puerh: to air or not to air?

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StoneLadle
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Mon Oct 19, 2020 1:49 am

@Stephen excellent! I'm not familiar with this cooked recipe but anything lightly fermented to me is a good thing! The storage conditions are relatively dry so i think time in ceramic/porcelain/metal should help awaken the tea a bit!
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Stephen
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Mon Oct 19, 2020 12:52 pm

@StoneLadle It's just Fuhai's version of the 7572. Yes agreed, I'm a fan of the lighter fermentation. That humidity is the best I can do for natural storage in my area of California. Actually it's autumn right now and pretty dry here. My tea gets a little dull this time of year. I imagine you have pretty good tea storage conditions in your area!
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StoneLadle
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Tue Oct 20, 2020 5:43 am

@StephenI have a cousin in the Bay Area... His solution is to use humidifying packs with his tea cakes stored in Mylar... He drinks mainly aged raw tea with some examples of lightly cooked stuff. Once he's broken stuff up it just sits in the conditioning porcelain/ceramic...

Over here it's fairly stable all year round, for example it was 100 this morning at 26C due to rain and currently it's around 90+ at 35C at 1845 in the evening with possible rain coming ..

But you've got good conditions for aging Oolong!
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cbrace
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Tue Oct 20, 2020 12:15 pm

I see now there is a Chinese term for this: xin cha.
I would recommend that you break up this cake into tea caddy and let the tea undergo a xin cha (awaken) period for about 2 weeks.

Source: http://adventureineverycup.com/product/2006-mengku/
I'm wondering why the vendor recommends xin cha for that specific ripe cake.
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StoneLadle
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Wed Oct 21, 2020 7:14 am

Should be done for all cakes really... Aged and cooked cakes I guess I'm saying...
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Nis
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Mon Nov 02, 2020 3:11 pm

wave_code wrote:
Thu Oct 15, 2020 5:24 am
I have some stuff in paper bags inside of tins and it seems to do pretty alright, but might be more susceptible to temp changes for better or worse than a thicker material.
I use fermentation/conservation crocks. In my experience, they do smooth out temperature changes, but it's nothing drastic. Mostly they're useful for regulating humidity and air-flow.
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cbrace
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Thu Nov 12, 2020 7:58 am

Please bear with me as I get the hang of this.

I have just now received the following hei cha brick in the mail, a Baishaxi Anhua Hunan Fu Cha. Does this need to be "aired"? I don't necessarily want to consume it all at once; would it be a good idea to break off a piece, say 30g, let it air out in a (closed?) jar for a few weeks? Any tips most welcome.
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karma
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Thu Nov 12, 2020 9:16 am

Something I'd like to point out is that @OCTO and @StoneLadle both live in Malaysia. In my experience, here in Texas, and in the experience of Marco up in Toronto, airing out is a bad idea compared to just resting it in storage conditions. The low humidity is such that, once you leave it out for 14-60 days or whatever, the cake will be bone dry and will need to spend about that much time humidifying up again, or can even kill a tea, where as just letting it sit in storage and humidify as it rests works equally well. I have a feeling this is one of those things that depends more on your climate to make it a good/bad idea.
Last edited by karma on Thu Nov 12, 2020 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Balthazar
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Thu Nov 12, 2020 9:19 am

@cbrace: Did it go through a long (both in terms of time and geographical distance) journey to reach you? If so, I'd let it rest a week or two (without breaking it up first).

I don't usually break up heicha bricks. Might start doing so for the bigger ones that I have stored away in mylar bags, now that they're getting more numerous and will take longer to consume.

This one is only 300 grams, so I wouldn't break it up unless it has a funky storage smell or is overly pine-smoke infused. Speaking of which, I sorta have a feeling this might be a bit funky. Do share your opinion in the Heicha thread once you've had a taste of it :)

Edit: Oh and I agree with @karma.
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cbrace
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Thu Nov 12, 2020 2:37 pm

karma wrote:
Thu Nov 12, 2020 9:16 am
Something I'd like to point out is that OCTO and StoneLadle both live in Malaysia. In my experience, here in Texas, and in the experience of Marco up in Toronto, airing out is a bad idea compared to just resting it in storage conditions. The low humidity is such that, once you leave it out for 14-60 days or whatever, the cake will be bone dry and will need to spend about that much time humidifying up again, or can even kill a tea, where as just letting it sit in storage and humidify as it rests works equally well. I have a feeling this is one of those things that depends more on your climate to make it a good/bad idea.
Good point. I live in a house directly facing a rather wide canal and it turns out -- not surprisingly -- that the air is quite humid. I never paid much attention to relative humidity, but when I started buying cakes I began measuring HR to adjust storage conditions. It turns out the HR in my house is usually between 60 and 65, so I guess I don't have to worry about puerh drying out. But I do have a storage box (pumidor) where I keep the HR around 70. I'll probably just keep the hei cha there.
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OCTO
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Thu Nov 12, 2020 8:28 pm

karma wrote:
Thu Nov 12, 2020 9:16 am
Something I'd like to point out is that OCTO and StoneLadle both live in Malaysia. In my experience, here in Texas, and in the experience of Marco up in Toronto, airing out is a bad idea compared to just resting it in storage conditions. The low humidity is such that, once you leave it out for 14-60 days or whatever, the cake will be bone dry and will need to spend about that much time humidifying up again, or can even kill a tea, where as just letting it sit in storage and humidify as it rests works equally well. I have a feeling this is one of those things that depends more on your climate to make it a good/bad idea.
@karma

Yes... we live in a hot and humid country. It's Summer all year round, depending on location, we get a constant RH of 50% to 60% in a non-airconditioned room. I guess a more accurate statement would be "to air them in a humid environment, room or enclosure". The whole idea of airing the PE is to allow it to absorb moisture and a sniff of fresh air to awaken the tea.

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This is the RH reading I get when it rains. I often take the opportunity to air the tea and give them a sniff of fresh air... hahaha....

Cheers!!
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Stephen
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Thu Nov 12, 2020 11:53 pm

@cbrace

Lots of insightful comments below. I'll just add that I only break up cakes/bricks/tuo that I am ready to drink. The rest stay whole and stored in my tea cabinet.
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StoneLadle
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Sat Nov 14, 2020 10:51 pm

@karma

Yes we live in humid conditions generally but I don't open up a tea and just leave it on the bench unless it's some extreme rescue job I'm attempting...

Teas are broken up and conditioned in porcelain or metal tins and if having those in the storage conditions are helpful then so be it... My relatives and friends in Europe and the US generally use porcelain or metal caddies and see very little ill effect on their teas... And generally, teas that have gone thru traditional storage 👹 hahaha tend to do better in drier climes than others...
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