This past weekend I took the opportunity to try some tea that I purchased from Michael Coffey of Tea Geek quite some time ago. This tea is, in essence, very large leaves from the bushes of a pu’er varietal simply dried and tied into bundles. As described on the Tea Geek blog: [This] limited availability [...]
My contribution to this month’s ATB-sponsored Tea Blog Carnival is on the topic of my general methods for brewing shu (cooked) pu’er. The steps and the accoutrements: I almost always use Crystal Geyser spring water for shu pu’er (and other teas). It’s affordable and works just as well or better with tea as some of [...]
Last weekend I had the great fortune to find and acquire this perfect and beautiful ceramic pu’er storage vessel. Of course I have no idea whether the talented clay artist who made this piece intended for it to be used to store tea, but it is undeniable that he or she modeled it after traditional [...]
The second part of my interview with Nigel Melican is now available for you to read on Cha Dao. Excerpted: Cinnabar: I guess there are really two focuses of organic farming. I wasn’t even thinking about how it affects the end product, because it seems like that’s not the same conversation. The impact on the [...]
There are times when it’s better to simply dive into something and then do the research after the fact… Several days ago I was looking for some pu’er to drink and wanted to have one I hadn’t tried yet. I remembered the small sample of 1997 wet-stored 8582 pu’er which I’d gotten from Will of [...]
There is good reason why royalty was associated with the finer things in life. Kings and government meant taxes, and if gold couldn’t be had, your locality paid in other forms. If your locality was recognized for horses, you worked to contribute your best horses as a form of tax. The emperors of China were [...]
Market researchers continue to predict the continued rise of tea consumption in the US. Of course, this will mean that a wider audience will come to experience teas, but there are few predictions about the depth of those experiences. In order to more fully appreciate the hundreds of teas available, here are 10 that will [...]
I anticipated that Puerh Special Grade, a loose leaf pu’er from TeaSource, would brew into a nice liquor after I smelled the intense sweet aroma of the dry leaf. I was not disappointed. In general, but especially in the initial steep, it was very malty, almost like graham crackers or Ovaltine. It opened up more [...]
Weekend before last, at the Second Annual Northwest Tea Festival, Marcus of Teahouse Kuan Yin gave me a very unusual fang cha pu’er to try. (“Fang Cha” are single cup or mug sized, square, flat pu’er cakes.) I was told that this curious little square block of tea was made with a coffee bean in [...]
I picked up a couple pieces of this 2003 Fang Cha Pu-erh at Teahouse Kuan Yin a couple of weeks ago. I don’t believe I’d ever seen pu-erh in tiny squares before. They are about an inch and a half wide. They brew into a wonderful, sweet pu-erh that lasts for at least six infusions. [...]
