On drinking puerh

Good tea is not really known about in Portland (although we're starting to get there, as more tea houses/shops open), so I don't get to meet a lot of tea people in person. However, whether I meet them in person or start talking to them online, one of the things that seems to happen a lot is that they can't understand why I'm not intensely enthusiastic about puerh tea. No matter how often I say it, the subject always comes back around, with the person being shocked that I don't "like tea," and/or I'm served/given a young sheng as though I just need to try it.

The reason is really quite simple: we don't get good puerh in the west, as MarshalN points out, I don't find drinking young puerh to be pleasurable, and old stuff (good or not) is expensive and hard to find.

Just to be clear, though: I do like good, well aged puerh. Unfortunately, out of the many that I've had, I think that only one or two had the vibrant spring freshness with good complexity and a comfortable mouth feel. Much of the young stuff is beyond uncomfortable, to the point of inducing acid reflux.

Conversely, wulong offers a lot more richness and complexity than the puerh we usually get here, and is easier to find. While we don't get access to some of the exceptionally good stuff, and the good stuff can be expensive, we can find some great stuff in English language online stores for relatively reasonable prices.

If your puerh isn't as good as a high-end wulong, then it's not a good tea. The characteristics to look for are similar in most ways, but I've never experienced it in puerh available on western markets; only in samples sent from generous benefactors that live there.

One of the characteristics of a good wulong is a comfortable mouth-feel. I'm not speaking of just the texture or thickness of the tea, but rather how it feels in the mouth; while some teas -- even ones that have a great taste and aroma -- make you want to move the tea around your mouth, and you have to make a conscious effort to swallow, others are quite soft and comfortable; they seem to just evaporate in your mouth, and you could happily keep it on your tongue all day.

When puerh is made, the tea master is making something that should be good in 20-30+ years. They usually want it to be very strong, bitter, and astringent when it's first made so that it will mellow down to something that will be interesting after decades of aging.

So as a person that looks for comfortable mouth feel, I absolutely do not look to young puerh. I will drink the stuff as a matter of evaluating it, but it's not meant to be a great tea while it's young; if it is, it's probably not a good puerh.

The one exception to all of this is shu puerh. Serenity Art had a good selection of aged shu puerh, and I think that aged shu is heavily underrated, but this still doesn't usually have a great deal of complexity. I drink it often, but it's generally as something akin to eating comfort food. Of course now that Serenity Art is closed, my aged shu has become a little more precious. Hopefully they will find the means to re-open the store in the future. (In addition to liking the store, I think the couple that owned it are great people, with great passion for tea, that deserve success) Shu won't compare to aged sheng at any age, but given 10-20 years of wet storage it can be worth drinking. It can also be good for helping the enthusiast get keyed into mouthfeel and hou yun, which is possibly the most important thing in tea.

So if you meet me at some point, please don't expect me to be impressed with your puerh, unless you're a serious collector with well-aged stuff. I'm sorry if that sounds snobbish, but I simply don't enjoy young or adolescent puerh.

First post on my new blog

If you've been around the online tea community for a while, then you may remember that I had another tea blog back in 2007. Back then I was pretty new to tea, and my posts consisted of tasting notes for different teas. At some point I realized that my understanding of tea in general was changing, and that posts describing the characteristics of different teas wasn't really all that useful. I wanted to contribute something more substantial, and wanted to wait until I had learned enough to do so.

So here I am, 6 years later. I don't know how useful my musings will really be, but I think they will be more worthwhile to think about than what various teas smell and taste like. Hopefully this will help someone along their tea journey, or at least give them something to think about, but at least this blog will give me an outlet for some of these thoughts.

Will I blog for more than 6 months this time? I guess that only time will tell; I make no promises :)