Dangers of Pu-erh

[taitea]

Still beats coffee.

[puerhking]

Hey does anyone have the winning lottery numbers?

[silverneedles]

Kansas Hot Lotto : 01/17/2009 2 16 18 21 22 Hot Ball 9

in 2 years NY lottery won me 1 dolla ... boooo

[Dizzwave]

The reason is I started feeling sharp pinchy pains in my chest that comes and goes, and was starting to occur more frequently like once or twice a week. ... Anyone out there have the same experience?

Yeah, this used to happen to me when I was drinking coffee. I had to quit! But, I don't look back, tea is way more enjoyable.

[chrl42]

I cut down drinking young sheng significantly (from 5 times to 0-2 times a week) after about a year of drinking the stuff. The reason is I started feeling sharp pinchy pains in my chest that comes and goes, and was starting to occur more frequently like once or twice a week. I thought I was getting a heart attack, which is pretty scary. I know 2 other people that have the same experience and have cut back on young sheng quite a bit as well. I haven't been getting the pain ever since 3 months ago when I drank less of the stuff.

Anyone out there have the same experience?

Your experience is quite often in Asia. Some people even had to visit doctor for drinking Shengs. Traditional Chinese Medicine(you know the ones who cheat you with bubble price)'rumour tells it's due to sort of self-protecting nature commonly found from wild leaves. As I posted before, picking any wild tea leaf in Yunnan for brewing will rather cause you a stomach cramp than anything else.

Back then, these leaves weren't suitable for making out to tea. So those ethnic minorities had to store them for period of time to drink. Then after storage its over-tannin/polyphenol content turned out to be rather depth and enjoyment as a beverage, that's birthstory of Puerh.

And higher concentrations of fluoride tend to be found in the older, coarser leaves, which naturally spend a longer time growing on the bush before they are picked (as opposed to the buds or first flush of tender tea leaves). Generally, it is the coarser, old leaves that form the primary material for making tea bricks and bings.

Chadao's leaf points to the leaf made for Puerh, Big Leaf Variety. It tends to span as long as 30cm. Traditionally tea leaf made out for beverage had been Small Leaf Variety, just 7~8cm a grown leaf.

[augie]

Here is the biggest problem I have with that article:

"I’m not making this up. It’s true. A recent discussion on the Sanzui . . ."

That phrase alone reminds me of the 1,000s of e-mail forwards that travel the internet every day. Along with, "trust me, I've read volumes about this".

I don't like the "extra stuff" I find in tea, but I also know people who have worked in process cheese and V-8 factory who won't buy those products (rat-droppings & live snakes).

Does anyone know of instances where someone was Dx'ed with illness related to the bacteria in Pu Ehr or any tea? I just don't have time to read everything on the internet. I have also seen other kinds of tea videos and they don't look 100% hygenic/safe work environments.

I am a shu drinker and I have never once felt bad drinking cooked pu ehr. In fact, I have actually felt better consuming Pu when I am sick.

Have I just made a few lucky selections?
Are there bad factories to avoid purchase of cooked/shu pu ehr?

[wyardley]

Chadao's leaf points to the leaf made for Puerh, Big Leaf Variety. It tends to span as long as 30cm. Traditionally tea leaf made out for beverage had been Small Leaf Variety, just 7~8cm a grown leaf.

I didn't read the article that carefully, so I could be totally wrong, but I would assume maybe they're talking about large leaf in terms of the larger grades of normal factory style leaf (i.e., grades 7-10 or so).

[tenuki]

They totally missed the worse side effect of puer: hallucinatory blogging.

[Salsero]

hallucinatory blogging.

[shogun89]

As Tom said, what dosent kill you makes you stronger. Its absolutely true. Look at kids that never played in dirt and all the other weird things kids do, they are sickly. So maybe some of these strange things in puerh (in small quantities) will make us stronger.

[vibrantdragon]

For Normal Pu'er not ones wet stored and allowed mold to form.

The technical papers i have read all state that while it is possible for certain fungi to make bad mycotoxins they did not find any of these mycotoxins in Pu'er that they tested. They did sample several manufacters during their testing.

International Journal of Food Microbiology 124 (2008) 199-203

[heatwaves]

Someone should inform Hobbes Half-Dipper that he only has two days to live. If he's not dead already.

[hop_goblin]

This is why some Chinese minorities heat the pu-erh leaves over an open fire before consuming them. It has to do with the cold and hot principles of Chinese medicine

[JAS-eTea Guy]

They totally missed the worse side effect of puer: hallucinatory blogging.

Too funny!