What's the story behind "Nor Sun Pu-erh Tea"?
There was a photo of a tin of this tea in Kit Chow and Ione Kramer's 1990 book, "All the Tea in China", but the tins don't seem to have normal tea-branch type branding. Were these produced outside of China? Also, who was the audience? Pu'er tea was still illegal in the U.S. during this time, so where was it destined for?
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MarshalN's speculation:
My guess is these could be broken cakes, or at least some are broken cakes, that were thoroughly mixed in and blended together for export. The tea comes from a Hong Kong company with a Hong Kong address in the section where a lot of these old wholesalers are, so I am guessing this is just one of those traditional upstairs tea merchants who are packaging this.
it wouldn't match with the general interest in Indian style black teas, but maybe it was for UK export since they still would have colonial control of Hong Kong then? I don't know if there was much interest or drinking of Chinese style tea going on in Canada or NZ or Aus around then... anyone?
traditionally stored ripe/raw blend... doesn't sound too bad for a cheap tin tea, I'd def give it a try if I saw it in a shop somewhere.
traditionally stored ripe/raw blend... doesn't sound too bad for a cheap tin tea, I'd def give it a try if I saw it in a shop somewhere.
There is an interview with Robert Dick, the last U.S. government tea-examiner: http://wayback.archive-it.org/7993/2017 ... 263957.pdf
In it, he talks about mustiness in tea and "the Pu Ehr teas".
For info from the other end, Roy Fong briefly talks about his time as a pu'er tea smuggler during the 1980s in his tea book.
Fascinating! You brought sources, thank you!mbanu wrote: ↑Wed Jan 27, 2021 3:42 pmThere is an interview with Robert Dick, the last U.S. government tea-examiner: http://wayback.archive-it.org/7993/2017 ... 263957.pdf
In it, he talks about mustiness in tea and "the Pu Ehr teas".
For info from the other end, Roy Fong briefly talks about his time as a pu'er tea smuggler during the 1980s in his tea book.
The story seemed so apocryphal - there were two names mentioned, and only one of them was the one who kept vetoing puer. It had all the right feel and elements (odd specificity, remarkable facts, etc) to be an urban legend, but I now see the transcripts
I interviewed David Lee Hoffman a few years back about the early days of his business. Here's what he told me:chadao wrote: ↑Wed Jan 27, 2021 5:31 pmFascinating! You brought sources, thank you!mbanu wrote: ↑Wed Jan 27, 2021 3:42 pmThere is an interview with Robert Dick, the last U.S. government tea-examiner: http://wayback.archive-it.org/7993/2017 ... 263957.pdf
In it, he talks about mustiness in tea and "the Pu Ehr teas".
For info from the other end, Roy Fong briefly talks about his time as a pu'er tea smuggler during the 1980s in his tea book.
The story seemed so apocryphal - there were two names mentioned, and only one of them was the one who kept vetoing puer. It had all the right feel and elements (odd specificity, remarkable facts, etc) to be an urban legend, but I now see the transcripts
"There were two tea inspectors for the entire country. Robert Dick and Joseph Spillane. Robert Dick was the senior inspector and he did not like puers. I would send him my puers to be inspected. Nope! It’s old, musty, can’t let it in the country. Of course, the Chinese have been bringing it in for years. You go to any Chinatown and you see puer. But they didn’t call them puers when they brought them in. [Importing/inspection] was based on the honor system. If you had tea you were supposed to send them samples of your shipments and they would inspect it,. But because they didn’t allow the puers in back then, the Chinese tea importers were calling them black tea. The categories that they had back then: black tea, lapsong souchong, I don’t even think oolongs, no white teas, puers weren’t allowed, so when you filled out the tea importation, you had to make all your teas fit into the given categories."
Whether it was someone else before or not I don't know, but at least currently the name I guess, or at least the US tins and distribution are from VeriLeaf Teas/Eastrise Trading Co. Mainly they sell under the "Foojoy" brand. I haven't found anyone selling this in Europe so I think its specifically sold to them for an American/expat market.