Hi Alex,

Yours is probably a small factory production, new but heavily stored in a
high and humid enclosed environment. The dirt smell in the centre and the
edge of the tea seems to point to this. When the leaves are brewed, do they
look anything close to leaves? Or do they just looked 'charred'? If you
take up a piece and rub between your fingers, do they crumple easily? If
they do and looked charred, then it confirms the wet storage speculation.

The lack of the sticker is mostly an indication of small factory production,
some might say that it is produced in the Guangzhou region, but I don't
think that's where you bought the tea, right?

Your tea is a cooked pu'er, not one that's cooked naturally through post
fermentation and oxidation, but one that is kept in wet storage and aged
rapidly. Point is, there is nothing wrong with this, unless it isn't what
you have asked for in the first place.

The floral note from a pu'er will come from it being produced as a raw cake
and then aged nicely over a long period of time.

To remove the 'dirt' smell on the cake, leave the cake with the wrapper on
on a shelf away from the sunlight and in an airy, clean area. Then remember
it again 6 months later. It might improve then...

Danny

"Alex Krupp" > wrote in message
news:2005081712205916807%alexkrupp@gmailcom...
>> Let's put the question on age aside first.
>>
>> Look at the wrapper, is there a 'Cha' logo? What is the colour of the
>> logo?
>
> I am assuming that by Cha logo you mean the chinese character for tea. I
> used babelfish to get this, and yes it is in the center of the cake. It is
> green.
>>
>> Look at the tea itself. Does it look light green? Dark green? Brown?
>> Dark brown? Black?
>
> Dark brown.
>>
>> If there's a sticker stuck on the cake, take a look at it. Is there a
>> small line of wormy characters on the lower right of the sticker?
>
> No sticker, but there is a piece of paper insider the wrapper
>>
>> How many characters are there on the sticker?
>>
>> Is there a logo on the sticker? What does it look like?
>>
>> Smell the center of the cake, where the 'crater' is. What does the smell
>> reminds you of?
>
> Dirt
>>
>> Now smell the edge of the cake. What does the smell reminds you of?
>
> The same but a bit lighter
>
>> When you said you sampled the tea today, how did you break the cake? Did
>> you broke off the edge, or from the centre?
>
> He used a pocket knife to pry off a piece from the edge
>>
>> Does it break easily or so you have to hack it?
>
> I used the knife, so I'll test next time. Using the knife produced a lot
> of dust particles though.
>
>>
>> What does the brewed leaves look like?
>
> Dark brown with a bit of sediment at the bottom of the cup (after being
> decanted). However it is even in color and doesn't stratify towards the
> bottom.
>
> Alex
>