Sister Ai’s 2020 Golden Cake Ancient Tree Sheng Pu’er Tea
What is “Golden Cake” Sheng Pu’er Tea?
Pu’er tea is a specialty of Yunnan Province, where the tea has been the backbone of trade through the Tea Horse Road trading route for 1500 years.
Sheng (Raw) Pu’er is known for its yellow or golden tea liquor and its combination of sweetness and astringency. It is different from the very dark Shou (Cooked) Pu’er. Sheng Pu’er is aged to deepen and complexify its flavor, and only gets better as it is stored.
Golden Cake pu’er is made from the odd-colored leaves that are collected during the picking season. Farmers separate these leaves because they have a sweeter, more mellow flavor than normal sheng pu’er.
THE TEA
Sister Ai, our tea farmer partner in Yunnan, has selected the colorful, unusually sweet leaves from her 2020 crop and pressed them, at our request, into 100 gram mini-cakes.
These cakes have top-quality ancient tree raw pu’er tea material, in a “rainbow” color scheme that makes a uniquely beautful tea cake.
The flavor is sweet, with notes of lemon, and super bright and energetic. It has fantastic Cha Qi - tea energy - making it an excellent tea for sustained focus.
Golden Cake pu’er is less astringent than normal Sheng pu’er, and four years of aging has further mellowed this tea, so it presents a bright, smooth, creamy mouth feel that is a great experience for new and old Sheng drinkers alike.
JESSE'S REVIEW
These tea cakes were so beautiful, I was almost worried I would be tempted to sell them even if the tea wasn’t good.
Luckily, it didn’t come to that! The tea was fantastic and to be able to use such great leaf material for Golden Cake pu’er is a real treat.
I personally have been a big fan of Golden Cake pu’er since I first tried it in 2014. That year, I bought one cake of it and went through it surprisingly fast. The next year, I bought five, so I could start aging my own.
I think flavor-wise this is a great tea for all people, even those that don’t normally like sheng because of its astringency. However, because the price is high because of the quality of the material and the extra effort to separate the colored leaves, I recommend people buy this only if they know they like raw pu’er, and choose either Sister Ai’s Everyday Sheng or Master Box Series Sheng first if they are on a budget, or just starting in tea.
VALUE AND QUALITY
Want even more value? Get 2 or 4 cakes together by selecting from the drop-down menu. Drink one and age the rest!
Jesse's Teahouse started because Jesse realized the quality and value of the tea directly from the Beijing Tea Market was so much higher than what could be easily found in the States -- and around the world.
Nowadays, Jesse also works directly with farmers as well. Jesse contacted his tea friends, they shipped their best teas to him, and he sends them to you. That's it!
These teas are high quality and can be re-steeped multiple times! Each serving makes between 4-8 cups of tea, so at around $.50 a cup, you get top quality Chinese teas at a price that you can enjoy every day.
NOT JUST TEA, TEA CULTURE
Jesse believes the key to making good tea is to help his Chinese tea friends share not just their best teas, but the best ways to make the teas.
That's why each box comes also comes with an info card that tells you:
-
Tea Origin
-
Steep Temperature
-
Steep Time
-
Directions for both teapot steeping and gaiwan steeping
All Jesse’s Teahouse Tea Friends (that’s you now!) also get access to private YouTube videos where Jesse and his Chinese tea friends show you how to make the teas and explain the tea-making process.
The links are on QR codes on the back of the info card included in the tea box.
Don't Forget Your Tea Pets!
In Chinese Gongfu Tea Tradition, Tea Pets accompany you at teatime and you "raise" them by feeding them tea! Check out the tea pets at the bottom of this page.