Aged pu-erh, available in Edmonton
We are putting together a small pu-erh tea shop for Edmonton: sheng and shou puerh, sold as pressed cakes and as loose leaf, shipped from within the country so nothing sits at the border.
We will write to you once
One email, on the day the shop opens. No newsletter, no drip campaign, and your address stays on our own server.
We keep your name and email only to send that one message, and we delete the list afterwards.
What the shop will carry
Sheng puerh
Raw pu-erh from spring pickings in Yunnan, including single-garden material from older trees. Bright and brisk young, deeper after a few years in storage.
Shou puerh
Ripe pu-erh, fermented in the traditional wet-piling way. Dark, soft and forgiving to brew, which makes it the easier place to start.
Aged cakes
Pressed pu-erh tea cakes with a stated year and storage history, from 2005 onward. Sold whole and, for the older ones, in samples.
Teaware
Gaiwans, yixing pots, fairness pitchers and a pick for prying leaves off a cake without breaking them.
While you wait
- What is pu-erh tea?
- A fermented tea from Yunnan in southwest China. It comes in two kinds. Sheng ferments slowly on the shelf over years; shou is fermented in weeks under controlled heat and humidity. Both are usually pressed into cakes, and both keep changing with age, which no other tea really does.
- Does pu-erh tea have caffeine?
- Yes, roughly 30 to 70 mg per cup, which puts it close to black tea. The amount moves with how much leaf you use and how long you steep, more than with the age of the tea.
- How do you brew pu-erh tea?
- Break off about 5 g, rinse it once with boiling water and pour that rinse away. Then steep in a gaiwan for 10 to 20 seconds, adding a few seconds each round. Good leaves give eight to fifteen infusions.
- Pu-erh, puerh or pu'er?
- All three name the same tea, and you will meet all three on Canadian shelves. Pu-erh tea is the older English spelling, puerh tea is the one most sellers now use, and pu'er follows the modern pinyin for the city the tea is named after. It sounds like poo-air.