Today's tea: Ling Ling Sheng Puer

 Several years ago, I picked up a package of some sort of puer tea - I think it might even have been at Cost Plus World Market - and it was vile. It smelled and tasted like fish and I dumped it out after one mouthful, tossed the package and that was that. Knowing that, and admitting that puers were not her favorite either, Jade parted with a couple mild puer samples for me. 

This one came in a packet from West China Tea labeled 2000-2003 Ling Ling Sheng Puer from Nannuo Mountain.

5g/100ml water @ 190F, 6-10 seconds. (I did the 2nd and 3rd steeps at 15 and 20 seconds. 

And it was - all right. No floral or fruity notes like the oolongs at all. This was earthy, with a mineral aftertaste, and made me think of mushrooms, lotus root and All Things Brown. Heartier on second and third steeps of 15 seconds each and it's a nice tea for a cold day. Jade's note says it's a "blended puerh over a few years. This has typical sheng notes but very mild." https://westchinatea.com/30g-2018-gu-shu-duoyi-village-sheng-puer/#

Time to look all that up: Puer or puerh or pu-erh teas are from Yunnan Province in southern China. These fermented teas are either sheng (raw) or shou (cooked - to accellerate fermentation and imitate aged sheng teas. Judging from my first puer experience, it was probably a shou that hadn't had enough time to age. 

In other news, I placed an order last night with Yunnan Sourcing. 25g each of  King of Duck Shit Aroma Dan Cong, Wild Da Hong Pao, and Tie Guan Yin Anxie, all oolongs - and enough to spare 5g samples for Mary, who had asked about the Duck Shit on my Facebook post about it. I figure I'm paying forward for Jade having given me all this tea. And I owe her a little something something too. 

This could get to be an expensive habit, but I am really enjoying setting aside some tea time each day and just concentrating on drinking the tea. (And I've bookmarked some tea places here in the Bay Area to check out. If open for retail sales, that means not having to spend on shipping. There are a couple in Berkeley and Oakland, not to mention San Francisco.)

https://teaphile.com/ (Oakland)

https://www.imperialtea.com/ (Berkeley)

https://redblossomtea.com/ (San Francisco)

https://www.farleaves.com/ (Berkeley)