Boiling Ripe Puerh

So, for the past two weeks your trusty Puerh Junky has taken to Boiling Ripe Puerh.  This has become a bit of a morning ritual from the leftovers drunk the previous day.  Most often these have been samples or recently acquired offerings.  There was at least one item from the archives as well.

It started with one such recent Dec ’20 acquisition.  It’s an Yiwu purported to be from ’03 and pressed in ’18.  There’s certainly no wodui to it and seems to be old enough but perhaps because it’s in a plastic-wrapped cardboard gift box it’s been robbed of a bit of umph.  Right now it is very light, and am not sure that it meets any brewing standard, so I decided to give it a boil while I wait for it to come around if ever.  That’s how the Boiling Ripe Puerh routine started.

Over the course of these two weeks, perhaps six or seven productions have been boiled.  The taste of boiled ripes is not the same as brewed.  Without exception, the boiled potions possess a certain cereal quality, some like Wheaties and others like Malt O Meal.

Interestingly, the overly light-brewed ripes take to brewing quite nicely.  In other words, they’re better boiled than brewed.  More richness comes through while never becoming overpowering.  Speaking of overpowering, my wife rarely says a production is too much, but such was the case with a ’04 Dayi tuo, which is very similar to old tea nuggets.  That was a remarkable treasure, with tastes of incense and brine.    Diluted it was dandy and water could be added two more times.

Zhongcha from the Archives

Another unique and especially pleasant experience came from the archives with a “Zhongcha” I picked up back in late ’13 or thereabouts.  This is labeled as a High Mt Wild, the very last of which was sold in Jan.  It has a weird cheesy rubber band taste to it, which I was hoping to no avail would dissipate to an undetectable level.  In any event the Puerh Junky’s wife simply loved it, first brewed and then even more boiled.  She went on and on about how smooth and tasty it was.  I chunked down on a cheesy ripe a couple months ago from Liming, which should become avail in Oct or Nov.

Time to rap up, but not without mentioning the pot.  I’m not much for the teaware fetish when that money could go toward perfectly good puerh.  The thing about the teapot pictured above is that you can place it directly upon a flame, so it’s super convenient.  No doubt these can be found on your regular shopping sites and at a reasonable price.  They’re super handy and well worth having for purposes such as boiling tea.

Boiling Ripe Puerh offers a nice change of pace to the standard gong-fu brewing method.  The cereal notes come through much more strongly with boiling than brewing.  It goes without mention that this allows you to get the very most from your ripe treasures.  Boiling seems to be especially appropriate for light ripes that don’t perform well when infused in the typical fashion.