Yunnan Tuocha

[sjschen]

I am now in love with pu-erh and have tried several others. Two brands of mini-toucha were great and rich and earthy.

I bought a can of Rishi pu-erh loose, and it was terrible. It had no earthy base and tasted like a bad black with a bit of honey, sickly sweet.

I then bought a new container (for school) of the SAME tuocha (1 mo later) and it tasted like the rishi. Totally different:



I marked where I cut each one, their sizes, and I included the box (same style for both). Note that the margianally older one is much less dark, it seems to have a grey fungus on it. Should I try rubbing on the grey fungus and dampening it? Giving it sun (I did to the other, but that made it slightly less earthy)?

Ideas?

This box looks like a 1990's design. If the tea wrapper inside has the green 茶 surronded by red 中s, you may have a huge winner on your hands.

And I do mean huge.

[jogrebe]

Actually, illium, it's not Zhongji 中級 that's written on the wrapper, but jiaji 甲級, which means A-grade. Look carefully

These grades mean also nothing. Everyone says their tea is A-grade, or special grade, or select grade, or tribute grade, or whatever. None of which should be bothered with.

LOL I had to look very carefully to see the difference in what you wrote

[Coastman3]

I recently bought and was scared off by a cheep tuocha in Chinatown (Pu-Erh, I think). It is pressed into a bowl ~4" across. There is no clear brand, but China National Native Produce & Animal By-Products Import & Export Corporation Yunnan Tea...

It tastes like dirt. My preferences lean towards lighter greens, jasmines and oolongs, but I am wondering if I can write of Pu-Erh entirely or if it is just a bad sample. By the way - there were very small white dots that looked like there may have been something amiss growing on the brick. When I put an orange on the teapot as a lid as it steeped overnight (just a test), the dots showed up on the orange... bad mold? Good mold?

Kodama: Peets Coffee and Tea sells a Tuo Cha Pu, marketed as "Ancient Trees". They are the little tuo cha cakes and the flavor is fabulous. Only downside is that it is expensive. I checked out TuochaTea.com, Yunnan Litongyuan Trading Co. and bought a couple 100 gr bricks three weeks ago, but haven't received it.

[vibrantdragon]

Yeah, it was definitely cooked - I read up.

I set it in the sun for five days or so, scraped some leaves off the already cut part, rinsed, and it tasted good.

Not to complex or amazing, but it had a throat-clearing stomach-settling goodness that made me feel like I had just read intense poetry. Not bad.

Brewed near-black the first round, but the next two were similar and even red.

If you like Green tea, you might also try some of the raw (Sheng) Pu'er tea. If you get one thats only a few years old you might like that more than the cooked (Shu or Shou) tea. It will have its own flavor, but it will be closer to green tea in taste than the cooked tea.

[sp1key]

but becareful of young raw puerh, even at 10 yrs old if its dry storage it could still hurt the stomach of most if drank throughout the session (nausea,vomitting)... those younger ones are even stronger on the tummy

take it easy in the beginning. I only drink young raw for testing purposes.

[entropyembrace]

This box looks like a 1990's design. If the tea wrapper inside has the green 茶 surronded by red 中s, you may have a huge winner on your hands.

And I do mean huge.

What's the significance of that design? Both of my tuo's look like that...one is a 2001 cooked Xiaguan and the other is a 1994 raw Feng Qing.