Pu-ehr tea newbie with questions

[Chrisl]

Hello tea drinkers:

I've been a longtime coffee drinker who used to roast his own beans, co-owned a coffee house and until recently, enjoyed great coffee. However, in the end it seemed to agitate my gall bladder. I'd always enjoyed the occasional cup of tea, but coffee took the front seat.

I have given up coffee and instead have fallen fast and furiously for Pu-ehr teas. I'm a consumate newbie in this realm, but I want to learn and grow in my Pu-ehr tea consumption. I've purchased both raw and ripe Pu-ehr teas to date and after trying raw and brewing gong fu style in a gaiwan, I found I preferred the smoothness of ripe/cooked Pu-ehr teas (the raw in the first handful of infusions were unpleasantly strong for me at 100ml volumes). While in no way am I offended by the smell of the small number of ripe Pu-ehr teas I've tried (the three dominant smells the exhibit IMO are tobacco, leather and seaweed), I don't find the smell exquisite. I'm a visual person and aesthetically I much prefer the beautiful relatively intact leaves found in raw Pu-ehr vs. the more broken down appearance of cooked Pu-ehr.

I've switched back and have spent more time with some raw Pu-ehr teas I have and found by smelling the brew alone I'm able to determine with good accuracy, how much additional hot water I want to add in order to make even the first infusions perfect for my taste. Akin maybe to adding a splash of water to whiskey. The extra water I add is not a lot, but it seems to make a huge difference for me. As such, I think at least for now I'm going to focus on raw Pu-ehrs.

Questions:

• Can anyone suggest some reputable places to purchase Pu-ehr from?
• I've seen inconclusive info regarding whether or not Yixing pots have measurable levels of lead in the clay or can at least some Yixing pots be regarded more or less conclusively as having no harmful lead levels?
• I did not post these questions in the Sheng of the day since I didn't think it was appropriate there. However, I did see someone post that infusions can last as long as 12 hours? If so, are you reheating the tea after such a long infusion or drinking it room temp?

Whoops, one more question: Is there any info relating to the caffeine levels of raw and/or ripe Pu-ehr teas? I'm curious as to what the caffeine content of a 5 gram sample would be if a person ran the sample out to it's max infusions (ie what the total amount of caffeine would be if one were to spend the day using a 5 gram sample for a session drinking the 10+ infusions throughout the day).

So far I have only purchased Pu-ehr from JAS eTea and have found the service and the site to be excellent. I think I've purchased a total of six or seven ripe and raw Pu-ehr teas in Tuocha and Bingcha both.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Chris L

 

[netsurfr]

Regarding caffeine, somewhere I have seen a table that talks specifically about tea but here is a reference in wikipedia that compares a number of products that contain caffeine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine

A Department of Nutritional Services report provides the following ranges of caffeine content for a cup of tea made with loose leaves:

Black Tea: 23 - 110 mg
Oolong Tea: 12 - 55 mg
Green Tea: 8 - 36 mg
White Tea: 6 – 25 mg

How can I lower the amount of caffeine in my cup?

For those who are sensitive to caffeine, we recommend using a little less leaf and brewing your teas with slightly cooler water for a shorter period of time. Green, white and lightly oxidized oolong teas are good choices, as they tend to benefit from lower water temperatures and shorter steeping times.

Since nearly 80% of the caffeine will be extracted within 30 seconds of steeping, you can easily remove most of the caffeine in any tea by following these guidelines:

Steep the tea in hot water for 45 seconds. Discard the liquid. Then, add water to the leaves and brew for the amount of time that is appropriate for that particular tea. At least one of my customers that is very sensitive to caffeine steeps his tea twice for about 30 seconds and finds the remaining content to be acceptable to his system.

Regarding sheng tea. The older the sheng, the smoother. Ripe pu-erh is really just employs a fermentation process that is intended to simulate what happens to older sheng or raw tea. Another thing to try may be some maocha. This is the raw tea material before it gets compressed into a sheng. Some of the maocha with only a few years on it turns out to be very smooth and is quite beautiful since the leaves are essentially whole. Just so happens that I carry some nice 2007 maocha from several different mountain regions.

Regarding the fermentation smell (wo dui) that is sometimes found in ripe pu-erh. This can often be almost eliminated by letting your 5-7 grams of ripe pu-erh air out overnight before using the next day. In addition, I have been most impressed with the Menghai Dayi Gong ripe. I don't know what they do different for this tuo but I do not really detect any wo dui smell in this tea. Could be that they ferment it for a shorter period of time, not sure.

 

[Drybonz]

Another thing to try may be some maocha.

Try the Nannuo Mountain maocha from the Jas-E site. It's really good.