A Tea Addict's Journal

Puwen factory Yiwu

November 24, 2006 · Leave a Comment

When I was going through my desk yesterday I realized that I have a sample pack of tea sitting in a corner. This is a sample I got from a tea vendor in the Puer Chadu, and which I never bought nor tried. I tried it at their store, and I remember not liking it enough. They wanted a pretty high price for the cake, I gave a counteroffer that was 40% of their asking price, and they balked. In the end, they hoped that I’ll change my mind with this free sample.

So I brewed it up…

The factory name is Puwen, and this is a Yiwu cake. As they are always Yiwu Zhengshan these days, it doesn’t mean much. Supposedly old arbor tree, the works… The dry leaves smells like Yiwu.

This is infusion 1. The tea is…. a little thin, not terribly so, but a little thin. There’s a bit of “water taste”. For some reason, the tea didn’t taste very tea like, and considering this is a 30 seconds infusion…. that’s a lot.

While there’s some Yiwu taste in this, I don’t think this cake is made up of 100% Yiwu tea, or, it’s low elevation tea, or plantation tea (likely some mixed in). It just doesn’t taste right, and doesn’t taste like the Yiwu arbor tea that I’ve come to know after trying a whole bunch of them. I don’t know exactly what might’ve been mixed in it, but this ain’t the real deal. The tea is otherwise fine. It’s not great, but not terrible.

Of course, I found out that on Taobao you can get a cake of this for about 35% of their initial asking price. Good thing I didn’t buy it. Even my counteroffer of 40% was too high.

The leaves look more or less like Yiwu, but it doesn’t taste right. I can’t describe what’s wrong… it’s just the aroma/taste profile is a little different than usual. Perhaps it’s a “borderline Yiwu”? Not sure….

Categories: Old Xanga posts · Teas
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