pu-erh ramble

OK my tea experience has thus far been limited to the local grocer, what I can find in a world food mart in a nearby town, and what I have ordered off Amazon. A while back at the food mart I picked up a box each of oolong and puerh from Yamamotoyama. The reason – they were cheap and the packaging was so generic it amused me. I am a sucker for white label black letters, but I digress. I have tried a number of boxed oolongs and this one I thought was especially tasty. I have bought it multiple times now. I keep telling my friends that oolong tastes like the forest floor. They won’t try it. Their loss.

The Puerh, my first, I also enjoyed but haven’t seen it back on the shelf. I thought I would check online and see if it was still available. One of the first links caught my eye – it was a forum conversation where someone claimed much of Yamamotoyama tea is not Japanese but Brazilian. I didn’t know they grew tea in Brazil. Another Google search ensued.

I stumbled on the site Tea Genius. Nice site. Lot’s of information. I found the sections about the various growing areas especially interesting. One of the articles – and the reason for the ramble – was titled Pu-erh tastes like dirt! I bet his friends won’t try his offerings either. He’s right but it’s really good dirt.

I never did get back to searching to see if the pu-erh was still available. I did see The English Tea Store had a really inexpensive young pu-erh. Anyone tried it and their oolong?