If the box was green/yellow/white it is the typical cooked tuocha from
the Xiaguan factory. The other typical box from Xiaguan is mostly
green with the uncooked version. Some people claim you can find
uncooked in the green/yellow/white but not in my experience. The
cooked version sounds like your description. The price is right.
There is compressed black tea and compressed puerh. If it is a disc my
guess it is compressed puerh. I've only seen compressed black in
rectangle shape. Typical English lettering on the wrapper is "Yunnan
Chi Tse Beeng Cha". Nine bucks is high unless in a decorative box.
The ones on my local shelves with just the wrapper are $4.

Jim

stePH wrote:
> Question for those more knowledgeable than I (that is to say, just
> about everybody on this group) ...
>
> I noticed an asian market near my new house in SE Portland, so I
> dropped in to see if I could find any actual raw puerh. What I found
> was at the end of the tea aisle, a small cylindrical cardboard box
> about 4" across and 2" high, containing a tuocha of dark, earthy
> smelling tea similar to the loose "puerh" that I've gotten at Teavana.
> The box only says "YUNNAN TUOCHA" and four Chinese characters (I don't
> read Chinese and can barely interpret Japanese with the help of a Kanji
> reference) along with "China National Native Produce & Animal
> By-Products Import & Export Corporation Yunnan Tea Branch". I've just
> brewed a pot and it's indistinguishable from the stuff I get at
> Teavana. The tuocha feels like it weighs a couple of ounces, and set
> me back less than two bucks.
>
> My question is: does anybody know just what it is I've got here?
>
> (They also had a disk of similar-looking stuff, about a half-inch thick
> and ten inches across, for nine bucks. It was labeled "Black Tea". I
> tried asking the clerk if they were puerh but apparently English is a
> distant second language to her.)
>
>
> stePH
> --
> GoogleGroups licks balls.