How to Accept Ripe Pu-Erh?

[tdell001]

I enjoy ripe pu-erh but often think there must be something wrong with me for liking it, knowing it has been sort of composted. Dose anyone ever feel this way? In addition, I often find it hard to accept how new the process of making ripe pu-erh is. I would like to know how others enjoy ripe pu-erh while feeling comfortable doing so?

[Puerlife]

Do you like potatoes, ginger, garlic, turmeric, radishes, etc? We literally pull those things out of the dirtand eatthem. Without dirt, we die. I haven't heard of dirt or shuo hurting anyone.So revel in this wisdom and enjoy your cooked pu. I had a wonderful six-month run with it before my taste buds insisted I switch mainly to sheng but I still have plenty of it stored up for the end of the world as we know it.

[bellmont]

I am into composted and fermented things... had 6 different worm bins growing up which fed compost to a thriving garden...currently brew 2 types of kombucha out of nasty puerh samples.

At a general level, composting reminds me of a circle of life. And in the same way...shou feeds my circle of pu cravings. (i.e. I drink a heavy 'stomach punching' sheng and then need to 'go easy' with a 'calming' shou). Perhaps changing your perspective surrounding compost in the first place will allow for a greater acceptance of ripe puerh. Also, consider a cultural understanding of food that places greater emphasis on fermentation and age than a mainstream western consumer process. When I drink ripe and think about the composting process, I am content, because I know there's an off chance that I am increasing the diversity of my microbiome.

[brose]

There's nothing wrong with the ripe stuff. Just imagine if the composting method had been developed first and aged tea was a recent fad. People would likely think the aged tea was old and not good and the composting method gave superior tea since it was developed longer ago.

[debunix]

The deliciousness of my favorite shu puerh and how nice I feel when drinking them and afterwards makes me grateful to the clever person who figured out how to process the tea to get this result. I have no problem with how it was made.

I love bee vomit on my pancakes too--or as you might know it better, honey! The pancakes are made with eggs that pass through the poop-hole of a chicken (and pee-hole, for that matter), and often with semi-fermented leftover bits of defatted cow juice (buttermilk). Why would I be squeamish about leaves encouraged to ferment gently and tastily, leaves which I will be pouring boiling water over before I enjoy the result?

[Tead Off]

Try some Kombucha. You will love that mucousy flying saucer that forms at the top. Looks like a sci-fi experiment, but is very delicious and thirst quenching. So many 'weird' foods and drinks outside of the conventional program of what is 'acceptable'.

[Puerlife]

Try some Kombucha. You will love that mucousy flying saucer that forms at the top. Looks like a sci-fi experiment, but is very delicious and thirst quenching. So many 'weird' foods and drinks outside of the conventional program of what is 'acceptable'.

I used to make my own kombucha. Great stuff. I would often take out the SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) and do a secondary fermentation with fresh ginger slices to give it a nice kick. I still make my own sauerkraut. The stuff can really reek during the process but the final result keeps my gut populated with enough good guys to keep the 'bad' guys in check. I got consistently tasty kombucha using a cheap black tea, Raming brand I think.

[Tead Off]

Got some carbonating right now with ginger slices.
Cinnamon is very good, too. I use a cheap organic Thai black tea.

Did you stop using it? You used the past tense.

[Puerlife]

Got some carbonating right now with ginger slices.
Cinnamon is very good, too. I use a cheap organic Thai black tea.

Did you stop using it? You used the past tense.

My kombucha kept turning into kickapoo punch, which I love, but that's the problem. I like alcohol too much and found it necessary to give it up a long time ago. Maybe that's why I'm such a qi hound--it's all I've got

I also worried that it might be too acidic to drink regularly--I am careful to maintain alkalinity in my body--but I honestly don't know if it is or not. It sure is a lot easier to make than sauerkraut so. So you put the ginger in at the same time as the SCOBY? I hadn't thought of that. That would keep it to a one-day process and keep the alcohol content down.

[Tead Off]

Not with the scoby. After 7 days, take scoby out, pour into jars or bottles with ginger pieces in them. Let sit 1-3 days to develop carbonation, then refrigerate. The alcohol level is very low, less than 1/2 percent, but tart. I like tart, good for the liver. Not sure if I am any healthier for drinking this stuff, but I've always liked tinkering with food and drink. I also make my own yogurt and pickles (not together).

[Puerlife]

Seven days? Hm, I only did the initial fermentation for 24 to 36 hours, maybe 48 now and then. And then the secondary without the scoby and with ginger for another day. Maybe I'm just paranoid about the alcohol. I made my own yogurt for a while, too. Great for my gut but bad for my asthma. Well that's it, you've caught my interest--I'm going to start brewing kombucha again. BTW, I always used a raw brown sugar that was a very dark color, which seemed to work very well. How much cinnamon do you use. How much kombucha do you drink every day. Is there such a thing as drinking too much of it?

[Tead Off]

Seven days? Hm, I only did the initial fermentation for 24 to 36 hours, maybe 48 now and then. And then the secondary without the scoby and with ginger for another day. Maybe I'm just paranoid about the alcohol. I made my own yogurt for a while, too. Great for my gut but bad for my asthma. Well that's it, you've caught my interest--I'm going to start brewing kombucha again. BTW, I always used a raw brown sugar that was a very dark color, which seemed to work very well. How much cinnamon do you use. How much kombucha do you drink every day. Is there such a thing as drinking too much of it?

I'm not sure about the sugar. There is a lot on the web concerning different sugars. Most recommend white or plain raw.

I've only drunk store bought cinnamon kombucha. Tasty. Not sure how much to add. I'm new to this and have just made my 3rd batch, but all have come out well. I've been drinking 125-250ml a day. Some drink 4x that amount but it seems excessive. Inexpensive when you DIY.

[Puerlife]

Come to think of it, I did use white sugar as well and don't remember any difference between the results. It is fun to DIY, and, going back to the original topic, fermenting things gives us city raised folks the experience and confidence to play around with life outside the fridge, just like previous generations did. And if we can play around and make our own ferments, then I'm sure Dayi and other companies can subject raw tea leaves to a specific temperature and humidity, a process the Chinese usually call fermentation but is mainly microbial enzymatic reaction, without putting us in danger.
(Technical stuff cribbed from Zhang, Jinghong's "Puer Tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic".)
Oh, and Jinghong was told by some people that although shou pu was formally invented in 1973, the process may go back to the 1930s, although she couldn't provide a citation, just word of mouth. And of course Liu Bao and Liu An, packing wet leaves in baskets for decades, is a much older process, I think.

[BW85]

Seven days? Hm, I only did the initial fermentation for 24 to 36 hours, maybe 48 now and then. And then the secondary without the scoby and with ginger for another day. Maybe I'm just paranoid about the alcohol.

Most people I know let it ferment with the SCOBY for at least a week, sometimes two weeks. Alcohol never seems to be a problem

[entropyembrace]

Got some carbonating right now with ginger slices.
Cinnamon is very good, too. I use a cheap organic Thai black tea.

Did you stop using it? You used the past tense.

My kombucha kept turning into kickapoo punch, which I love, but that's the problem. I like alcohol too much and found it necessary to give it up a long time ago. Maybe that's why I'm such a qi hound--it's all I've got

I also worried that it might be too acidic to drink regularly--I am careful to maintain alkalinity in my body--but I honestly don't know if it is or not. It sure is a lot easier to make than sauerkraut so. So you put the ginger in at the same time as the SCOBY? I hadn't thought of that. That would keep it to a one-day process and keep the alcohol content down.

Ok disclaimer time: I have zero practical experience with making Kombucha.

But I think the reason why you were getting "kickapoo punch" is because of your short fermentation time. In a SCOBY there are yeast which ferment the sugar and produce alcohol, and there are acetic acid producing bacteria which metabolize the alcohol into acetic acid (vinegar). So a short fermentation time you'll get lots of activity from the yeast and not very much from the acetic acid bacteria, resulting in an alcoholic kombucha. Make the fermentation time longer and the yeast will make lots of alcohol then slow down because they consumed the sugar and produced lots of waste products including the alcohol. Keep going and the acetic acid bacteria will start growing rapidly because there is plenty of alcohol for them to use in their metabolism, they will consume the alcohol and produce a lot of acetic acid. Then you get a vinegar kombucha with low alcohol.

With practical experience I'm sure you can tune the fermentation time to get the balance of alcohol:vinegar that you like, but I'm pretty sure that the short times will favor alcohol and long times vinegar.

Also don't worry about consuming things that are too acidic. Each part of your body has very powerful mechanisms to keep the pH just right. Your stomach is more acidic than anything you could swallow without severely burning yourself and your intestines routinely neutralize your stomach secretions to keep their contents mildly alkaline. Your blood is powerfully buffered to stay nearly neutral even when disturbed with acidic or alkaline insults. Nothing you normally eat will upset this balance. Most people who are worried about "maintaining alkalinity" measure the pH of their urine which is supposed to be acidic to protect you from bacterial infections. But with a lot of effort your urinary pH can be disturbed if you have a lot of alkaline waste to excrete. Some smart and devious person figured out this could be exploited to make money by making people worried about maintaining an alkaline pH in their body and selling testing kits and supplements. If you do actually manage to accomplish the goal of making your urine alkaline all you've done is worry a lot for nothing and make yourself more vulnerable to infections.

So...long story short...go ahead and drink that acidic kombucha.