I know that I’ve written about this Shu before. It has been one great friend in my Puer collection.
Today, I was able to share this tea with my granddaughter Megan who has been staying with me for a few days.
This was a symphony of love between a grandmother that she refers to as a ‘young soul’ and herself the ‘old soul’.
We are cool and can talk about music, books, ethics and boys. I show her how to put on make-up and she shares her secret thoughts with me. Is there anything better?!
I was the tea conductor today. I told Megan how to prepare this Shu. First, she looked up the Peacock Village Puer on the Verdant website for brewing instructions, then in my Gaiwan rinsed the leaves and steeped.
Our experience together:
The scent…like bread baking and sweet in the wet dark mulch.
The liquor golden and also was light like bread still waiting to emerge.
Again a second steep..darker and more brothy and thick. The taste was dry cedar with a linen feel across the top of the tongue. Salty. Smooth.
The third steep leaves were almost black and smelled of fine wet leather. We poked the leaves and noticed how much life was left to extract. Megan was surprised. I took one leaf and opened it up so that it was very large. We talked a minute about how Puer is prepared. The immense amount of work it takes to become the Puer that we were now drinking so casually.
There wasn’t any breadiness left in this darkest liquor. None.
There was cedar and clove. Juice, salt with juniper berry faintly in the background.
I pointed out an interesting thing you can do with a salty Puer. Add a little sugar which will enhance the flavor. (This is something a cook knows)
When we did this addition of sugar…Megan was wow’d!
She had a different wonderful taste experience that she can discribe in her review (don’t want to spoil it).
I tasted caramelized peach.
Yes! Puer is amazing.
It would be a great and awesome thing if younger people drank tea and learned to discribe flavor and experience. We are so out of touch with being present in the moment and in connecting with people without devices in the way.
Today Megan and I did not text each other. We drank tea! We had the best time. Some day, I hope she blogs about tea with me as a good memory in the same way I am writing about my time with her.
