Branches Branches....where art thou?

One of the intentionally aged teas, Pu-Erh has a loyal following.


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Nov 28th, '08, 12:05
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Branches Branches....where art thou?

by Fatman2 » Nov 28th, '08, 12:05

This is yet another dumb question I have for everyone. Remember the older puerh cakes? Even if you have not tasted the tea, you may have seen pictures of the really old cakes. Have you noticed that the old cakes were made of lots of branches? Of course there were lots of other nonsense too. But branches there were many. The new tea of today have less branches and they somehow taste different. Views?

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Nov 28th, '08, 12:08
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by shogun89 » Nov 28th, '08, 12:08

Sorry cant help you on this one.

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Nov 28th, '08, 12:09
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by puerhking » Nov 28th, '08, 12:09

seems to me the heavily rolled leaves have less stems and the leaves that are just kind of pressed as they are have more.

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Nov 28th, '08, 12:16
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by Fatman2 » Nov 28th, '08, 12:16

Not sure if the branches are just the stems. I had some that were literally sticks. Somehow, they add another dimension to the tea.

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Nov 28th, '08, 12:20
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by puerhking » Nov 28th, '08, 12:20

Fatman2 wrote:Not sure if the branches are just the stems. I had some that were literally sticks. Somehow, they add another dimension to the tea.
Perhaps they just compressed the whole tea bush into a cake!! Lol!

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Nov 28th, '08, 14:25
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by Salsero » Nov 28th, '08, 14:25

Seems to me that I read somewhere that a certain amount of stem material is required for the best taste. But it is true that recent cakes don't seem to have much stem at all.

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Nov 28th, '08, 14:33
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by heavydoom » Nov 28th, '08, 14:33

Salsero wrote:Seems to me that I read somewhere that a certain amount of stem material is required for the best taste. But it is true that recent cakes don't seem to have much stem at all.
hd is happy to hear this. it seems that hd has a few cakes that may be of high grade due to the presence of many twigs/branches within this particular pu erh tea cake.

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Nov 28th, '08, 21:17
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by PolyhymnianMuse » Nov 28th, '08, 21:17

heavydoom wrote:
Salsero wrote:Seems to me that I read somewhere that a certain amount of stem material is required for the best taste. But it is true that recent cakes don't seem to have much stem at all.
hd is happy to hear this. it seems that hd has a few cakes that may be of high grade due to the presence of many twigs/branches within this particular pu erh tea cake.
Lol hd, still sticking with the 3rd person :lol:

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Nov 28th, '08, 23:07
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by heavydoom » Nov 28th, '08, 23:07

PolyhymnianMuse wrote:
heavydoom wrote:
Salsero wrote:Seems to me that I read somewhere that a certain amount of stem material is required for the best taste. But it is true that recent cakes don't seem to have much stem at all.
hd is happy to hear this. it seems that hd has a few cakes that may be of high grade due to the presence of many twigs/branches within this particular pu erh tea cake.
Lol hd, still sticking with the 3rd person :lol:
yes he is.

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Nov 29th, '08, 08:50
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by thanks » Nov 29th, '08, 08:50

This is just personal conjecture, but I believe that sometimes more stems = stronger cha qi.

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Nov 30th, '08, 08:36
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by augie » Nov 30th, '08, 08:36

thanks wrote:This is just personal conjecture, but I believe that sometimes more stems = stronger cha qi.
That's an interesting thought. Just observation, Thanks? Cha qi is probably as important to me as taste when buying pu ehr. i never stopped to consider stems.

I will have to work on a study this afternoon . . .

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