I saw Jason mention this recently on his blog in a review about '99 8582 from tearoma.us, referencing butteriness as being associated with "green tea" pu'er. I've long thought some young pu'er tasted a lot like green teas and I know their processing is similar, but not the same. What pushes a pu'er to have those kinds of flavors and characteristics? I know it's poor processing, but what step does that?
Are there other obvious examples? I hate to admit that I got a lot of butteriness and green tea character from some of the 2010 Essence of Tea pressings that were a turn off for me.
Sep 19th, '11, 11:46
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the_skua
Re: "Green Tea" Pu'er
Most young puerh has some processing, and butteriness is one result. It's usually an accent, and not dominant, though. I always took BBB's comment as being more about how wrong the age is.
Badly processed puerh that tastes like green tea...Well, first of all, they tend to have wet leaf that is too green. Second, they taste very friendly in the beginning, butter, sweetness, and bitterness/astringency builds in later infusions. It will be a bad kind of bitterness that isn't tasty, and an astringency that doesn't store flavor along the lining of the mouth and hurts the mouth/throat. As well as oolong'ed puerh, green tea puerh will be abnormally fragrant (with the wrong kind of smells, even if pleasant) for the kind of puerh it's supposed to be.
You don't want green tea puerh because these things are unreliable brewers and age poorly. The "dead" periods are very very long until the benefit of very long age arrives, since the tea is stale.
Badly processed puerh that tastes like green tea...Well, first of all, they tend to have wet leaf that is too green. Second, they taste very friendly in the beginning, butter, sweetness, and bitterness/astringency builds in later infusions. It will be a bad kind of bitterness that isn't tasty, and an astringency that doesn't store flavor along the lining of the mouth and hurts the mouth/throat. As well as oolong'ed puerh, green tea puerh will be abnormally fragrant (with the wrong kind of smells, even if pleasant) for the kind of puerh it's supposed to be.
You don't want green tea puerh because these things are unreliable brewers and age poorly. The "dead" periods are very very long until the benefit of very long age arrives, since the tea is stale.
Re: "Green Tea" Pu'er
When BBB says green tea puerh what he means is that the tea has been through kill-green at too high a temperature, which means that it will never age into anything decent. Ever had aged green tea?
Sep 20th, '11, 08:23
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the_skua
Re: "Green Tea" Pu'er
That makes sense. I haven't had any very old aged green tea, just some unintentionally aged and it wasn't very good, of course.
Oct 28th, '11, 12:54
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hop_goblin
Re: "Green Tea" Pu'er
Green tea puer is a bit redundant IMHO. All shengpu is green tea in a sense. 
Frankly, if a shengpu has the characteristics of a green tea, it may not be worth buying since it probably is too mellow for aging.
Frankly, if a shengpu has the characteristics of a green tea, it may not be worth buying since it probably is too mellow for aging.