2006 Nan Qiao Factory Cooked Puerh

02/10/2010, posted by Cha in tea

I have received a generous sample of this tea from Canton Tea Co.  I must say, this is one of the teas that shows me just how green I am  when it comes to tea.   This tea is a cooked puerh, but If I wouldn’t knew, I would say it’s a raw puerh. Leaf, liquor , taste, everything is like for a raw puerh. Why is then this tea a cooked puerh?  That will be my research topic in the following  weeks.

I used my  shu puerh teapot to brew this tea and some cups that I usually use for that type of puerh .  In the near future  I will   try to brew this tea again  with another teapot and a different set of cups.

This tea is great, but I found out that If I shower my teapot at the early infusions, the liquor has an accentuated note of bitterness . So in order to avoid that, I used  short infusions, and I showered the teapot only on the last infusions.  Even when the tea had notes of bitterness, I could feel the sweet aftertaste immediately after.

There are eight infusions in the pics, but they were not the only infusions. I left the leaves in the teapot to have a session of tea later.   It was simply to much tea to drink in a single session.   The guys from Canton recommend 10-15 infusions, and I strongly agree. In conclusion, a very nice  (confusing ) tea.

This tea is available for purchasing here .

Update:

Here is a pic with the  wet leaves:

2006 Guang Lin Fu Shu puerh

20/08/2010, posted by Cha in journal,tea

I didn’t investigated too much on Guang Lin and I never had a cake from this factory before. It does share some characteristics with some shu puerh cakes of a similar age so I will not bother you with details regarding its taste (I actually forgot my impressions, I plan to age the cake , I brewed a sample).

I want to talk about other details.  Lately, I studied water, pouring, heating, teaware  and began experimenting with them. I noticed major improvements on most of the teas, so some things, especially related to softness or their effect could be related to that or my awareness and not to the tea itself. In addition,  by using the cups I recently acquired, practically any shu puerh becomes more attractive in an instant.

At some point I will update this post with more information about that factory. Right now it is not important, I am glad I have the opportunity to appreciate tea.  I feel at peace when I match the tea with my mood and sometimes I wonder If I should write about it at all.  I do hope that this information is useful and will help some people, and at a very least, it’s a form of diary to notice my progress.   But most important, what I would like more, is to receive feedback on whatever I can do better from those that are more experienced than me.  I am always thankful to anybody who reads my blog.