I recently decided to try some pu-erh since everyone on the group was
raving about it. I went down to a cute little local tea shop and
bought Republic of Tea pu-erh.

When I opened the can, it smellef faintly of a horse stable and had a
very dark red-brown color. When I say horse stable, I mean the mixture
of hay, horse sweat, and maure. I brewed up a pot and the horse stable
smell was very strong. The flavor of the tea was good.

Is this what pu-erh is supposed to smell like?

wrote:
I recently decided to try some pu-erh since everyone on the group was
raving about it. I went down to a cute little local tea shop and
bought Republic of Tea pu-erh.

When I opened the can, it smellef faintly of a horse stable and had a
very dark red-brown color. When I say horse stable, I mean the mixture
of hay, horse sweat, and maure. I brewed up a pot and the horse stable
smell was very strong. The flavor of the tea was good.

Is this what pu-erh is supposed to smell like?

Hehe, yes, there are varying degrees of "earthy" smells from different
puerhs depending on age and style, and "horse stable" would be one of
them. I often associated cooked or black puerh with that of my compost
pile out back on the day after a rain.

Mike

http://www.pu-erh.net

" writes:

I recently decided to try some pu-erh since everyone on the group was
raving about it. I went down to a cute little local tea shop and
bought Republic of Tea pu-erh.

When I opened the can, it smellef faintly of a horse stable and had a
very dark red-brown color. When I say horse stable, I mean the mixture
of hay, horse sweat, and maure. I brewed up a pot and the horse stable
smell was very strong. The flavor of the tea was good.

Is this what pu-erh is supposed to smell like?

There's a wide range of aroma and taste profiles in Pu'er, but yes,
that sounds like one of them.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

It can taste that way like the Xiaguan CNNP you find in Chinatown.
There are others of 'higher' grade that don't taste that way but you
can't completely escape the earthiness. I call the taste you described
as 'rancid' and it grows on you. You can change the taste by adding a
piece of dark chocolate and telling your friends it is an expensive
coffee from Columbia by mule. Yours is a class called sheng or ripe.
Off the bat you might like the class called shu or unripe better if you
are familiar with bitter green teas.

Jim

wrote:
I recently decided to try some pu-erh since everyone on the group was
raving about it. I went down to a cute little local tea shop and
bought Republic of Tea pu-erh.

When I opened the can, it smellef faintly of a horse stable and had a
very dark red-brown color. When I say horse stable, I mean the mixture
of hay, horse sweat, and maure. I brewed up a pot and the horse stable
smell was very strong. The flavor of the tea was good.

Is this what pu-erh is supposed to smell like?

Oops. Switch the terms sheng and shu. I've botched two posts this
morning. Not bad.

Jim

Space Cowboy wrote:
Yours is a class called sheng or ripe.
Off the bat you might like the class called shu or unripe better if you
are familiar with bitter green teas.

Jim

wrote:
I recently decided to try some pu-erh since everyone on the group was
raving about it.

[Jim]
It can taste that way like the Xiaguan CNNP you find in Chinatown.
There are others of 'higher' grade that don't taste that way but you
can't completely escape the earthiness. I call the taste you described
as 'rancid' and it grows on you. You can change the taste by adding a
piece of dark chocolate and telling your friends it is an expensive
coffee from Columbia by mule. Yours is a class called sheng or ripe.
Off the bat you might like the class called shu or unripe better if you
are familiar with bitter green teas.

[Michael]
Just in the interests of exacticity, you have it
backwards: Shu is ripe/cooked, while sheng is
unripe/raw/green/uncooked. Any of these terms
will suffice. Jim, you're typing too fast again.
On the main point of course you're 100% right:
That taste does grow on you.

Space 10/27/06


Oops. Switch the terms sheng and shu. I've botched two posts this
morning. Not bad.

Sorry for totally unnecessary previous interference.
Michael

It wasn't easy digging out the Jing post, then 2003 sounded right, then
you couldn't find it, then 1995 as I remembered but thought that
another post but couldn't find it, shu and sheng I more or less have to
look up if it's been awhile, ripe-unripe-green-black-cooked-uncooked I
don't.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:
Space 10/27/06


Oops. Switch the terms sheng and shu. I've botched two posts this
morning. Not bad.

Sorry for totally unnecessary previous interference.
Michael

Space 10/27/06


It wasn't easy digging out the Jing post, then 2003 sounded right, then
you couldn't find it, then 1995 as I remembered but thought that
another post but couldn't find it, shu and sheng I more or less have to
look up if it's been awhile, ripe-unripe-green-black-cooked-uncooked I
don't.

Jim

Jim, if the terrible truth be known, this will all mean about as much in a
hundred years as it did a hundred years ago.
Michael

I know but Google never forgets and my back hurts from shoveling
yesterday trying to stay ahead of a blizzard so I could get out in the
afternoon whose intensity the NWS never saw coming. Like shu or sheng
I can never remember to park the urban 4WD at the top of the hill.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:
Space 10/27/06

....I delete me...
Jim, if the terrible truth be known, this will all mean about as much in a
hundred years as it did a hundred years ago.
Michael

wrote:
I recently decided to try some pu-erh since everyone on the group was
raving about it. I went down to a cute little local tea shop and
bought Republic of Tea pu-erh.

When I opened the can, it smellef faintly of a horse stable and had a
very dark red-brown color. When I say horse stable, I mean the mixture
of hay, horse sweat, and maure. I brewed up a pot and the horse stable
smell was very strong. The flavor of the tea was good.

Is this what pu-erh is supposed to smell like?

Like hay/stable/horse/horse sweat/manure

Green/uncooked is different, my mother describes it as more of a
cigarette/cigar ash smell. I don't get that and find it much more easy
on the palate.

Puerh varies wildly and then the aging changes it again so the range of
flavors and aromas is almost infinite. I have had very good cooked
puerh and I have had pretty nasty stuff too. The best thing is to hit
up some samples from a place like Jing Teashop and give a few a try. I
wouldn't let anything made by Republic of tea stand as an example of
any type of tea, especially puerh in a can. Puerh needs to breathe.

Its an assault on the senses for sure, and as many of my previous posts
I often ask myself why anyone loves this stuff when lovely normal teas
exist in abundance. But I am kind of drawn to it for some unexplainable
reason too... so I can't talk.

- Dominic
Drinking: Mountain Dew (and then some Assam in a bit)

I got it. It smells like an old 'shu'. Now if I can remember to undo
spring back, fall forward.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:
Space 10/27/06


Oops. Switch the terms sheng and shu. I've botched two posts this
morning. Not bad.

Sorry for totally unnecessary previous interference.
Michael

On Oct 27, 1:52 pm, "Dominic T." wrote:
Green/uncooked is different, my mother describes it as more of a
cigarette/cigar ash smell. I don't get that and find it much more easy
on the palate.

I might be wrong here, but I consider the cigarette ash taste a
negative. I've noticed it in cheaper Xiaguan tuos.

Alex wrote:
I might be wrong here, but I consider the cigarette ash taste a
negative. I've noticed it in cheaper Xiaguan tuos.

Oh, I consider it negative too, but I just don't taste it even in a
cheap Xiaguan tuo. I normally have a pretty accurate palate too so I'm
not sure why I'm missing it but I don't ever get that note. She tends
to detect it in many green puerhs, and she isn't a tea buff so I tend
to believe her when she brings up tasting certain flavors or aromas.
Her exact quote was it smells like a Dinobli cigar ash. (Dinobli's are
strange little Italian Cigars my great-grandfater smoked)

- Dominic
Drinking: slumming it with a lipton teabag and white sugar.

"Alex" writes:

On Oct 27, 1:52 pm, "Dominic T." wrote:
Green/uncooked is different, my mother describes it as more of a
cigarette/cigar ash smell. I don't get that and find it much more easy
on the palate.

I might be wrong here, but I consider the cigarette ash taste a
negative. I've noticed it in cheaper Xiaguan tuos.

Yeah, I think a little of that ashy taste goes a long way, like
sarcasm. But there are those who believe that ash in a young raw
Pu'er is a marker for a vigorous old age.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html
apposite entry: ku wei