Steaming pressed puerh

[PolyhymnianMuse]

So I've read and even have seen the big equipment used in factory setting to steam pressed puerh to get it back to loose Mao cha. Has anyone done this or regularly practice this with cakes and bricks?

[BitterLeaf]

The closest I've come is using so much steam that the water fills the gaiwan... then drinking the "steam". The leaves definitely come apart then.

In otherwords, no, never tried this...

[glenbo]

So I've read and even have seen the big equipment used in factory setting to steam pressed puerh to get it back to loose Mao cha. Has anyone done this or regularly practice this with cakes and bricks?

I've been in a few puerh factories now and I've not seen anyone steaming pressed cakes to get maocha. Not saying it doesn't happen. Where've you seen it?

[PolyhymnianMuse]

Watch this video (hope link will work)

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... 1546745798

Now outside of the factory setting, I've gotten cakes with inserts that explain to steam the cake to loosen it to prepare for use.

[glenbo]

Watch this video (hope link will work)

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... 1546745798

Now outside of the factory setting, I've gotten cakes with inserts that explain to steam the cake to loosen it to prepare for use.

Interesting video. My guess is that this was tea that they were rebranding. I've seen people take a few jian of puerh and pull them from their bamboo tong, rewrap the cakes, and rewrap the tong in bamboo but not seen them go back to maocha. Perhaps a bigger shop bought all the stock from a shop that went out of business and wanted to make the material their own. Maybe they'll re-blend with some different material. Perhaps they'll use it to make shou puerh. The comments make some mention of something like that.

It seems like a lot of effort, but labor is cheap in China.

[miig]

I'm not sure if thats on topic, but I thought about using steam to loosen some of my bricks, which are pressed so hard that I literally have to pulverize them in order to drink them. Even infused, I have to manually seperate them or the leaves will stay crumpled up.
But I always worried about a loss of quality if I get the leaves so moist and heated up, even if I manage to dry them relatively quickly. (The air is pretty dry here
Any thoughts on that?

[Drax]

I recall seeing a video years ago where somebody took a tuo and used a bamboo basket of some sort to steam it. Then they were able to break the tuo into loose tea...

I don't recall if I it somebody linked to the video here, or I saw it elsewhere, though...

[glenbo]

I'm not sure if thats on topic, but I thought about using steam to loosen some of my bricks, which are pressed so hard that I literally have to pulverize them in order to drink them. Even infused, I have to manually seperate them or the leaves will stay crumpled up.
But I always worried about a loss of quality if I get the leaves so moist and heated up, even if I manage to dry them relatively quickly. (The air is pretty dry here
Any thoughts on that?

Steaming the leaves will result in a change in the aroma profile. I suppose you could try some side by side experiments. Getting the leaf to dry completely and not introducing rot will be key. I had about half a kilo of some amazing aged Jingmai maocha that I wanted to press into a cake for ourselves. It had the most amazing aroma. After pressing it the aroma was gone. Still pretty bummed about that. Should have left it as maocha.

[PolyhymnianMuse]

I'm not sure if thats on topic, but I thought about using steam to loosen some of my bricks, which are pressed so hard that I literally have to pulverize them in order to drink them. Even infused, I have to manually seperate them or the leaves will stay crumpled up.
But I always worried about a loss of quality if I get the leaves so moist and heated up, even if I manage to dry them relatively quickly. (The air is pretty dry here
Any thoughts on that?

Steaming the leaves will result in a change in the aroma profile. I suppose you could try some side by side experiments. Getting the leaf to dry completely and not introducing rot will be key. I had about half a kilo of some amazing aged Jingmai maocha that I wanted to press into a cake for ourselves. It had the most amazing aroma. After pressing it the aroma was gone. Still pretty bummed about that. Should have left it as maocha.

Is this to say in general that Mao cha is is superior to "processed" products like cakes, bricks, tuos and melons?

[William]

I'm not sure if thats on topic, but I thought about using steam to loosen some of my bricks, which are pressed so hard that I literally have to pulverize them in order to drink them. Even infused, I have to manually seperate them or the leaves will stay crumpled up.
But I always worried about a loss of quality if I get the leaves so moist and heated up, even if I manage to dry them relatively quickly. (The air is pretty dry here
Any thoughts on that?

Steaming the leaves will result in a change in the aroma profile. I suppose you could try some side by side experiments. Getting the leaf to dry completely and not introducing rot will be key. I had about half a kilo of some amazing aged Jingmai maocha that I wanted to press into a cake for ourselves. It had the most amazing aroma. After pressing it the aroma was gone. Still pretty bummed about that. Should have left it as maocha.

Is this to say in general that Mao cha is is superior to "processed" products like cakes, bricks, tuos and melons?

Different, not superior. (IMO at least )

[miig]

Steaming the leaves will result in a change in the aroma profile. I suppose you could try some side by side experiments.

Yes you're right - its time to try that out This is the one time when its good to live in an area where the air is quite dry most of the year

Is this to say in general that Mao cha is is superior to "processed" products like cakes, bricks, tuos and melons?

I don't want to sound like an expert, which i'm clearly not. But I read a little and one thing is that statements like "A is better than B" are a dangerous thing in the pu-world
I'd say that its quite likely that loose tea will age faster, but can also deplete faster. And i guess that the additional step of steaming and pressing can change a tea for the better or the worse, depending on all kinds of factors.
Usually, if the steaming and pressing a young puerh would often ruin it, this would be known by now And EoT for example pressed some quite nice teas out of aged maocha two years ago (Quishenggu and Daxueshan).
But since the steaming is a procedure which is quite "invasive", it at least sound reasonable that this could also have a negative effect on a tea, or ruin it like what happened to glenbos tea.


So is anyone else interested in trying this? Lets just take one compressed tea (or two), steam a bit of it and dry that, and then compare with the rest of the tea. Then we can collect our findings

[glenbo]

Is this to say in general that Mao cha is is superior to "processed" products like cakes, bricks, tuos and melons?

Nope. Not better, just different. miig hit on the main points. Compressed puerh will age different than uncompressed puerh. In the aged Jingmai maocha case I mentioned had that material been pressed at or near the time of picking, and then had the opportunity to age, I believe it would have had a similar aroma profile to the one aged as maocha. All would be fine. The problem was when we took the already aged maocha and pressed it into a cake it became something different. In this case, sadly, it lost the amazing aroma it had.

So is anyone else interested in trying this? Lets just take one compressed tea (or two), steam a bit of it and dry that, and then compare with the rest of the tea. Then we can collect our findings

I might try this. I've got a few Chinese bamboo steamer stacks sitting around. I'll probably use this 2005 Changtai we've got a ton of cakes of. It's a super compressed one that I'm always wishing was easier to get into.

[Drax]

I might try this. I've got a few Chinese bamboo steamer stacks sitting around. I'll probably use this 2005 Changtai we've got a ton of cakes of. It's a super compressed one that I'm always wishing was easier to get into.

When I mentioned having seen a video where they decompressed a tuo, I believe they used those bamboo steamer stacks you mentioned.

If you go for it, we'll definitely be interested in the results! Particularly when it comes to what the brew tastes like directly from the tuo, and what it tastes like from the decompressed tuo.

[Yannick]

I actually did this a bit over a year ago, steamed apart one mini cake, and kept some of the same ones intact.

I didn't want to risk a good tea at the time, so I used a chunming cake I was indifferent about.
Because of that however, I have never felt inclined to actually taste them and had forgotten about it until now.

I know I have the mini cakes upstairs, but I should also have a tin of decompressed tea somewhere. I should go look for it!

[PolyhymnianMuse]

Any update? I want to try this myself but dont really have the means to steam some pu.