A Tea Addict's Journal

Maocha in a cup

June 29, 2007 · Leave a Comment

I spent most of the day on a train from Beijing to Shanghai.  On the way, I drank a maocha I bought way back when I first got to Beijing.  I think I must’ve bought it on my second or third trip to Maliandao.  I remember getting 100g of it, wondering whether it will age well, or if it’s good at all.  I knew very little about maocha at that point, having not tried any before.  It was all an experiment.

Almost a year later, I am brewing it, grandpa style, in a paper cup with train water. Unfortunately, I packed the cable for camera-to-computer in my luggage that I left in Beijing, so no pictures… but the tea is surprisingly sweet that way.  Of course, I didn’t use much leaves.  Using too much leaves will mean it will get nasty, bitter, and astringent.  The key to making young puerh palatable, at least in these long, uncontrolled infusions, is to use little leaves and not quite boiling water.  Then, almost everything tastes good.

The leaves are very thick, and the taste reasonable.  It’s not too strong, although there’s some throatiness to the tea.  I think it’s fall tea, or possibly summer tea.  It’s definitely not spring picked.  I need to evaluate it more properly in a gaiwan under normal conditions to be able to say anything definitive about it, but as a drink to pass the time on a train ride, it does its job admirably well.  At the very least, I don’t think this is green tea puerh and should age.

Categories: Old Xanga posts · Teas
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