purple puerh and accelerated aging con.

[teaisme]

So I was looking at this...http://www.yunnancolorful.com/2011-yunn ... _p680.html and a few questions popped into my head.

1. Has anyone tried this stuff? it looks interesting...
2. How well would this age you think?
3. Would breaking up a cake into loose form (not heating though, just making a bunch of small chunks say like 5g-10g each) accelerate the aging without a loss of the aged cake characteristics?

I read the accelerated aging topic but it didn't really answer the question about small chunks

[the_skua]

To be completely honest, that looks like really gimmicky tea.

[teaisme]

yeah considering it was offered as a free gift if you buy some dancong...
its also really cheap

it just got me thinking though
question 3 is really my main concern

[puerhking]

Proper aging includes enough humidity and correct temperature range to continue the growth of fungi and microbes that exist in the tea. Oxidation is a different animal. Breaking up a sample will cause it to oxidize faster. If you are dry storing the tea then you are going to get minimal microbial action anyway. Hence the difference in the tastes of dry, traditional and wet stored cakes.

[tingjunkie]

To be completely honest, that looks like really gimmicky tea.

What? No way. All the best teas come in boxes marked "Chinese Tea Gift."

Not sure about this one, but Bana tea has a purple tip cake that I really enjoy.

[bearsbearsbears]

1. Has anyone tried this stuff? it looks interesting...

I haven't tried that particular brand, but have tried many purple bud pu'ers. They're all quite strange.

2. How well would this age you think?

My oldest are from 2005, but I haven't sampled them lately. One is from Nannuo Shan and is quite akin to more standard pu'er in terms of flavor, color, clarity. The other is from Lincang and was strangely sour with a powerful body trip when I first tried it. I keep them as curiosities because I can't say how I feel about their potential.

3. Would breaking up a cake into loose form (not heating though, just making a bunch of small chunks say like 5g-10g each) accelerate the aging without a loss of the aged cake characteristics?

I've never heard a good answer on this. Maocha certainly ages faster than compressed cakes in my personal experience owning both. But my "house blend" of chunks and odds & ends doesn't appear to be aging any faster than the compressed cakes, at least after 6 years.

[chrl42]

Zhou Hong Jie is one those Puerh experts in China. They gathered a fame with those academic researches, nowadays some of them made their own brand with their names, I'm not sure if that is one of them though.

I've seen some types of purple tea, some has twigs all-purple too, that one looks like wild varieties..I could be wrong but I'd love to drink it

Loose-leaf Puerh doesn't have beneficial point of storing..over times it becomes a stale beer

[tingjunkie]

Loose-leaf Puerh doesn't have beneficial point of storing..over times it becomes a stale beer

Whoa. Pretty broad statement chrl42. I've had a few aged loose puerhs which were pretty darn great- especially for their price. Not as complex or well rounded as aged cakes, but still very nice in their own right. I'd rather drink good loose aged sheng than almost any good young cooked shou, and that's saying something, because I like a good shou!

[teaisme]

thank you all for the input I'm beginning to get a clearer picture now

sheng is almost like composting tea huh?

So maybe if the loose sheng was packed pretty tightly together, and heat and humidity were lightly applied, stir here and there every once in a while, store a little bit more airtight then a cake, you could get aging results? Just a guess

[bearsbearsbears]

So maybe if the loose sheng was packed pretty tightly together, and heat and humidity were lightly applied, stir here and there every once in a while, store a little bit more airtight then a cake, you could get aging results? Just a guess

Sounds like 渥堆 to me!

[teaisme]

yeah now that I read how shu is made it sure does