Very dark amber in the cup. With most teas, the bottom of the cup can be seen – not with this, it is very nearly opaque. This tea tastes exactly as most people describe, strong and earthy. This is a tea that one generally has to get used to – it will be an acquired taste for most people.
The “earthy” taste – some people just call it strange – comes from a unique ingredient that appears during the curing: fungus, bacteria, or mold. Anyone who has ever scraped out the deep blue veins from a strong Danish cheese and licked the mold off the knife is going to recognize the source of the “earthy” taste in Pu-erh immediately.
Extremely old (40-50+ years) Pu-erhs are known to have visible strands of blue mold. Even on younger Pu-erhs, the mold is still present, just not visible. It is that fungal growth that gives it the unique taste.
The age of a Pu-erh is important when thinking about the tea, Golden moon does state what year it may be from but they describe the ingredients in the tea as: Aged Chinese Tea from the Last Century. Pretty vague, but given the price, the tea probably a recent vintage from the last 2-3 years.
We brewed this for 2 minutes, 30 seconds using boiling water.
Preparation
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Thank you so much for the information on Pu-erhs! It’s invaluable to me since I’m trying to feel my way around them.
That’s very interesting that the flavor is caused by mold. I suppose that’s why pu-erh ages like it does, right? The only pu-erh I’ve had are the tuochas from Tea Source so I’m excited to try the sample of this that I ordered.
If it’s from the Last Century, wouldn’t that mean it’s at least 10 yrs old?
How many infusions did you try?
There was no way of knowing how old it was. Given the price of the tea and what we’ve seen of Puerhs from other vendors this is probably from the last several years and not anything ancient. Even 10+ year old Puerh would be more expensive than this giving us the idea that it is much younger.
We did three infusions and each one was full of flavor. Puerh is reported to be good for about 5-6 depending on the tea. The third infusion we did was smooth and mild but still had plenty of that unique Puerh taste.
Thank you so much for the information on Pu-erhs! It’s invaluable to me since I’m trying to feel my way around them.
That’s very interesting that the flavor is caused by mold. I suppose that’s why pu-erh ages like it does, right? The only pu-erh I’ve had are the tuochas from Tea Source so I’m excited to try the sample of this that I ordered.
If it’s from the Last Century, wouldn’t that mean it’s at least 10 yrs old?
How many infusions did you try?
There was no way of knowing how old it was. Given the price of the tea and what we’ve seen of Puerhs from other vendors this is probably from the last several years and not anything ancient. Even 10+ year old Puerh would be more expensive than this giving us the idea that it is much younger.
We did three infusions and each one was full of flavor. Puerh is reported to be good for about 5-6 depending on the tea. The third infusion we did was smooth and mild but still had plenty of that unique Puerh taste.