Foojoy Puer cake

Hi Melinda,

If your puer is cooked/black/shu and young it could easily have a musty yeasty smell to it. Air it out for a few weeks and it will diminish. It is normal to age black puers for a year or two to get rid of this residual of processing. The plastic wrap would have prevented the airing out of these odors.

Mike

Cool, I'm glad to hear that Mike, thanks. :)

Melinda

Old pu'er does have a 'musty' scent to it, but a 'moldy' smell is something altogether different. My oldest cake has a really strong dirty smell...it's lovely! Mike is the pu'er master, go with his advice, but if the smell doesn't go away after a while consider contacting the vendor and finding out exactly what you can about the tea that you purchased from them.

If it was stored in a place that was too damp, stored in a refrigerator unit (I've seen some horrible storage of pu'er...some wulong or tie guan yin can be refrigerated to keep it fresh), or a place that it was open the outside elements for an extended period, there is a possibility that mold could have began to develop. When it was shrink wrapped the mold's growth would have been halted or slowed. I say, give it a week or two more before you should get on the horn with the vendor.

I hope it goes well with your tea.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

I would add than if a cooked pu erh smells moldy, then most of the time it is very young and it was not very properly treated during the drying process after the first fermentation. Normally, after the first fermentation, the leaves need to be dried before they are shaped (the water content would be less than 40%). If the leaves are not dried enough before being shaped (and haven't dried enough after being shaped), then the tea develops a moldy smell (called "water taste" in China). As Mike suggested, you could let the tea dry on the side for a couple of weeks (avoid sunlight though, otherwise, the tea will develope a stinky smell), the moldy smell will go away.

Jing

In my Chinatown the same black cakes in the tissue wrapper are stacked next to the Foojoy boxes. The only difference, price. The loose cakes are $3.99. I remember the decorative Foojoy boxes about $16? All puerh coming from HongKong are packed in the 'plastic'. Usually it is labeled BoNay which is Cantonese for Puerh. The plus side the aroma is sealed in, the minus side the aroma is sealed in. If this is your first adventure in puerh don't worry about the aroma or taste. I like the cooked puerh with a heavy meal or sweet desert. The green I can drink alone. What I've discovered both brew up nicely in a single cup without the stewing problem you find with loose leaves and having to use your lips and incisors as a filter.

Jim

Mel> I purchased a FooJoy puer cake a couple of weeks ago. The box says Yunnan

I can see this to be totally true. I've often seen brand new Pu'er go for as much as 20 bucks depending on how pretty the package it's been wrapped in is. heh.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

Yah, this wasn't in what I would call a "decorative " box, it's just a cardboard box (sort of a light yellow color) but it was about $6.00. Not my first puer, but since I am wowed by Foojoy's Tippy Yunnan I wanted to give their puer a shot. I haven't seen puer in plastic before...the tuochas that are sold at my local Korean grocer are just in a round cardboard box and wrapped in paper. They seem fine to me.

The flavor of this Foojoy puer doesn't seem bad or anything. I'm no expert...but it seems fine to me.

Melinda

Thanks for that info Jing...and thanks for the tip about sunlight, didn't know that it made tea bitter but I koew that sunlight and light in general isn't good for tea. Or herbs for that matter...

Melinda

It really just comes down to what you like. Some of the 6th or 7th grade stuff that I got for pretty cheap (like 5 years old, i think) tastes great in my opinion.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

If a person can't tell the difference between the $5 for 100 grams tea and the $30 for 100 grams tea, don't worry about it. Taste buds vary, and older people who are new to tea are not going to develop late in life the palatte to distinguish among grades that someone much younger can. Older folks are more likely to like the unsubtle teas because the taste buds and sense of smell aren't what they used to be (I like really obvious oolongs at 56).

Drink what you like most of the time but try new things often enough.

I like the FooJoy product line. You can't go wrong with their teabags for the price, taste and selection. It's only recently they came out with their upscale expensive loose tea "Authentic Pure Tea Classics" like one you mentioned. I've got several which I haven't tried including their 2oz/57g/$13 1st flush "Huang Mtn Mao Feng". It's the first commercial tin of Mao Feng I've ever seen. Hopefully this line will be representative of quality mainland China teas like Good Young of Taiwan teas I recently mentioned. The Foojoy boxes I've seen has a picture of the wrapper on the outside of the box. I'd give you two dollars for a box to store the cake. They don't stack well by themselves. I haven't been to the Korean stores in a while. Have you seen the cute little integrated saucer, cup, infuser, lid which looks like a pumpkin. The lid holds the infuser.

Jim

Mel> Yah, this wasn't in what I would call a "decorative " box, it's just a

tuochas that

Anyhow,

I can tell the difference between the higher grade stuff, but sometimes the cheaper stuff can taste just as good. That's what I meant to say.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

The Yunnan I got isn't the one in the metal cans...I don't know why, but they have two loose leaf packaging varieties (and the teas are probably different in them) one of which is the sealed bag in a box and one of which is the higher end loose leaf in the metal tins. Plus their bags which I haven't tried and really don't plan to.

I haven't been to the Korean stores in a while. Have you

I have not seen that, no...I don't see a whole lot of tea equipage at the store other than the usual ceramic tea pot with bamboo handle or the ceramic teapot with the side handle, can't remember what they're called. But not too much of a selection, and the sets they do have are more special gifts, they run quite a bit for the teapot and 6 small cups.

I have been sticking to mesh and metal infusers when I use one because the ceramic ones I have right now (for mugs) don't seem to let the water flow enough...I can tell the difference in steeping.

Melinda

Oh lordy Rebecca, please don't say that, I'm having enough getting-towards-middle-age (well, in another ten years) angst without having to hear that, lol! Although I will say that my years of smoking didn't do my tastebuds or smell any favors...I am still getting some of that back but will probably never get it all. But the more pertinent thing to the cheap puer tasting fine right now to me is that I don't have a lot of experience with puers to go off of. Plus, the thing with me is that there is hardly any tea that I just absolutely can't stand. And the ones I can't stand change from time to time. For instance, at the moment I am really not liking smoky teas like Russian Caravan or Lapsang. I liked Lapsang the first time I tried it, I really did but something happened.....a little must've gone a long way for me. I can get overexposed to a flavored tea too, and then not like it for awhile. I still am ambivalent about trying Earl Grey again...I OD'd on that stuff when I bought a tin of the Twinings in college. Someday I'll try it and it'll seem brand new....

That's one good thing about pure tea taste though...it doesn't seem to get old like that for me. Yet.

Melinda

I found Keemun in Chinatown in the 1970s and I've got Keemun in my tea stash now and when that runs out, I'll try the A grade Keemun just to see if it does anything more for me.

Used to like Lapsang Souchong, but haven't gotten it in ages. Long Jing is going to be another staple, though.

I also like peppermint tissane, but haven't played with more or less good grades of that.

Tea should be a pleasure, not a test.