Cold-steeped pu-erh
I just tried steeping about 17g of my 2011 EoT Manhai in 1.8L of RO water mixed 8:1 with tap water, and let it sit in the fridge overnight, until it seemed like the leaves had nothing left to give. I then did roughly the same thing in a smaller batch with some unmarked spring 2015 Yi Wu, and I have two points to make. First, both were very tasty and refreshing, especially in the summer with no A/C. Additionally, I think the newer the material, the better. The Yi Wu had a balance of bitterness and floral character that was perfect as cold tea. I found it interesting that I hadn’t really seen pu-erh as a viable option for iced tea on the internet when it seemed to be as good as many iced greens, almost as good as some oolongs, and better than most blacks.
I should try this sometime, but I think with a ripe puerh first. I have made puerh iced tea but I have always previously made it hot then iced it down in the fridge overnight. I would probably try a little more leaf an that big a pitcher. I used to make it in a 64oz iced tea pitcher to fill a thermos for work. I used 25g of tea for 64oz. I would save the tea for later and resteep it two or three times for a lot of iced tea. However this was before I developed insomnia. Now I tend to make caffeine free iced tea to drink because iced puerh will keep me up at night. Cold steeping is a good idea though.
I considered brewing it hot and then cooling it down, but brewing it cold just took the guesswork out of what temp water to use, which is really a tough call for raw pu-erh, especially the fresh ones.
I used this method with some loose ripe of lesser quality once. The pile flavor was overwhelming and I had to throw it out.
I’ve been tried both rose ripe pu-erh and normal ripe pu-erh in this way, and the rose one tasted better.
I enjoyed iced pu-erh tea with tap water, and let it sit in the fridge overnight.
Actually, that sounds pretty tasty. Definitely something I’d like to try; I’m side-eyeing some of my shous now. Come to think of it, I wonder how well a puerh would go over done in the style of shinobi-cha. Mixing cultures.
I just put a jar of shou pu-erh in the fridge to steep overnight to see how it compares with the Yi Wu sheng. The shou is from a tippy 2011 cake that’s mostly lost its pile character. Should be interesting.
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