my Yixing set will be reserved for oolong. I absolutely love it, and can not say enough about their great customer service and how much time they took helping my hubby choose pieces of teaware and puer tea, acting as if it was their greatest privilege and joy to do so. They are truly tea lovers.

I hope this works! Here is a link to the set, which is showing as sold out right now.
http://purepuer.com/puer_tea/do/product/taiwan%20ceramic/Oval%20Bone%20White%20Tea%20Set

Hubby and eldest daughter both drank tea with me tonight. Hooray! When they said they were having tea with me, I asked hubby to pick the tea. He requested this one, but this time we brewed it western style. This is a mild puer, and I love the natural floral/citrus notes added by the osmanthus. That pot went away entirely too fast.

Hubby joined me for tea again last night! Since he didn’t mind the first puerh he tried, I wanted him to give some others a try.

Opening the pouch, I was struck by the fresh citrus-y aroma of these flowers. The dry tea has a lot of petals in it. Steeping it, I found it mild, certainly milder than the puerhs from A Southern Season, without being boring like the one I got from Rishi. Hubby thought it was stronger than the puerh from Teavivre that he tried, but I didn’t think so. He will probably prefer the puerh from Teavivre like my son and his girlfriend.

We steeped this about six times. I am so glad hubby got this one for me. I am really enjoying the addition of osmanthus to puerh!

Another thing has happened that I never thought would happen. A long time ago, when I only had fishy-smelling puerh tea, I liked the taste though not the aroma. I liked puerh tea and especially found it soothing when my tummy was angry. But I said I never woke up in the morning thinking, “Gee, I sure would love a cup of puerh tea right now.” Keemuns or black tea blends always had that honor.

Having now tried Teavivre and Purepuer.com puerh teas, I couldn’t get it off my mind this morning. Since today is tea party day, after all, I wasn’t going to make any tea this morning, but my girls each had a pot in front of them at the table as they did their schoolwork and I caved. This is so good, and this is a resteep, making it such a bargain as well. Warm earth aromas with clean yet horsey leather and the scent of osmanthus peeking through, I think I am becoming a puerh….addict? Snob?Aficionado maybe! I can’t wait to try even more puerhs!

Sob!. It happened. It finally happened! I have been hoping my two oldest kids would start drinking tea. Tonight my son made baked Brie in puff pastry and said, “Mom, maybe you better make some of that tea like we had last night. This is pretty rich and fatty.” I am so happy!

Last night we had Puer from Teavivre. Tonight I thought I would shake things up since it seems I am on a roll getting them to drink tea and I made this one just to expose him to more tea. Dare I hope that soon he will be asking for his own teapot and bag of tuochas to take to school?

Once upon a time, I thought Paris by Harney was the way to convert people to tea, but it didn’t work on my older kids. Of all things, puer was the key! Oldest daughter is drinking mostly green teas, but likes puer more. I shall have to get her some of her own as well!

Oh happy day! And what a great start to the New Year!