Cupping Puerh teas

I have been back in the US for almost two months and I finally got around to tasting the rest of the puerh teas I purchased. I had already tried the loose puerhs. But it’s really hard for me to break open the cakes. I think in the long run it is a good plan. You want to be able to taste the tea when it’s young and as it is aging.  

I equate this to buying three bottles of the exact same wine. One is for drinking now, one is for its mid-life, and the third is to drink anytime after mid-life depending on how the tasting at mid-life goes!

If you are new to puerh teas, you might just want to give these teas a try. There are so many choices. You can drink a green puerh, a green puerh that has been aged, a fermented puerh, or a fermented puerh that has been aged. Some of these teas can be purchased loose as well. The benefits of puerh tea are somewhat inconclusive, but everything I have read shows that it lowers cholesterol. I don’t think you should drink a tea just for medicinal reasons, but if you like the taste of this tea, come on board. You will like the cholesterol readings moving forward. Another side benefit of puerh is that it helps reduce the effect of a hangover (don’t ask me how I know this).

Puerh teas tend to range from earthy to smoky to sweet to spicy to grassy to medicinal to fruity to smooth. This all depends on the tea, how it was processed, and the age.

The three teas I purchased from the 2010 vintage were all green puerhs. They were from three different regions or famous mountains  – Yiwa, Banzhang, and Nannou (from left to right below). “Shan” means mountain and sometimes you will also see “shan” next to the name of the region. The teas were all in cake form.

As I cupped the teas; somehow, the teas were darkest to lightest. All the teas were made from tea trees that were either uncultivated or wild. You would definitely notice that by looking at the leaves in the cakes. They are very long and the tea separates very easily from the cakes without breaking.

The Yiwa tasted sweet and light to me. The Banzhang was very smoky. The Nannou had a subtle sweetness but was very light. One sidenote is that the Nannou cake was from a tea tree that was 1000 years old. It will be interesting to watch these three teas age over time.  

I tasted the teas three times brewing them for 3 minutes, 4 minutes and 5 minutes. I used a similar water temperature each time (at about 190 degrees). I really liked the Yiwa and Nannou at first. The Banzhang was really too smoky. But by the third steeping the Yiwa was still amazing and almost sugary, sweet. The Nannou had lost some of its luster. But the Banzhang was definitely more subtle. I wonder if I originally tasted this tea in Kunming after several steepings? The first brew was really too smoky for me. 

Again, who knows what will happen over the course of time and how each tea will develop over several years or decades. It will be interesting to see. 

If you are interested in sampling any of these teas, email me or send me a comment.

Cupping 2nd flush Darjeelings

I finally cupped some Darjeeling teas from India! The best way to do this is if you have a cupping set. Then you can brew the teas at the same time and taste them side by side. I used 3 grams of tea. For the first steeping I used cooler water than boiling for 2 ½ minutes. I found the brews light but I could still get the characteristics of the individual teas. The second steeping was nearly boiling water and I steeped the tea for just over 3 minutes. The teas all showed well. There was also flavor, yet diminishing, in the third steeping. 

The three teas were Pussimbing 2010, Castleton Muscatel 2010, and Thurbo Muscatel 2010. The Pussimbing was the only organic of the three teas. All the teas were 2^nd flush from 2010 as the 2011 2^nd  flush hadn’t even been plucked when I was there. The dry leaf looked really similar for all the teas. There was a mixture of dark brown and golden leaves with some tips mixed in. The leaves were fairly uniform in size with no broken pieces.  

Pussimbing

Castleton

Thurbo

The brews were such a beautiful orange/copper color and by chance were darkest to lightest from left to right. I was wowed, again by the Pussimbing. The flavor is typical Darjeeling with the muscatel zing, but this tea is overwhelmingly peachy tasting. I remember why I bought it. I had not tried the Castleton while I was in India, but it is typically one of my favorite estates so I bought a little and was not disappointed. The third, was the Thurbo. Had I not tried them side by side, this tea would have been perfect, but it was an also ran after tasting the others. I might try a little more than normal leaf when I brew the Thurbo next time since it was a little lighter than the rest.  

If you are interested in trying the three teas mentioned, either send me a comment or email me directly.  Quantities are limited!

World Tea Expo in Las Vegas

I went to the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas at the end of June. I was really hoping that I would have been cupping the amazing teas I bought in India and China by now. But I got so many free samples of tea while at the expo, that I have been trying all of them.  

There were many different products available as well. My favorite things to look at are the teapots. There are many new one cup and multi-cup pots. There is no excuse not to drink loose tea with such simple and easy to use pots in such great designs!

I also found a fabulous booth selling American hardwood tea accessories. Typically the tea scoops I have found previously, were bamboo and didn’t really last very long due to cracking. This company was selling mostly tea scoops and tea baskets but each was handcrafted in Pennsylvania with solid wood which had no coatings, glues, plastics, or resins. Here’s the link to their web page which is a landing page only. You’ll still have to email them directly to get more information.

http://teatangent.com/ 

Another item I found is a tea gadget for holding your used tea. This will be perfect for me on long drives. I typically take loose tea with tea filters on road trips. This gadget called “squeezmo”, allows you to squeeze out the moisture (if you so desire). But better than that, it’s a place to store your tea until you drive up to another Starbucks and can get more hot water. They say the items are made of silicone and dishwasher safe. I guess they would also be handy if you happen to use tea bags and re-use them. It seems more efficient than wasting a lot of napkins or paper towels to soak up the moisture from your tea.  

My favorite booth to taste tea is always the ITI booth (International Tea Importers). They have some really good teas to sample. Plus the large draw is that James Norwood Pratt does several tea tastings a day. He’s so interesting and has amazing stories and tales to tell while sampling the teas.  

This year, I found a booth pouring some wonderful Taiwanese oolongs. They were the American Premium Tea Institute. Both days I was there they had Jade Oolong, Oriental Beauty, Bao Zhong, and Amber Oolongs flowing freely all day. If you stopped by for their short seminars, you got to taste some of their other oolong offerings. Plus during the seminars, Thomas (I think he may have been the owner) was really energetic. He would often start singing in the middle of his presentation.  

I think I am done sampling the teas from the expo and hope to cup some of my Indian and Chinese teas soon. It will be interesting to see if I still like them and if I can get them to taste the same as they did in Asia!

Travel Map

I finally got a chance to look at a map of India and China and put all my travel spots on a map. It's the first google map I created so any suggestions would be appreciated!

I was having problems uploading my photos to my computer. I took about 4000 (67 a day) which isn't too bad, but my computer didn't have enough space. I had to get some dvds made. More photos to come!

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=208247700145513429412.0004a6fc4640ff2f93146&ie=UTF8&ll=27.527758,93.779297&spn=41.400751,79.013672&z=4