Alan's Cyber Museum: A cup of puerh of the 70s

Antique puerh tea is too costly to consume. Even if you have money, you may not be able to buy it off the shelf, let alone someone offering you a cup of puerh tea more than a 100 years old.

Due to its scarcity, Red Label puerh tea is equally expensive even tough the tea was made in the 50s., almost 70 years ago. However, the Yellow Label puerh tea, made in the 70s, is still within the budget of tea connoisseurs. Although the tea is still expensive, you don't need to buy the whole tea cake if you want to entertain your guests with some fine quality puerh tea. Buying the loose tea can save you a lot of money upfront as your aim is just to enjoy the tea, not buying it for the sake of investment.

Yellow Label tea cake

If you have connections, you can still buy some loose Yellow Label puerh. Check it out with your local tea community as someone might just have this precious tea in his inventory. He may be able to sell you some loose tea taken from a partially consumed tea cake. It is usually sold per gram.

Loose puerh sold for immediate consumption

Sometimes it make sense for tea connoisseurs to buy small quantity of loose tea for tea appreciation. If you buy one whole tea cake, you would rather keep it for investment. Although there is temptation to break open the tea cake to drink it, there is also a desire to keep it intact for its investment value. Buying loose tea doesn't have this problem. You just paid for what you intend to drink.

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The loose tea is carefully loaded into the pot

From the pot to a holding vessel

The Yellow Label has been around for over 50 years, one would expect a deep brown colour in the tea as it is being poured out. Thin film of oil (tea oil) can be seen floating on the tea due to its age. The tea is smooth and pleasant to the taste buds. There will be some medicinal flavor and scent and the after-taste (the taste that linger in your mouth after swallowing the tea) is pronounce.