The leaves of this puer come from Bulang area 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. Here, in the Menghai region, was produced this particular cake from the Ouhai Shenyu factory in 2018. These information can tell us a lot about the production of the tea especially we could notice it comes from a factory so there is a precise recipe behind it.
Talking about the flavors released by infusing those leaves we can quickly notice some peculiar features of raw puer like the slightly astringent vegetal taste and the full-bodied sweetness in the aftertaste. Anyway the particular thing in this sheng is the strong interaction between the soft acidity given by the vegetal part and the sweet bold part. Together these elements create a delicate sweetness which is similar to the sweetness of some oriental fruits and it is also a distinctive feature of the east area of Bulang.
Place of origin
Bulang – 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 pu erh leaves is called maocha and generally different maocha are blended to obtain unique flavors combination and pressed into different shapes.
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 5,5 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 10 seconds every steeping time (10 – 20 – 30 …)
These leaves could be steep about 7 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.