I hear yak horn reacts badly with all sorts of tea. Experts recommend
chunks of fossilized mammoth tusk.



"samarkand" > wrote in message
...
> Hi Melinda,
>
> I'm not sure how others feel about using an oyster knife on pu'er, but I
> personally refrain from using steel or metal object to break open my
pu'er.
> I use a yak's horn to crack open the pu'er into larger pieces, and a
> japanese chopstick (wooden, unlacquered) to wriggle loose the leaves.
>
> "Melinda" > wrote in message
> om...
> > OK, I bought a tuo cha (mini) from Upton awhile back and that was
> > fairly smooth, and right now what I have in the kitchen is a tuo cha
> > from my local Asian market that is...well, lemme just say that I'm
> > really not GETTING this whole Puer love thing. Could someone
> > (::cough:: Mike and Michael::cough: (or more than one someone) who
> > is knowledgeable recommend specifically to me a type (name, where to
> > get, specifics) that will be the best "introduction" to the world of
> > puer for me..I want to try again but I want to know that what I'm
> > drinking is representative of puer as a whole before I just bag it and
> > decide puer isn't for me. Something that's financially reasonable
> > would be nice (like under $10 or so? Under $15?) I really want to give
> > this a fair shake since I hear others' enjoyment of it. I'm not
> > positive what kind of puer I have from the Asia market...it was
> > inexpensive of course, and in a green and white box.
> >
> > Oh BTW, I found that an oyster knife seems to work well to break
> > chunks off...I seem to remember reading that someone was looking for a
> > way to do that.
> >
> > Thanks very much for helping out the puer newbie.
> >
> > Melinda
>
>