Kuura have spent quite a bit of time looking for aged raw puer that meets the holy trinity of being:
1) Quality material
2) Decently old, and well-stored
3) Affordable
This production comes from a relatively small Taiwanese company, Gan-en Cha Chang (Gratitude/Gratefulness). The front wrapper says ‘Jingmai Mountain’, and the year of production is 2007. It’s been stored in Taiwan since then to great effect. The tea brews a nice orange-brown colour, with plenty of incense, wood, and honey-like fragrance and taste. Jingmai material tends to be light but fragrant when fresh, and the tea here still mirrors its base material (as all tea does). It’s smooth and easy to drink, with some nice lingering sweetness, and low on bitterness and astringency. At this price point, the material is not ever going to be gushu (old trees), but based on our perception it is most likely made from high quality xiaoshu (small trees, not bushes) growing in the forest. It’s definitely not taidicha (plantation tea), and the leaves are well-processed and whole. The compression is medium, and easy to break apart.
The storage conditions are excellent, and the tea smells and tastes clean and smooth.
We think this is a solid example of what age can do to raw puer tea, perfect for those who’ve not tried many aged teas or only drunk more commercial factory productions, or if you’re looking for a solid aged raw to drink on the regular without blowing out the budget.
The wrappers have been slightly eaten by paper-bugs, hence the holes, but there’s no bugs that eat tea, thankfully.
357g per compressed cake, with 7 cakes per traditionally wrapped bamboo tong. 25g samples are cut or broken from the cakes and sealed into bags.
Softly Spoken:
Exploration of aged pu'er in North America can be something of a minefield of storage preferences and the telephone tag of passage through the years to your cup. This tea is a lifeboat in that ocean, demonstrating all the virtues of maturation without, in our humble opinion, any of the pitfalls. Funk without fungus, depth without dank. Clean, sweet and refreshing, just a lovely little number to return to time and again. With thanks to the custodianship of the Taiwanese climate and temperament.
