Werner's SF '11 tea party

[JimHow]

I have extremely limited experience with tea but Werner had a really interesting Chinese tea party in Tom and Gail's suite. I had never tasted anything like what he pulled out on Saturday afternoon. Wow!

Werner, if you get a chance, can you just give a brief summary of what it was we were drinking? Thanks.

[William P]

Werner thesis was pu-erh tea is much like a fine bordeaux or burgundy. Unlike other teas, pu-erh ages and actually changes in taste and complexity with time. He poured three different pu-erh each with its own flavor profile. As I recall, the teas were picked from very old trees, his estimate was about 300 yrs.

The last tea was the youngest and was circa 2010. It was a dark green pressed disc. It also tasted a bit herby/grassy, somewhat like a full flavored green tea. The liquid was a greenish color. The second tea was circa 2008, fuller flavor. The disc color was more brownish. The liquid was more brown maybe hint of orange. The last was circa 2003. The disc was more mahogany and some white/silver to a few leaves. The liquid tea was dark mahogany. I could definitely see the progression and flavor change with age.

I hope Werner will correct my dates. BTW these discs were all purchased for China.

Thanks Werner.

[aimeedogdogdog]

The first puerh was a 2002 YiWu, while the second a 1999 YiWu and the third a 2011 LaoBanZhang. It's just like wine, the freshly produced puerhs could be fun to drink and accessible. Between 3-15 years, they pretty much shut down (some would take 30 -40 years, depending on the storage condition) (or we could see it as changing flavors). Unfortunately, I didn't plan well ahead and didn't have anything mature and ready to drink. So all I could do was to show how these teas could age. I was kind of in a rush to brew too many and I didn't get pass the fourth brew for each tea. The best brew would always be the 3rd - 7th ones. None of them was anywhere close to the magical taste and aroma a great and mature puerh could do. Well maybe next time when I choose two mature teas, don't have Tessa around messing, relax and don't worry about the dinner that night and take our time to enjoy the tea.

I saw James (who made the chateau Margaux dinner happen in our BWE 2005 Bordeaux trip) a few days before our Saturday dinner, and he surprised me that he had been into puerh teas too!!! Hm... I see a great future of this website evolving from wine to tea when we all had fallen out of love with Bordeaux. I see Jim has been pioneering something in this direction already. All we need is a bit push from someone like James and me. )

Werner

[JimHow]

Great stuff, Werner, I really enjoyed that tea tasting, it was a highlight of the weekend.
I think we should institutionalize a Saturday afternoon "Werner's Tea Hour" into the BWE weekend. There would be a fee involved to help offset the costs, of course, those teas are expensive!

[DavidG]

I can just see it, 10 years from now: Chinese puerh enthusiasts bitching about the classless Americans who don't have a clue to really understanding or appreciating them buying up all the "first growth" puerhs and driving the prices out of reach of the true connoisseurs. Ain't karma a bitch!?!

[Tom In DC]

The tea tasting was really interesting. I've never had such a wide variety of tastes from tea before.

Thanks again, Werner, for introducing us to the wonders of tea! And thanks to William P as well for the delightful white tea!