#rawpuerh

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.

After several years of missing out I finally got my hands on a cake of White2Tea’s yearly limited Raw Puerh release called “Snoozefest”. This cake comes out once a year at limited quantities. According their website, the cake is made from material that would usually sell for a much higher price tag, but is sold at a steal as a kind of “thank you” or “customer appreciation”. Basically a really good tea, that normally has a very high price, for a limited time low price. There is no samples offered of this cake and at a price of $15 for a 200g cake, it doesn’t stay available for long.

Every single year I have somehow managed to miss it. But in 2022 I was at the right place at the right time. I was one of the first people to order a cake of Snoozefest. How do I know? Because the first 30 orders also would get a free White2Tea winter beanie, which I now wear every time I got out. LOL.

From the moment you unwrap this cake it’s crystal clear this cake is not joking around. It is no doubt high quality. The sweet aroma of the tea before it even hits the gaiwan is outstanding.

In the warm gaiwan the aroma this cake is incredibly sweet like honey and sugar cane. A plethora of sweet stone fruits hits you right up front. The dry leave aroma is very clean and fresh, much like a spring morning breeze. Welcoming, comforting and energizing yet calm. The wet leaf is a fruit explosion of poached peaches in sugary syrup, juicy plums and nectarines. In the background there is a noticeable sweet musk acting as a wonderful accent to the fresh fruity breeze in the gaiwan.

The soup is syrupy thick and smooth as hell. No bitterness or astringency! The mouthfeel is lubricating, clean and soft. Imagine if you will - a piece of fresh cut teak wood. Atop this teak wooden is a gathering of ripe and juicy stone fruits, plump and sweet. And around these fruits are little accents of delicate flowers. That is the only way I can describe the taste of this amazing beauty. As the infusions go the musk of the teak wood becomes more forthcoming, acting in harmony with the sweet syrupy juicy fruit notes.

And you best believe this teas can go the distance. I easily get at least 12 infusions out of this tea and it doesn’t miss a step. After so many years of waiting for this tea, this was no doubt the best possible way I could have asked to start of the tea journey of 2023.

Now because I am a nice guy and have decided that this is the year of giving, I am willing to part with 2 – 25g samples of this cake. Normally I would give more but I’ve already drank quite a bit and it’s gotta last me till at least November or longer if I miss out again this year. LOL. But if I do get lucky again this year, I’m buying my first ever Tong of teas.

 If your interested in trying this precious beauty to see if you too need to line up to grab your own this year, send me a private message with you address and I’ll send it out to you!

For those of you who may be a bit more experience with buying Puerh, you have no doubt come across terms like “budget tea” or “everyday drinker tea” amongst many variations. These terms are based around non-expensive teas that are affordable for people on a budget. The teas are also often described as being a good value for your dollar, or good enough to scratch the itch. In other words teas that are good enough to want to drink daily, that don’t cost a lot, but that are also not as good or as great of quality as a cake that would cost says between $80-$200.

And so when it comes to Puerh that care labeled as “Old Arbor”, “Gushu” or “Ancient Tree” you very rarely see any of the above terms included in their descriptions. This is because these teas are “supposedly” made from very rare and expensive material that comes from old tea trees/ plants. I say “supposedly” because until you’ve tasted it, and have they experience to know the difference, we don’t actually know how true this is. Is it could be, but we are also at the mercy of the information given by the vendor, but I’ll dig into that another day.

My personal opinion on this is that all tea should be an everyday drinker, and everyday drinker tea should be just as good as the uber expensive teas. After all who wants to buy all these tasty teas and not be able to enjoy them as often as they want? I can understand having maybe 1 or 2 cakes that you drink on occasion because they are expensive, but for the most part your tea should always be delicious, high quality and affordable. But when it comes to these high cost teas, shouldn’t the taste of them reflect the price??? Good question!

I wanted an answer, and so to get it I did 2 blind taste tests. One with myself alone and then a second one with 3 friends. For these blind tastings I bought 4 sample sizes of Raw Puerh from White2Tea. The teas ranged in price from “Budget” to “Medium Expensive” to “Upper Expensive” to “Broke the Bank”. Each teas was blind tasted side by side, with no information besides what I was tasting. This same method was followed with 3 friends all of whom have little to no experience with Puerh. The outcome being how many of us would pick the more expensive teas simply based around taste.

The 4 teas tasted in order of price range lowest to highest were: (Canadian $)

- 2021 Hotline Space Coyote ($6.81 per sample or $43.25 per cake)

- 2021 680 ($13.17 per sample or $87.78 per cake)

- 2021 The Thing Is ($21.63 per sample or $147.57 per cake

- 2021 Is a Gift ($45.80 per sample or $316.77 per cake)

Now let me just say that all of them were very good but all for different reasons. I have so many tasting notes that I won’t include them with this post but maybe at a later date I’ll do a more detailed on. But as for results for the tasting I did on my own I very much preferred the “Budget” and “Medium Expensive” teas over the higher priced ones. 680 was my favorite of the 4, so much so that I will be buying a full cake in the future.

The results for the group tasting very different. 1 of the 3 favored the “Budget” tea over all others while the other 2 both favored the higher priced teas. So that’s 4 tasters, all with 3 different results. What does this mean? It means exactly what I thought going into the experiment which is that while price may reflect the material used to make the teas, it in no way reflects taste, and therefore a high price does not mean the teas will be good or bad. Ultimately taste is up to the drinker or the individual. And so what I think you should take from this as either a beginner, intermediate or well experience Puerh drinker is that should pay little attention to price and more to your gut.