Sunday, February 04, 2007

Sunday tea time.


After 2 months of joy and sorrow we finally found the time to settle down for an afternoon tea. And what is in my pot? A tea from Hong Kong, of course. I am going back to my roots for a traditional cooked puerh. Got this 8 years ago from Fook Ming Tong: http://www.fookmingtong.com. The tea is called Yunnan Age Unknown PU ER for $132 HK / 75g. Back then, the puerh hype was still under control....

I used my favorite 500ml pot for 8g of tea. There are some disc pieces from the badge, and I am not sure if these are originally loose or cake? No smell from dry leaves, but a strong wet storage (earthy and light vinegar) on the rinse. So I washed it twice and let it rest for 30 sec. Wet earthy and grandmom's cosmetic on the nose. Leather, earth, talc, mushroom and numbing on the palate. Clear deep cognac liquor and smooth to the throat. A wholesome hearty brew. It did produced 6 solid brews before going downhill. Large leaves from the pot, some uncooked leaves mixed together. Seems to me a "All mixed-up" recipe from Fook Ming.

Overall a satisfying tea which brings back childhood memories and comfort. Specially those 70's long dim sum family brunches with too many pots of puerh and shoumei, following grandmom's Mahjong games until dinner time.

1 comment:

MarshalN said...

I think a lot of these have a higher % of uncooked leaves as we generally assume, but they're mostly stuff that's been stored wet or what not. It's definitely all mixed up... but some teashops' recipe are better than others.

The Ying Kee stuff I was drinking yesterday was quite decent, and still pretty cheap (I think cheaper than your Fook Ming Tong stuff). It's not bad for a regular tea.

 
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