Plukt Fireweed Tea

 

I was at the Paris tea festival last month and had bought this tin of tea. This tea is from Latvia produced by an outfit called Plukt.  When I sampled the tea, the tea tasted familiar like the black tea I am drinking at home. The tea reminded me of black tea produced by Yi Yuan Long. This Latvia tea has quite similar aroma and taste. I proceeded to buy a tin of this tea. 

I was told by the seller that this was fireweed tea  A quick check on the internet revealed that the leaves of the fireweed plant were harvested, dried  and fermented and used as a beverage in Northern and Eastern Europe. 

Plukt described the tea as - Imagine the taste of black tea that was born on Northern Europe.  Or just try this infusion-you imagined right, didn't you?

This was an accurate description and I really thought it was black tea. It was a happy discovery and adventure. A fun tea.  

2005 Hong Tai Chang Ripe Pu erh Tea

 

This is a 2005 ripe Hong Tai Chang pu erh tea  A 400g tea cake, this tea was wrapped in brown paper instead of the white rice paper used by other pu erh tea factories. 

I found this ripe pu erh unique in that the tea has that extra herbal taste, like a faint herbal Chinese soup. It was an interesting but very  pleasant tea to drink. There was also a nice hint of a leather aroma, like you are walking into a leather shop.   It does gives the impression, to me, that I am drinking a very old raw pu erh tea. 

This is where a few naughty teashops I had visited (Hong Kong, Taiwan and even Malaysia), displayed this tea naked in a clear plastic wrapper and claimed this tea is a very old raw tea from the 80s and 90s.  A couple of these shops even have sampling sessions of this tea. If you are not familiar with Hong Tai Chang tea, you may be duped into buying a ripe tea thinking it was an aged raw pu erh tea. 

 I would recommend a purchase of this tea if you are a hardcore ripe pu erh tea drinker like me.