Sister Ai’s Everyday Golden Pu’er (2022)
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
Each box contains:
1 50g tea cake (7-10 sessions’ worth of tea, ~2 oz)
Sister Ai’s team sets aside the yellower leaves during each harvest for “golden cake” pu’er. The flavor from these leaves is sweeter than normal, and lacks some of the more astringent tannins that make raw pu’er distinct dry-mouth feel.
For this reason, it is not as in-demand in China, since many tea people prize those specific tastes. However, tastes are subjective, and I have found many people prefer the sweeter, easier-drinking golden cake pu’er to the normal variety.
While we previously featured a golden cake on the site before, we have not featured the more affordable “everyday” variety yet, and so I am more than glad to be able to feature this tea. If you’ve tried raw pu’er and thought it too intense, this tea might be exactly what you need to get the energy boost from raw pu’er without the tannin-ey astringency.
These leaves come from wild trees between 50-100 years old, with extensive root systems that reach far for nutrients and surrounded by native plants that contribute to a special terroir, making Yunnan ancient tree tea some of the best in the world.
Jesse Explains:
Sister Ai’s Qi Zi Bing “Seven Cakes” Series
Sister Ai is a 4th gen tea farmer who we collaborate with to make this “seven cakes” series.
In the ancient days of the Tea Horse Road trading route, loose leaf tea was pressed into discs and then wrapped in bamboo leaves in stacks of seven 357g tea cakes.
These wrapped packages, known as “Tongs”, were the basic unit of tea trade in Yunnan for hundreds of years. Tongs are still available in China today, if you work directly with the farmers.
I’ve always wanted to sell tongs, but most people don’t need 2 kilos of one type of tea. So while we’re sticking to tradition by putting seven cakes in each traditional hand-wrapped tong, I’ve put seven different teas in each tong, all from Sister Ai and her family’s mountains.
I’ve also made the sizes a bit more consumer-friendly, with 7 x 7g mini-tongs and 7 x 50g full tongs. Try a mini-tong to get the whole range of flavors, or the full tong as a mega-sampler for both value and variety.
All seven of the Qi Zi Bing “Seven Cakes” series are available as individual 50g cakes as well, so you can always come back for your favorites.
VALUE AND QUALITY
Jesse's Teahouse started because Jesse realized the quality and value of the tea directly from China was so much higher than what could be easily found in the States -- and around the world.
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 session 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.