newbie following newbie pu er threads

Yeah..! Lara, I'v got many photos of puer on a photo sharing site ,which is called Chinese Flickr... wish you like.

To best answer that please tell us a bit about your tea experience.

Have you tried any peurhs at all yet?

Do you prefer black teas or green teas?

Do you currently use loose leaf or teabags?

What type of brewing equipment do you own?

$100 is a large budget for a first time around. Why so much? Are you looking for a selection?

Mike Petro

"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed." Samuel Johnson, 1775, upon finishing his dictionary.

Those look like pictures I cull everyday off TaoBao and Ebay. I note factory,date,price,brief description. It is convenient.

Jim

hanry wrote:

lara,

my advice is that you save your $100 for future when you are more certain of your tastebuds and preference...

instead of buying whole pieces of tea which you might not like later, it might be better for you to start out on samples first. Spend $20 - 30 on samples, and then build up your repertoire from there...

:)

Danny

Yes yes yes!

With Puerh it's very easy to build up a stock of tea that you aren't enthusiastic about. The most typical unit is nominally 357 grams, which is a *lot*, and it's easy to tell yourself that it's cheap for the price, and besides, it might get better as it ages. Well, it might, but it might not, so it's a very good idea to find out if you really like the stuff before you buy, say, a hundred pots' worth.

/Lew

only a black cooked loose from Rishi. but I loved it and this ng raves so much about pu that I'd like to learn more

greens mostly, some whites (some reason I love Indian whites) I don't drink blacks. Just habit, I suppose.

loose only.

Two ceramic tea pots and an Inginuitea. I am seriously considering a gong fu

$100 is a nice round number. I usually drop about $70 on a green tea order. With the $100, those who think I need "a really good tea" can refer me to one special cake, while others can refer me to several lower priced samples. I am looking only to experience pu er. Variety of lower priced, single higher priced, whatever. I want the experts to advise. I will consider all the suggestions, weigh the issues, etc and finally purchase several samples at my discrection.

Thanks for your response

Hi Lew,

Sorry I visited Michael and Winnie at the Tea Gallery without you...next round? Love their place...

:")

Lara, the puerh genre covers a wide spectrum of teas and most of them are very unique, especially when compared to the more common teas. I fully concur with Danny and Lew in that I wouldn't recommend you blow a bundle on 1 or 2 cakes, you might wind up with a bunch of tea you despise.

You have a nice budget to start with so go for sample and taster packages. Don't buy anything expensive yet, stay away from significantly aged tea simply because it costs a lot and you don't know what you like yet. You did like the black which is cool, understand that green puerh is completely different. Sample sizes are better for you right now but if you do go for whole pieces stay away from the bingcha and stick with 100g tuocha or fangcha, less investment and less tea to waste if you don't like it. Here are some sample sized suggestions.

Email Jing Teashop

as they are good about filling unique requests. Ask them to put together a sample package of as many tea as possible that represent the "spectrum" of puerh. I would ask for 25g of each which is enough for several pots. They have the knowledge to guide you down this path, many other vendors don't.

Another good source for small samples is

as they offer 1oz samples. The prices include shipping. Hopefully more vendors will take their lead. Some teas to think about from them would be: 7 $1 1 7 Email Guang privately and he might also put together some other samples for you that are not listed on his site. I wouldn't buy the aged samples just yet, learn the genre first.

ITC offers a sampler

but it is mediocre IMHO.

Unfortunately not many people off sample sizes and even fewer offer any kind of selection. Generation Tea used to offer a sampler but they are out of stock on it right now. David Hoffman from Silk Road Tea used to offer a fantastic sampler but he discontinued it.

There are a tremendous amount of loose leaf black puerhs. Don't spend too much time dwelling on them as their pedigree is hard to determine, which means it is hard to replicate if you decide you want more. Get one or two, maybe a small leaf and a large leaf, but not any more than that.

Stay away from the minis as most of them are only average at best, there are a few exceptions but I don't think they are worth pursuing just yet.

If you look at my Brewing page

I have instructions for brewing puerh using your Inginuitea pot. There are better methods of brewing but I don't recommend investing in any new equipment just yet, make sure you like the genre enough before investing more $. Mike Petro "In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed." Samuel Johnson, 1775, upon finishing his dictionary.

(Very impressive list of samplers snipped)

Mike,

What is your opinion about the puerh sampler set from Holy Mountain? And generally, how is the quality of their puerhs? I have once ordered a lightly aged (6 years old) green Menghai cake from them, and although it has a nice taste, it is far not as impressive as the young greens which I have received from Michael from mandjs.com.

Thanks, Gyorgy

Thanks Gyorgy, I forgot about them, it has been a while since I visited their site. The sampler on

looks appealing enough. They also are now selling a lot of loose leaf and minis in 1 oz sizes. However if one is trying learn the "spectrum" of puerh you only need 1 or 2 loose blacks/minis.

In general Holy Mountain puerhs are as advertised, although you can get better prices from the China based vendors. Michael from mandjs.com does sell good authentic puerh however I think the Jing Teashop and Teaspring, both also based in China, have better prices once you throw shipping into the equation. They certainly maintain their websites more frequently.

Mike

Hello Lara,

I agree with Mike and Danny. $100 is much more than what is really needed to jump into pu erh especially since you already tried the cooked loose. You can focus more on the green/raw pu erh.

I would say that starting with tuo cha and fang cha are your best bet because of their weight, price, and also because they use smaller grade which make the tea not as "strong" as a traditional beeng cha. After experiencing with these and if you think you like the tea, then you could try a beeng cha.

Happy discovering!

SEb

Lara Burt> I've been enjoying the discussion on a thread about how newbies should go

If you spend too much on samplers which includes shipping you have nothing left for a good selection of cakes. I'd find a US based site with good selection, I'd tell the owner I'm a newbie or not, I've got $100, and I want a cross section of cook and uncooked from different factories from recent years with free shipping and free samplers from the rest of his stock. I think ultimately tea taste is developed. You have to drink the bad with the good because sometimes they switch roles.

Jim

Lewis Per>

Indeed. I had bought some Xia Guan tuochas from Michael before, but now I have found out that I can get the same tuochas considerably cheaper from Jing Teashop because of the lower shipping fee. On the other hand, Michael has this incredible Wild Tree cake from Menghai, which I have almost become an addict of, and which I can not find at other vendors.

Gyorgy