One more Pu-Erh mistery

how was darjeeling I want to go!!!1

Any evidence of chemical tampering ala the tobacco industry?

Thanks, Jim

MarshalN wrote:

What exactly can you try in East Frisia? Sorry for the hijack, but I have a Frisian fetish.

Alex

Composting local leaves into ... Pfui'er? My point, I suppose, was that, freed of the requirement to use C. sinensis, Karsten could mulch leaves and press cakes more or less anywhere photosynthesis is practiced.

Aren't you glad you asked?

/Lew

This is actually something I have been hunting for a reputable reference on for quite a while now. I have heard "rumors" that some factories will introduce some puerh from a previous batch to inoculate the current batch, sort of like they do with sour dough bread, but I have never found a solid reputable reference that confirms this. Like you say, they are all VERY secretive about it often citing "State Secret" etc as if they would be prosecuted if they told.

I do have a series of roughly about 8 pictures from one shop showing various stages of the process, while the series is interesting it is by no means definitive. I will post it again after Halloween is over. On the surface it appears that it is a simple composting like process where the tea is kept in big piles, turned frequently, and the temperature of the pile is closely monitored and kept intentionally very hot (hence cooked) although I have never found out what exact temperature is desired. I think the turning time schedule, depth of the pile, temperature, moisture level, etc are the variables that are so closely guarded, particularly the variables that are reproducible. This type of composting would naturally lead to certain bacterias forming, thriving, and dying throughout the process. I have also heard of batches where the process got away from them and the tea had so much residual bacterial activity that it made people sick.

------- Mike

There are lots of teas (mostly cooked) like this from various parts of China under the category of hei cha (black tea.) There's a big market for these in Tibet, Mongolia, and western China. There are also teas of this kind from Indochina.

/Lew

Kind of. I guess I was hoping that the Frisians were making rose hip pu'er or something like that. I've learned my lesson.

I believe Menghai does that, and the others I suspect as well. People say there's a Menghai taste. It comes from somewhere.

The nettle man is seated at the table in the laboratory of the Utility Nettle Research Kitchen. Reaching for an oversized titanium spoon he gathers an intimate quantity of dried poop remnants ...

K...

I can usually recognize a taste in raw Xia Guan but have never really noticed a unique taste in cooked Mengahi, although I am sure it is possible and I am just not attuned to it. If there is a unique trait to Mengahi cooked, couldn't it just come from a certain control of the time/temp/aeration variables? Maybe they have a unique process recipe that is conducive to certain microbial strains, ie each type of microbe tends to favor different specific conditions under which they will multiply prolifically and MH might use a process that accentuates some certain microbe. Obviously XG does something in their process that makes it unique, and being raw I don't suspect added beasties as the source. I would love to find confirmation that XYZ strains were manually added though as that would explain a lot.

____ Mike