A bizarre and wonderful tea. This aged green Pu-erh tea is made up of extraordinarily large tea leaves that have been gathered into small bundles (hence the name). It has a marvelous flavor and delivers a lighter, sweet taste with a lingering aftertaste of dark peaches or plums. We recommend six to eight leaves per cup with multiple steepings.
After picking appropriate tender leaves, the first step in making raw Pu-erh is converting the leaf to maocha ("light green rough tea" ). The leaves are then dry pan-fried using a large wok in a process, which stops enzyme activity in the leaf and prevents further oxidation. The leaves can then be rolled, rubbed, and shaped through several steps into strands. The shaped leaves are then ideally dried in the sun and then manually picked through to remove bad leaves. Once dry, maocha can be sent directly to the factory to be pressed into raw Pu-erh, or like this one aged uncompressed and sold at its maturity as aged loose-leaf raw Pu'er.
