The leaves of this puer come from Jing Mai 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. Here, in the Menghai region, was produced this 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.
This shu puer shows a vegetal taste more faceted then the others fermented teas in our offer. Since the beginning, in fact, you could feel a taste of long boiled beets on the palate which, after being paired with a sweet component for a while, will continue to persist in the mouth. While this vegetal flavor is persisting on your palate you can start to notice a transformation of it into a more bitter and mineral taste till becoming similar to a cabbage leaf’s flavor. A bit of this infuse’s sweetness also persist in the aftertaste but also there you can find a grassy presence together which will stay till the last sips.
Place of origin
Jing Mai – 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. After the cooking process big quantities of tea leaves are amassed in pile 40/50 centimeters high and covered with a big sheet to allow the beginning of the fermentation. The producer have to move and wet constantly the leaves in order to achieve an homogeneous fermentation on all the vegetal mass. When this process ends, generally after o period which could take from 20 to 70 days, the leaves were spread all over the floor to let the microorganisms dry, and get loose. The so obtained final product it is generally pressed to ease the transport and improve the aging. For fulfill this phase the maocha pass through concentrated steam which is able to make the leaves softer without changing their inner humidity level and then the leaves are picked in a bag, shaped, and then leave under a stone or a mechanical press to fix the form and to disperse some more moisture.
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 6.5 grams of leaves (about 5 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 20 seconds and, after that, at the same water temperature, you can do multiple infusion adding 5 seconds every steeping time (20 – 25 – 30 …)
These leaves could be steep about 8 times.
To prepare the tea in the western style we suggest 3 grams of leaves (about 2 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.