Young Puerh tea is better than a low price car

…because a low price car would not age into a Porsche.

There is a castle made of tea, I like to go there and not sleep....

I’ve been browsing the webpages of Chan Kam Pong, a Hong Kong lawyer and tea-enthusiast who goes by the name of Cloud.

This post’s title comes from some advice from Cloud to learn as your station allows: “[P]ursuing a good tea within your reasonable affordable target price is good enough.  That is your own good tea.”  This can be frustrating when I have been afforded access to some of the finest aged teas by generous souls with sounder economic footing.  I must be patient, and more diligent about building foundations under my air-castles.

Anyhow, I hope to get Cloud’s books “First Step to Chinese Puerh Tea,” and if not “A Glossary of Chinese Puerh Tea,” I can at least satisfy myself with the online pronunciation guide. There’s no substitute for tasting experience, but I should be prepared with the cognitive framework.

I also found Cloud’s guidelines for puerh brewing conditions.  He recommends:
Completely boiling water (100°C/212°F)
200 ml (6.76 fl oz) pot/gaiwan
10 g tea = 7 g intact pieces of compressed tea cake + 3 g loose broken leaves

Part of the gongfu puerh experience is the overwhelming mouth sensation; it remains for me to try brewing my other teas at this ratio–4x my usual strength–to see if they provide comparable effects.  As Cloud said epigrammatically, “Sometimes, other kinds of tea also taste good.”