Square Deal: Puerh Tea
Square Deal: Puerh Tea visit a particular ’07 Square, by GPE. If you get a chance to try or buy it you should. GPE came on the scene in the late ’90s. In the first year, their ripe puerh square (fangcha) won a best in show award. That ’99? production is highly valued. As late as 2018 productions could still be found fairly easily but after then not so much.
That tight embossed kinda brick
The GPE square was probably the second most popular ripe square on the market next to Zhongcha’s. ZC’s square is hand’s down the most popular square with a number of fakes out there. Here’s a closeup of the iconic tea character associated with ZC displayed on GPE’s square:
The GPE icon is the “cha” character surrounded by 12 (haven’t counted) “gu” characters. “Gu” means old or ancient. The most popular gu in puerh circles is “gu-shu” (old-tree).
The GPE Square didn’t have camphor, humidity, fruit or anything to make it stick out beyond a richness reflecting the generally sturdy material from which they derive their products.
You can see the liquor has some clarity but it also looks darker than most Puerh Junky offerings. Anyway, there’s no need to carry on about this square since it’s no where to be found. In fact, no occurrence of any other GPE ripes even come to mind.
