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Having a go at one of LP’s pu-erh sample packets. This one was unlabelled, and looked like a fourth of a tiny tea cake. I actually pulled out my digital scale for the first time since buying it (over a year ago… lol) and the piece weighed 7g. I thought this might be too much to use for a single mug of tea, but I was unable to break it in half as it was quite hard. So I did a really terrible mock version of gong fu brewing. It turned out OK, but I wouldn’t really know because I had no idea what I was doing, haha. I just went off of what I read in other people’s notes when they do multiple steepings.

So, I used boiling to near-boiling water for everything, since I don’t have a variable temperature kettle. Also… all my times are approximate.

I started with a 10 second rinse, since apparently that’s what you’re supposed to do with pu-erh tea. Next, I let it steep for about 20 seconds and I pulled out another mug to pour the tea between the two a few times to cool it down so that I could try it faster. The first infusion was too light, I couldn’t really pick out any definite flavours. The cake was still mostly packed though, so after the first infusion I loosened it up with a knife to get the leaves to separate a bit. The second infusion I left for maybe 30 seconds, and this one turned darker quicker. It also had a rather woodsy aroma, but the tea remained a light amber/orange tone, not the dark brown that I had come to expect with my other pu-erh experiences. This is the infusion I decided to drink and review. I have put aside the leaves so I might go back and use them a couple more times to see what happens.

The tea is pretty decent. I still have a hard time understanding the flavours of a pu-erh because I am not able to identify other notes other than a woodsy aroma that reminds me of the smell of wet, earthy moss. Nonetheless, I like this infusion and would call it a mild success. I would even say it reminds me a tiny bit of the earthiness of oolong, but with the slight fermenty flavour that pu-erh gets. That’s another thing: I know that pu-erh has a distinct flavour which comes from its fermentation, but I can’t isolate this note from the others in my infusion, even though I know its there and I can detect it. Dunno if pu-erh will ever really be my thing, but I will keep trying.