Puer Tea Cake (Raw)
Puer Tea Cake (Raw) Attributes
Leaf Shape
Round shape, tight and smooth
Liquor Color
Green or dark green
Fragrance
Pure fragrance
Taste
Bitter with sweetness
Brewed Tea Leaves
Yellowish green or dark green, more flexible
Table of Contents
Learn More about Puer Tea Cake (Raw)
Puer Tea Cake (Raw) Introduction
Cake tea is a round cake-shaped steamed tea. Because it is smaller than round tea, it is also called “small cake tea”. Raw Pu’er tea is also called green cake. “Raw tea” is naturally fermented after picking, and the tea is more stimulating. After many years, the tea will become milder. High-quality old Pu’er is usually made in this way. Generally speaking, it is better to choose raw tea for collection and cooked tea for drinking.
Puer Tea Cake (Raw) Origin
Xiaguan, Dali City, Yunnan Province, Shuangjiang County, Lincang City, Pu’er City, etc.
Puer Tea Cake (Raw) Production Process
The raw material is high- and medium-grade sun-dried green tea of Yunnan large-leaf variety. Raw tea is made from fresh leaves after being picked, withered, rolled, and dried, which is raw loose tea, or sun-dried green tea. The sun-dried green tea is steamed at high temperature, put into a fixed mold to shape, and becomes a compressed tea after drying. A piece of Pu’er tea cake generally goes through 7 processes from weighing, steaming, twisting, pressing, holding, picking, and packing from the beginning to the end.
Puer Tea Cake (Raw) Purchase Guide
The specifications of the cake tea are 11.6 cm in diameter, 1.3 cm thick at the edge, and 1.6 cm thick at the center. Each piece weighs 125 grams, 4 pieces are packed in a tube, 75 tubes are one piece, and the total weight is 37.5 kg. It is packed in a bamboo basket lined with bamboo shoots of 63 cm × 30 cm × 60 cm. The quality of Pu’er cake tea is bitter but sweet, and astringent but refreshing. If it is only bitter and astringent, then the quality of this tea is definitely not good or it is not Pu’er tea at all. The main brands are “Colorful Yunnan”, “Dayi”, “Longrun”, “Longsheng”, etc.
Puer Tea Cake (Raw) Quality Identification
The following aspects are mainly used to distinguish the raw and cooked Pu’er tea. ◎Appearance: The raw cake is mainly green and dark green in color, and some of them turn yellow-red. The white ones are buds. The cooked cake is black or reddish brown in color, and some buds are dark golden yellow, with a strong smell of fermentation, similar to mold. The lightly fermented ones have a taste similar to longan, and the heavily fermented ones have a damp straw mat taste. ◎Taste: The raw cake has a strong taste, full of tea flavor, and the tea soup is fragrant, bitter and astringent. The cooked cake is thick and sweet, almost not bitter (except for half-cooked), with a taste of fermentation and a slight watery taste. ◎Soup color: The raw cake is green-yellow or golden yellow, relatively translucent. The cooked cake is chestnut red or dark red, slightly translucent. ◎Leaf bottom: The raw cake leaf bottom is mainly yellow-green and dark green, highly active, relatively flexible and elastic. Generally, the good tea is without variegated colors, with stripes and shapes, and still maintains a whole leaf shape when unfolded. The leaves of lightly fermented cakes are reddish brown but not flexible, while those heavily fermented are dark brown or black, hard and brittle.
Puer Tea Cake (Raw) Brewing Method
Pu’er tea is usually drunk after the second brewing. The first brewing can wash away the bitterness and accumulated impurities. In addition, the water quality used for brewing tea is very important. It should be brewed with mineral water or mountain spring water. Controlling the temperature is also the key. Ripe Pu’er is brewed with boiling water, while raw Pu’er can be brewed at a lower temperature than that of ripe tea. It depends on personal preference.
Related Products of Puer Tea Cake (Raw)
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Pu’er Xiaotuo tea originated in Jinggu County, also known as “Girl Tea”. It is shaped like a mooncake and was trial-made into a bowl-shaped mortar in 1902. Pu’er Xiaotuo tea is slightly smaller, like a compressed bird’s nest. When brewed in a glass, its color is as mellow as red wine.
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Kang Brick Tea
Kangzhuan Tea is a famous historical tea, created during the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty. It is a brick-shaped tea made by steaming and pressing. Kangzhuan Tea is mainly produced in Ya’an, which was the capital of Xikang Province during the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, the word “Kang” in Xikang was taken from the name, and the shape of the tea leaves resembles a brick, so it is named Kangzhuan Tea.
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Like Kangzhuan Tea, Jinjian Tea is also a brick-shaped tea made by steaming and pressing, but its quality is slightly inferior to Kangzhuan Tea. Jinjian Tea is mainly sold to Tibet, Sichuan, Qinghai and other places. It is durable in storage and becomes more fragrant as it ages. It is a must-have drink that Tibetan herdsmen love very much.
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