#puerhcake

This is very important when first starting out and even once you’ve become more experienced. If a store does not offer a sample size of a puerh cake, then do not buy it, unless you are at least 95% positive you will like it. This kind of assurance does come from much time of tasting and research but until then, only buy what you can sample, otherwise you might be stuck with a 250g+ cake you hate. A sample size of 25g-50g is a perfect amount to start with to get a feel of a tea. The price of a sample size is usually a reflection of the price of a full cake, which directly relates to the first tip mentioned in Beginners Puerh #1.

Some reputable puerh sites may even offer educational puerh sample sets such as White2Tea. They offer 4 amazing sampler sets for starters. Two for ripe puerh and two for raw puerh. One sampler set is directed towards learning about how teas grown in different regions can differ as well as blends of teas from different regions. While the other sampler for each differs. For raw the second sampler revolves around harvest time and grade, while the ripe sampler revolves mainly around grade of leaf and blends of grades.

All of these samplers come with 4-5 mini cakes for a very reasonable price and are a big recommendation for anyone just starting out to gain a good understanding of harvest area, grading and development of the palate.

Puerh. A tea category that holds endless wonders that never cease to amaze those new to it or those who have been drinking it for years. Puerh is a tea that has two kinds of effect on people. Either it’s unique flavors and aromas scare you awy or suck you in so deep that you dare not even thing about any other kind of tea but Puerh. But to those new and those well versed in this fascinating tea, the topic of how to store and age Puerh is always up for debate. Puerh is a tea meant to be aged, and with aged comes change in the tea’s characteristics. It can lose is bitterness and become sweeter. The flavor can become smoother and richer. And the value of tea grows higher and greater, especially when aged properly. But there is the million dollar question. How do you age/ store Puerh properly?

Without going into great detail, the two main methods are “Dry Storage” and “Wet Storage”. These names refer to two different methods where both temperature and humidity are controlled to allow for the desired outcome. Puerh that has been wet stored ages faster while Puerh dry stored ages slower. However if is worth mentioning that while these are the two most commonly discussed ways of aging Puerh, they hold little no value outside of China where these methods originate. Why? Because these methods were created naturally based on areas of China where Puerh is stored that either have naturally dry weather or naturally humid weather. But what about the rest of the world?

I live it Canada. Here outside of summer the weather tends to be on the dryer and cooler side. This is very different from the weather in China. Puerh is drank by people all over the world, yet we only discuss aging and storage methods used in China. All parts of the world have different weather conditions and therefore have different challenges in this field. And while your intention may not be to age your Puerh, weather and temperature in your location could also make all the difference when it comes to simply storing your Puerh so it stay fresh and maintains the characteristics you like. And so I finally decided to do an experiment.

I purchased 5 100g Puerh cakes from Yunnan Sourcing. All 5 far are the same cake consisting of raw Puerh from 2019. In this experiment my intention is not only test how naturally Canadian weather affects Puerh storage through a few different methods, but also to see how best to store your Puerh if you don’t want it to age, but want to maintain and save it’s characteristics that make you love it. In this experiment I am using storage methods that easily suit the everyday person. Yes, expensive humidors used for cigars and tobacco can be used to recreate wet and dry storage methods, but a humidors big enough to house all your Puerh cakes is not likely int he budget. This experiment is broken down into three parts. Part 1 is has to due with whole cakes. Part 2 has to due with broken cakes. And finally part 3 has to do with mao cha (loose Puerh). So let’s take a close up look at the experiments:

#1 - Whole Cake Aging & Storage

Puerh has been pressed into may shapes, in many sizes throughout history, mostly for the purpose of easy storage and transportation. But how does being pressed into a cake or brick affect the tea’s ability to age? It is said that while the outer part of the cake slowly oxidizes inward from being exposed to oxygen, the cake also ferments slowly from the inside outward. This is due to a small amount of moisture that gets trapped inside during the steaming and pressing process. And so part one of this experiment will focus on storing whole unbroken cakes.

Cake #1 will be stored in it’s original wrapper and kept inside a cardboard box to help filter out any unwanted aromas as well as light. The box will also allow for some oxygen flow without being fully exposed to the outside elements. The purpose here is to see how the tea ages with controlled oxygen and minimal outside exposure.

Cake #2 also is being stored in it’s original wrapper, but is also being put into a sealed zip lock bag with all the air pressed out. It too will then be stored in a cardboard box. The purpose here is to see if by eliminating all contact to oxygen if we can protect and savior the current characteristics of the cake. The point being to prevent aging and maintain its current character, for those who like myself, may not want to age their Puerh but simply preserve it.

#2 - Broken Cake Aging & Storage

In this part of the experiment we will be dealing with broken cakes. As mentioned above, cakes age due to a combination of outer oxidization and inner fermentation. It can be argued though that by breaking off pieces of a cake that we are exposing the inner part of the cake to a higher rate of oxygen, causing loss of inner moisture for fermentation and increasing outer oxidization, resulting in unbalanced aging. But unless you are storing a whole cake without any intention of breaking into until it’s aged a few years, clearly you must break off pieces in order to drink it now.

And so the purpose here is to see how well a broken cake ages once broken into and how to best preserve a broken cake.

Cake #3 was broken in half evenly down the middle. This severed the outer “membrane” of the cake, allowing for more exposure to oxygen and loss of inner moisture. one half was wrapped back up in it’s wrapper and placed in a cardboard box, while the other half has been placed in a zip-lock bag with all the air pressed out.

#3 - Loose Puerh Aging & Storage

In this final part of the experiment we look into the theory of aging Puerh loose. Some argue that the only way to perfect age Puerh is to age a mao cha (loose tea) either by buying it loose or breaking your cakes up and storing the loose leaves.

Cake #4 was completely broken and divided evenly into thirds.

One third was placed in a small ceramic jar with a loose fitting lid that allows for controlled oxygen flow. One third was placed in a ziplock bag with all the oxygen pressed out of it. And finally one third was placed in a simple brown paper bag to simulate being store in it’s wrapper. Here I hope to see how the tea ages loose and how well it can be preserved loose.

Cake #5 is being used for drinking now in order to create tasting notes and take photos for documentation and comparison tastings after the experiment is complete. This experiment will run exactly one year starting Sunday April 17th 2022 - April 17th 2023. Until then the Puerh is all being stored in the same area of the house where temperature and humidity tend to naturally fluctuate in small amounts throughout the year, aka the tea room.

Continuing on the subject of price, the title of this tip says it all. You go into a local specialty Asian grocer and in the tea aisle you see full size 350g puerh cakes, all done up in fancy packaging for only $12.99, you might think to yourself, “wow that that’s such a great deal, maybe too great!” Well, guess what? It usually is. I know because I made that mistake a time or two when I first started out. It’s easy to get sucked in by the nice boxes and cheap price, but once the tea hit my tongue, the truth became clear. So, if you should ever find yourself in a situation like this, it’s just like drugs, just say NO!

However there is an exception to this rule. In recent years sites like Yunnan Sourcing and White2Tea have released special edition cakes for crazy low prices. The best known of these is likely White2Tea’s “Snoozefest” which is a raw cake made from very high quality material, sold at a very low price, but in very small batches. I myself have yet to acquire this cake as it always sells out before I can order one. In 2022 for their Anniversary they released a ripe version which again sold out before I could snag one.

One of the first things you may notice, the first time you skim through a store that sells puerh, is the crazy ranges of price. From $10 all the way up to $1000+, seeing this can be overwhelming and scary. At what price point should you or should you not buy? From my experience, you are best off purchasing at mid-level to start. A cheap price will be for a cheap tea while a high price “usually” will bring a high quality tea, but if you want to have a proper first impression of puerh, buying cheap will give you the wrong impression while buying expensive is unnecessary.

For ripe puerh, start in the range of $30 - $40 per cake or $6-$14 per sample. Prices for ripe are usually lower because of how they are made, but go too low you risk getting an awful, fishy tasting tea.

For raw puerh, between $30 - $50 per cake or $8-$16 per sample is a nice place to start. Young, first flush harvest, raw puerh always runs a high price and aged raw even higher. There is no need to drop $100 on your first raw puerh, but like with ripe, if you pay a low price you're going to get a low quality tea.

However, it might also be very educational for you to buy a low and a medium priced tea to taste side by side, to help gain an understanding of quality versus price. But once you’ve tasted a few different puerh teas and have a better understanding of what you like, then slowly start working your way up the different price brackets.

This is the final of 5 cakes I got in my recent Yunnan Sourcing order. This little 100g cake made with golden needle grade leaves, was pressed in 2021 for the coming year of the tiger. The cake comes from the same maker as one of my favorite cakes, the 2018 Mengku Pure Aroma ripe. And it’s for that reason that my high hopes for this cake came with serious disappointment.

At first glance the cake is very attractive with lots of golden tips. It broke very easily and the leaves separated very nicely in preparation for the session. However, right from the first sniff of the dry leaf, I noticed a great lack aroma. The scent from the dry leave was extremely faint, and a smell I could really only make out as a generally earthy ripe puerh aroma.

Thinking the tea would open up my after the wash, I was surprised to find just the opposite. In fact, even the wet leaf was extremely faint. I still detected an earthy aromas as well as a sweet aroma similar to a semi sweet chocolate cake fresh out of the oven. What little magic I found this tea to have came through in the brew.

On a positive, the brew is very smooth and clean. It has a velvety and creamy mouthfeel very close to that of heavy cream or whipped cream. A hint of bitterness but otherwise unnoticeable. However, even the brew lacked in flavor. It has a faint note of vanilla which when mixed with the creamy mouthfeel, truly did remind me of the taste of heavy cream. Several more infusions later, while the tea held it’s creaminess, it failed to open up and show anymore flavor profiles.