Bamboo Pu erh

 

I happened to have a bamboo-tube pu erh in my collection.  I had purchased it from my earliest trip to Guangzhou tea market. This tea had been in my collection for more than 15 years.  

You can see from the pix that this 500g tea was 'stored in this bamboo tube.  I had seen pictures that .....tea was actually stuffed into the bamboo tube and some pressure was applied  (by hand) to compress the tea into the tube. In some instances, some of these producers even placed these tea filled tubes over a fire to 'roast' the tea. 

This tubed pu erh I had opened was a ripe or shou pu erh. It had 'Yong Ming" brand on its label. The tea was moderately compressed. The quality was not high grade.... broken tea leaves and stems.  When I brewed up the tea, the tea was clean with a good taste and aroma. 

I had tried a few bamboo pu erh during my travels.....one was smoky while another one was quite woody in taste. My thoughts are that if you are a pu erh tea drinker, you should get a bamboo pu erh just for its novelty.