Yunnan Tuocha

[kodama]

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?

[Warden Andy]

It's usually an acquired taste. I didn't like pu-erh much at first, but I now like it a lot.


Don't give up on it yet. Unseal the pu-erh if it's sealed, and every so often, take a smell of it. Try it again some time later and see if you like it any more.

Also, if you tried it with sugar, try it again without sugar. It's nasty with sugar, and you may be surprised to find that it's actually fairly sweet without sugar (if you did try it with sugar).

[jogrebe]

Try taking a small amount of the puerh and leave it out in the open to air out for a few days to a week or so and then try brewing that. That will clear up a bit of the musty smell and taste that might make it taste "less like dirt" and more like that puerh taste that I love.

[Marlene]

More than likely, bad mold.
It was probobly a wet storage puerh. The mold may be a sign of improperly stored wet storage puerh. If the mold doesn't go away after being aired for a good week or so, toss it.

[Phyll]

Kodama, don't give up on Pu-erh yet. A good Pu-erh is a very very enjoyable dirt...I mean tea. Pu-erh is for the adventurous, they say.

Add sugar to Pu-erh???? That's like adding Coca cola to your Chateau Lafite! Add some whole dried chrysanthemum flowers or lavenders, instead.

[MarshalN]

A few things...

You should rinse your Puerh when you brew it. What that means is, you should pour hot water over the tea in your brewing vessel, and toss the water after a second or two. Don't drink it (use it to warm your cup). Then, with your second brew, you start drinking that stuff.

Chinatown tuo-cha though, are pretty nasty. If it brews a strong looking, pitch black tea, then it's a "cooked" tea that went through a wet storage by design. Not undrinkable, but certainly not the good stuff.

[kodama]

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.

[MarshalN]

Rinsing will do a world of difference. It really helps get rid of the nasty tastes. It really should be done with all teas.

[kodama]

By the way, I have been chipping leaves of whatever part of the cake seemed loosest, is there any part (inside or outside) that tastes particularly stronger/better/different?

[jogrebe]

I have no idea, for the most part when I start a puerh cake (I've only gotten 100 gram ones so far) I just break up the entire cake at once with a letter opener as my "puerh knife" and put it into a tin to make it easier to brew when I want some, which normally happens 2-4 times a day.

[MarshalN]

If the cake is old, you might have a coat of dirt on the outside of the cake, which can make that taste a little different if you don't wash your tea thoroughly enough. Otherwise, they should be pretty uniform.

[rabbit]

One of my loose leaf pu-erhs smells, tastes and when brewed looks like dirt... I really don't like it, but then I have a compressed pu-erh that is MUCH differant.

[kodama]

I just bought a loose leaf pu-erh from Rishi ($10/100g instead of $1.50 for the cake) and it tastes like bad earl grey - weak and fruity...

hrm.

I did not let it steep too long though, the tuocha cannot steep more than a minute even on the 7th round, maybe this needs more time.

[MarshalN]

When brewing puerh, which in the States pretty much means cooked puerh, PLEASE RINSE YOUR TEA. If it smells and tastes like dirt, it is perhaps because it IS dirt -- you should wash your tea leaves before drinking it (by pouring hot over over it, dumping it, and then starting again to brew for real). People tend to forget, and that makes a world of difference.

[rabbit]

When brewing puerh, which in the States pretty much means cooked puerh, PLEASE RINSE YOUR TEA. If it smells and tastes like dirt, it is perhaps because it IS dirt -- you should wash your tea leaves before drinking it (by pouring hot over over it, dumping it, and then starting again to brew for real). People tend to forget, and that makes a world of difference.

Before you even posted this I had an epiphany to do this exact thing (stupid me... didn't think of it earlier!)... I actualy rinsed it for 30 seconds, and it still had the SMELL of dirt... but didn't REALLY taste like it (although I could detect a hint in the flavour), all-around it wasn't THAT bad, although I don't think it's one of my favorites.