Lessons in Puerh Production

A friend gave one this sample. It is a 2001 puerh from Winan Mountain,Yunnan.

Its large full leaves are redder then most for its age. Its smell is so faint, ambiguously earthy.
My friend had made this tea. He said that there was a major problem in the production. The forty days that the tea was to undergo drying was abnormally wet. Apparently, it had rained for forty days straight. The inability of the tea to dry caused the qi of the tea to escape.

As a result this tea carries a sweet woody watery taste and lacks balance and depth. It sometimes displays a soury watery damp forest taste, like tasting firewood that has been left out in the rain, giving off a very light pungency that is likened to the taste of a baked puerh, but not quite. This tea really has almost no edge to its mouthfeel nor any pronounced depth of flavour.

One drank this tea for three days and was content in its earthy simplicity. Perhaps this simplicity is its greatest strength, a strength that only a Zen monk on a long retreat, their mind deep in nothingness could full appreciate.

Peace