This is a CNNP (China National Native Produce) cake, fashioned after the almost legendary Yellow label of the 50's or 60's (not sure when the original Yellow Label was released. I picked this cake up at Nadacha, who is probably my favorite vendor for premium, and aged puerh.
As you can tell this tea has already aged a great deal, probably due to its Hong Kong storage, which has left a couple of the leaves with a little white frosting. Amazingly enough this did not seem nearly as wet stored as the 90's Tuo.
This color of even the earlier brews was relatively clear, and never more than a slightly dark red. Though this tea still has a slight sign of youth to it, as I detected a little bit of ku that is found in younger teas, though this one was by far much more smoothed over and peaceful and reduced.
This tea is already a great aged tea. I detected over the course of an afternoon of brewing hints of waterchestnuts, peppers, and even ginger. All while being thoroughly soothing on this hot summers day.
So I leave you with a happy cup and two of my yixings basking in the sun.
4 comments:
Looks to be a great tea. Very nice pics.
Hi Adam,
Not knowing anything about pu-erh, I picked up a disc like yours in Montreal Chinatown for $9. A search of the internet looking to match the packaging leads here. Details match down to the typos and line breaks on the ticket. The only thing that doesn't is the appearance of the tea itself---yours looks much less dense and brittle, and in yours I can see the individual tea leaves more easily.
It tastes quite good to my unpracticed palate, but for the price it's either a fake or an ordinary tea that I happen to enjoy.
What do you know about the various type of imposters?
Matt,
Puerh comes in two types Cooked and Uncooked(Raw). My guess is if you have a harder time seeing individual leaves it is probably of the cooked variety.
But the good news is if it has a nearly identical wrapper its at least several years old think pre-2004.
Basically All Puerh cakes from before 2004 have a similar style wrapper whether they be cooked or uncooked.
But how does the cake taste? That is always the real test. You may have actually got a decent deal as even an cooked tea that old would typically be selling for more than 9 dollars a cake. Though China towns are famous for sometimes turning up great deals.
Adam,
I think you are right that it is ripened pu-erh.
Unfortunately, I'll be a poor source of information about how it tastes. I'm more of a coffee and dashi guy (blog whoring: http://italianintheus.blogspot.com/2009/08/quest-for-katsuobushi-ii-dashi-is-deep.html
and
http://italianintheus.blogspot.com/2009/07/quest-for-katsuobushi.html )
All I can say is that it tastes like the tea I used to get with dim sum in California, but smoother. It tastes of humidity but is not musty. (For reference, we bought elsewhere what we were told was an old, quality pu-erh, at a much higher unit price, but it really does taste too strongly of decay.)
The folks who sold disc aren't making any special claims except "helps digestion!", and actually don't seem to know what they are talking about. So it's possible that this is a diamond in the rough or, as I now think, something ordinary in the good way. It's been fun examining the packaging for clues though, and the wikipedia page is quite something.
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