Shu Pu Cake – 2019 Yunnan Menghai High Mountain Fermented Shu Pu’er Tea Cake

• dry tea is cake shape with suitable tightness and thickness, lustrous reddish dark brown color, showing golden hair
• dark orange color tea soup, clear and bright
• clean and pure, aged fragrances
• mellow and pure, mild tastes with sweet aftertaste
• wet tea is fat and thick, even, reddish brown

Introduction:

Pu’er 普洱 [pǔ ěr] tea has also been lauded as the “drinkable antique”. The flavor and color of raw Pu’er Tea changes when properly stored over a period of time. Young raw Pu’er: The ideal liquors should be aromatic with a light but distinct odours of camphor, rich herbal notes like Chinese medicine, fragrance floral notes, hints of dried fruit aromas such as preserved plums, and should exhibit only some grassy notes. Young raw Pu’er may sometimes be quite bitter and astringent, but should also exhibit a pleasant mouthfeel and “sweet” aftertaste, referred to as gān (甘) and húigān(回甘).

The kind of teas could be called High Mountian Tea 高山茶, the tea fields’ height above sea level must be higher than 800 meters. Comparing with other teas growing at lower see levels, high mountian teas are much more special: first, high mountian tea’s tastes are more clear and sweet, because of strong root systems, high mountain tea plants could absorb more mineral substances and nutrients; Second, high mountian tea’s textures are more smooth and soft, since high mountains surround all the year round with cloud and mist, high humidities, rich diffusion lights and big differences in temperature between the day and the night are optimal for tea plants to produce some desirable compounds; Third, high mountian tea’s liquid is more clear and bright, because lights on high mountains are mainly blue-purple lights, which could restrain undesirable compounds to produce; Fourth, high mountian green tea‘s fragrances are much higher, longer daylight hours and relative lower temperatures are good for fresh leaves to produce aromatic compounds.