Educational Series – Comparative Tasting of New & Old Ripe Puerh Tea

Personally I love a not to old, lightly pile fermented ripe pu erh, because it still has this complexity.

I can understand that. Each to his own but allow me to share my experience with ripe puerh that may have you thinking back one day on the teas that invoked changes to your perception. The deeper you go into the world of tea expect to encounter changes to how you perceive and taste tea.

I’ve been a long time collector of puerh tea and I started my journey in 2000. During the early years I consumed a lot of young ripe puerh. It’s cheap and accessible, and I was really contented for a time. Then I started getting into aged and older teas, and for me there was no going back. My first comparative tasting of a new and old ripe puerh really surprised me. Drinking teas side by side is very compelling and what is good, bad, or lacking becomes very obvious or exposed. It’s a real eye opener to be sipping alternatively from 2 cups, and comparing characteristics of 2 different teas in front of you. My favorite young ripe that I thought was smooth and really great at the time came across as being very rough, muddy and crude when compared to the older sample. I have gone on to prepare comparative tastings for my friends within the local tea group to observe other’s reactions. The overwhelming majority are blown away at the superior level of refinement that comes across from an old ripe.

*That said you may want to take my experience as a warning. I have personally become more demanding of my ripe tea and as a consequence more difficult to please :)