Bang Pun Unfermented Puerh

I’ve been out of pu erh commission for several months now, but am making a comeback. I was having some stomach issues, and pu erh was especially hard to drink. I’m still having some issues with ripe pu, but today’s raw want down smoothly. this is a Jalam tea club offering from several months back. I was only a member for a couple months because I figured it was too expensive on a per unit basis. $24 for a 100 g cake is about a $84 per cake. not cheap. But the tea they offer is damn good.

This was a very nice cake. Super fresh smelling, like fresh cut flowers. The tea was not bitter, very smooth, flowery, and honey like. The quality reminds me of Tea Urchin. A superb tea. I just rejoined the club.

So this is the first cake I have ever opened to actually drink from. I got to use my tea pick and everything. That was fun. I have decided I definitely need a breaking tray.

I managed to carefully, gently, break off a little over 5g. Added it to my warmed gaiwan.

Quick, short infusions.

This was actually smoother than I thought it might be. The third infusion was about the roughest of all of the infusions. Nice and easy drinking. Reminded me of corn, maybe, but not good sweet corn, but the stuff that claims to be sweet corn but tastes like it was picked a week or two before. About the fifth infusion, the floral notes started to kick in. I do find this tea has some astringency to it, but while that sometimes bugs me, I liked it in this tea.

I lost count of my infusions. The tea is still going strong, but I’m not. I will save the leaves for later. (I do have a whole 95g of this tea left, so maybe I don’t need to., but I think I want to see this through for at least the first time with this tea….)

This tea has given me a bit of a buzz, I will admit, but a nice, focusy one, although I think I feel a little tingly. It’s kinda nice.

Lotsa pics:
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Tea kitty approves! http://instagram.com/p/uwjNf7AyS3/

I am really pleased with JalamTeas’ October selection. This tea is extremely enjoyable. I steeped it at 194 degrees probably more than 15 times. The early steeps were very creamy and more savory, like corn, while the later steeps were nicely sweet. With almost no bitterness, there is a clean smoothness to it and something about it seemed to clear up my stuffed nose a bit. I also noticed a slight floral quality in the later steeps. This raw puerh ranks up there with the Teavivre old tree puerh I enjoy. Very nice!