Sheng (raw) Puer tea Gua Feng Zhai gushu 2018 50g

The Gua Feng Zhai Sheng (raw) Puer tea comes from the Gua Feng Zhai village in the south of China. In order to understand deeply the puer teas we have to take a better look to the area where these materials come from because usually the place of origin gives also the name to the tea. Here we are in the south of Yunnan (a famous region for puer productions) in the independent prefecture of Xishuangbanna.

This village, hard to reach because of the intricate paths only possible with a motorcycle, produces high quality leaves which usually are bring to the Yi Wu Xiang where they are processed and blend with other high quality stuff of the nearby areas. Like in the major part of Yunnan here we could find ancient trees defined as gushu (old arbor) and a local minority called Yao who are the curators and the producer of the leaves of the tea plants around the village.

It’s quite rare to find this tea in a loose leaf format because of its limited production but in this case we have the possibility to appreciate better intense flavors of this tea. The aroma shows a distinct vegetal character while in the mouth the first approach reveals a heavy body with a buttery sensation which coat all the mouth. Apart from these feels there is a starch sweetness with some vegetal and slight acid flavors which represent a little break between the predominant sweetness and buttery features.

Place of origin

Gua Feng Zhai, Yi Wu Xiang – Yunnan, China.

Production

After the harvest the leaves wither under the sunlight for a certain period of time depending on the tea master wisdom before the “kill of green” phase which is similar to the process used in green teas production. Here the main difference is that the leaves aren’t heated at the same temperature of a green tea but with a lower one so you could preserve some enzymes which will continue to modify the flavors of teas through the years. The fresh pan-fried materiel is left to rest all the night before going under the final drying process. The dry Puer leaves is called maocha and generally different maocha are blended to obtain unique flavors combination and pressed into different shapes.Ingredients: Puer tea.

Preparation

We invite you to brew this tea in the traditional Chinese style (gong fu cha) in order to extract more from your leaves. Following this preparation you could use 5 grams of leaves (about 3 teaspoons) in a gaiwan of 100 ml so you can obtains more infusions with different flavors. After a brief rinse of the leaves in a 100°C water you can go with a first infusion of 10 seconds and, after that, at the same water temperature, you can do multiple infusion adding 5 seconds every steeping time (10 – 15 – 20 …)

These leaves could be steep about 8 times.

To prepare the tea in the western style we suggest 2 grams of leaves (about 1 teaspoons) in a 150 ml cup with 100°C water for a steeping time of one minute and a half.

The tea could be filtered if you want to avoid some little piece of the leaves during the tasting time and also the steeping time we recommend here could be modify on your personal preferences.

We recommend you to store this tea in a dry and cool place avoiding the direct sun light on the leaves.