15 September 2008

An experiment went terribly wrong

Today I threw 7 kilo of great pu-erh into trash bin. I inspected it, but there was no way to save the tea. The mould – various moulds, actually, green, white, yellow – covered entire beengs I kept in envelopes. The beengs in tong wrappers were not covered by mould but still they hade it on them, and not only at surface.

So I decided to do the hard but good decision to threw it all out.

Experiment

But not all of it. The 2000 Yi Wu Zheng Shan beengs I got from Scott were not moulded. They were in the same room, next to the beengs that are rotten, and these are nearly intact.

Experiment


Still, now I will bring them down to my basement and I will let it sit there. My fungus paranoia will not allow drinking it right now. Maybe it will "repair" in next years or even decades.

Some good and even some great tea died this summer during my experiment. I learned it in the hard way, yet still I learned something.

1. If you try to age tea, always have control over the process! I let it rest for all itself and this is why it ended so wrong.
2. It may be easier and cheaper to buy aged tea, even if it si so scarce today.
3. If you experiment with tea, be prepared for bad ending.

8 comments:

~ Phyll said...

Oh no! :(

I hope 7kg is only a small fraction of your collection.

Tuo Cha Tea said...

I still have a lifetime of pu-erh, but it's a big loss.

Salsero said...

So sorry to hear of your loss. I hope at least that the lesson will benefit others by teaching us to be more careful ... like me for one!

tsultrim topden said...

can you tell something close to that,.

Soïwatter said...

Sorry to hear this bad news. Hopefully your 2000 Yiwu stack is intact.

I won't try to age Pu ehr on my own, particulary after the troubles you came up against, even if the idea raised into my mind many time during the past few month for a perfect young Ba da beeng. Temperature and moist variations in Europe may be too big for good aging. I think your problems give a good lesson to many of us.

ScubaTea said...

So sorrrrrrry for your loss. I would have a heart attack!

Cataford said...

Hey guy's, I understand that this experiment went wrong, but I don't think it's a reason to give up. As we are all tea fans, and have some experience (good and bad) in tea aging, I'm pretty sure eventually, we will find a solution to age tea in North America or in Europe. I'm a mining engineer in Canada, and have started the design of an automated storage cabinet for tea. I'l keep you guy's posted for future developments (if it works of if it fails). Thanks to everyone who has the courage to post experiments that went wrong!

Anonymous said...

and what happens with pu-erh in too dry climate?
how is it possible to save the tea? may be not to age, but just save?