The shu (ripe) puer tea Giant King is a totally fermented product made in Yunnan region. In particular these leaves was harvested and fermented for two months in Simao area. A particular thing you can notice in this product is that it is made of quite huge gems instead of the usual standards you can see in a puer shu. This peculiarity give you the chance to taste the effects of fermentation on gems generally used for other kinds of tea and so the result in the cup will taste unique.
At the beginning of the tasting time you can immediately notice that the fermented flavor here is not humid and earthy like in the most of shu puer but it’s a bit more dry and remind of something like clay. Only after some sips you can appreciate some of the classic features of this kind of tea such as a high mineral feeling in the mouth and soft cooling effect. But the taste which represents more this puer is its malt sweetness also, sometime, similar to the flavor of some wood barrel where rested some liquor. This sweet taste can even remind some Dian Hong tea but, in this case, the fermentation context exalt even more the features in the gems and their capacity of giving to the infuse a soft and inviting body.
Place of origin
Simao – Yunnan, China
Production
After the harvest the leaves whither under the sunlight for a certain period of time depending on the tea masters evaluations before going into the “killing of the green” phase which is similar to the practice adopted for green teas. In this case, however, the leaves are heated in the iron wok with a lower temperature than the usual standards for a green tea so it is possible to preserve some enzymes capable of changing the the taste of the tea through the time. After the cooking process big quantities of tea leaves are piled, dumped and covered with big sheets to allow the beginning of the fermentation. The producer here 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 can take from 20 to 70 days, the leaves were spread all over the floor to let the microorganisms who started the fermentation dry, and get loose. Now it is possible to (eventually) press the tea and so provide to it the best conditions to being transported and aged, otherwise, it can also be sell in this loose state for a more direct consumption.
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 grams of leaves (about 4 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 15 seconds and, after that, at the same water temperature, you can do multiple infusion adding 10 seconds every steeping time (15 – 25 – 35…)
These leaves could be steep about 10 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.