Hi Blues,

Welcome to the club. I personally started out drinking black puerhs
and then grew into the green puerh which is now my favorite. Blacks
are more mellow, yet they can be brewed up strong, and they are
virtually impossible to oversteep. Greens can be astringent,
particularly if steeped too long. Greens also have the most potential
for that hauntingly sweet and elusive aftertaste. Play around with
temperatures on the greens, I usually start around 170F, but use a
full boil for the blacks.

By the Way, there is no shame in obtaining your puerh wherever you may
find it. If Chinatown doesn't work for you try your local neighborhood
Chinese Restaurant. They will probably be drinking oolong themselves
but I have had some success with taking a wrapper from a puerh cake to
them and asking them to get some for me. Several of them have obliged
me over the years. I personally buy mine online nowadays for a lot of
reasons and I find no shame in it. For me the road to success was to
strike a personal relationship with a couple of knowledgeable vendors.
Go with whatever works for you and don't worry about the naysayers.


Mike



On Mon, 8 Mar 2004 13:08:29 -0800, "Blues Lyne"
> cast caution to the wind and posted:

>After all the Puerh talk here, I decided it was time to give it a try. I
>received an order from Teaspring Saturday, (sorry Jim, I haven't had much
>luck in the Asian markets here, but I keep trying). They generously
>included some Puerh samples for me to try.
>
>The first one I tried was a 2 year old green Puerh. I used 1 heaping tsp
>and boiling water and steeped for 2 mins. I immediately recognized the
>musty, dank basement taste I've heard mention of. Better than the only
>other Puerh I'd tried (Organic Puerh ZH25 from Upton Tea), but I still
>wasn't sure I was getting what all the fuss was about. Then Bam! it hit me,
>this strong, delicious, fruity aftertaste. Totally took me by surprise. It
>was so totally different than the taste of the tea itself. I found myself
>wanting more of the tea, not for the flavor of the tea, but the lingering
>aftertaste.
>
>Yesterday I tried some of the 10 year old green Puerh. Once again, I
>immediately recognized the flavor from descriptions I'd read. This time it
>was the clean horse barn, or to me 4H fair taste. It was smoother than the
>2 year old, but lacked the delicious aftertaste.
>
>I'm still not sure I'm getting it, but from experience it sometimes takes a
>few times with a new tea for me to warm up to it. So I'll keep
>experimenting, and enjoying a new sensation. I also have a 2 year old black
>Puerh, 10 year old black puerh and some Puerh in bags to try. At the
>moment, I don't think it will replace the Sencha's and Keemuns that I'm so
>fond of, but who knows.
>
>Blues
>
>PS. If anyone is interested, the Long Jing and Bai Mudan I received in the
>same order were excellent. The Ying De Hong and Yunnan Gold I received
>weren't my cup of tea, so to speak. There are some Yunnans that I love, and
>a lot that don't do much for me, so that isn't to say they were bad teas
>just not for me.
>


Mike Petro
http://www.pu-erh.net
remove the "filter" in my email address to reply