From the Weekend

The Mekong River exhibit at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

This is a demonstration of how to prepare Puerh teas.

The Smithsonian calls it "Pu'er," which is just a different way to transliterate the Chinese characters. The man at the exhibit said that one of the difficulties of introducing tea to the American market is that many of the terms of connoisseurship lack English equivalents. He also said that tea bags are "like the Coca-Cola of tea," an analogy that I guess would only make sense if there was a version of Coca-Cola brewed from fresh coca leaves.

As you can read here, Puerh is best when aged (like wine). To preserve its quality, it is compressed into bricks that you break apart when ready to serve the tea. According to Wikipedia, the bricks have been used as currency.

Comments

[mike]

So how DO you correctly make Puerh tea correctly? Does the old add hot water and steep for 3 minutes method fail to bring out its qualities?

[Avery Palmer]

Well, I've never made it, but I'm told an advantage of Puerh is that it allows for multiple infusions. I'd welcome comments on the extent to which this is true for any green tea.

Anyhow, the Puerh demonstration at the festival was as follows: Break apart the brick, pour warm water over the leaves and then discard the water. This is called "awakening" the tea. The next step is the first infusion. Steep for only 15 seconds or so, then pour into (very small) cups and serve. Next, steep for perhaps 20 seconds, the third time for 30 seconds and so on. At first, there will be nothing distinctive about the taste, but the personality of the tea will unfold with each subsequent infusion.

Tea shops undoubtedly provide simplified instructions for consumers.