Why we drink aged tea

Aged puers to try + the pleasures of drinking something with life experience.

Greetings, new subscribers! The tea I was planning to feature this week has sold out between drafting this post and scheduling it for publication, which feels on brand for a discussion of the tricky nature of buying aged tea. I’ll keep an eye out for more sources of the 2003 raw puer from the Mengku Rongshi tea factory, pictured above. It’s a nice affordable aged puer, if you can find it.

In its absence, I’ve made a list of other recommended aged puer teas to try, especially if you’re new to this style of tea and want some taste references to get you started.

2011 Sheng Cupcake Puer from In Pursuit of Tea: Okay, this is one of the companies I work for, but I give these mini cakes to new puer drinkers all the time. Inexpensive and individually portioned at ~6 grams each, they’re a great introduction to the flavors of a middle aged raw puer. You’ll find notes of leather and old books along with a twangy, ripe fruit quality that emerges in later steeps. This tea comes with little identifying information—no wrapper or brand name—so the exact source is something of a mystery. Sometimes you get lucky and find a tasty, anonymous puer hanging around in the back of a warehouse, offered at a gentle price for its lack of pedigree. Keep your steeps short with this one to limit the bitterness and astringency.

2006 Old Bear Fangcha from White2tea: Another no-name warehouse find to stockpile for casual drinking, and a fine example of the smoky, savory flavors that often occur in old school puer teas, before the category became more prestigious and boutique. Think peated Scotch, leather, and mineral brine with a toffee sweetness. While they may seem abrupt at first, these elements integrate nicely together, and they yield a well structured brew with a lot to offer.

2010 Dayi 7542 from Teas We Like: Dayi, formerly the Menghai Tea Factory, is the biggest brand name in the puer business, and the 7542 blend is their Johnnie Walker Black. If you’re digging into raw puer, it’s a valuable reference point for tasting, but you should know there’s lots of variability between production years, batch numbers, and aging environments, as well as heaps of fakes and “7542-style” blends from other producers. The reputable version offered by this Taiwan based seller has been aging for more than a decade to soften its rough edges, and it offers an invigorating brew.

1990s Loose Leaf Raw Puer from Essence of Tea: A jump in price here, but with an option to buy a small amount if you don’t want to commit to a 300 gram bag. While it lacks the complexity of higher end teas from this era, the easygoing nature and relaxing feeling of this tea makes it a winner for me. Longer aging has contributed a steady mellow quality and mushroomy sweetness. A nice and legitimately aged tea for a rainy day.

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What we drink when we drink aged puer

It’s a chaotic Friday afternoon and nothing is going my way. The DNS records I’m updating on a website won’t validate. A company’s warehouse hit a production snag and I have to scrub half of the weekend’s newsletter copy. My back hurts. I’m out of apples. To hell with it, I’m going to make some tea.