"Mike Petro" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 02:34:39 GMT, Mydnight cast

Our friend Sasha knows Puer fairly well. I suspect these bricks are
something else. I have seen powdered red tea compressed into elaborate
bricks, scored on the back as folklore has it that it used to be used
for money.

Mike -

The black brick may be what you call "powdered tea" although it is not
powder (1-2mm size particles)
The green one (and they use Qing (green) but not Liu (green) on the wrapper)
is something else altogether. Some sources say that Qing is ised for pressed
oolong. It is a fairly large leaf tea with a substantial quantity of stems.
The pressure they used must have been gargantuan, because this tea cuts as a
soft rock and leave a smooth cut by examining which one cannot see any
traces that would suggest that this was not a monolithic mass.The color is
brownish-green with the whitish-yellow round cuts of stems all over. If I
was gicen the photo of this as a geologist I would think this is some kind
of a volcanic rock.

Because of this evidence of extremely high pressure I suggest that the
juices from tealeaf must have been sqweezed at least somewhat and be exposed
to some anaerobic influence, but definitely not puerh style fermentation
because of the density of the material.

Sasha.