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A terribly designed package doesn’t reflect on the quality of tea. Beautifully crafted tea packages, though, typically hide poorly crafted tea inside. I don’t think much about a package before tasting a tea. This package, however, is hard to ignore. It is possibly the worst packaging I have come across.

The tea it contained, however, was a gem. It’s a raw puerh from Bulang mountain purchased as maocha by Tea Lux. The Canadian company doesn’t exist as Tea Lux anymore and the splinter company doesn’t sell anything of value anymore from what I’m told. There is no indication about the age of the tea and nowhere for me to root around for any answers. R could only tell us that it’s a tea from a while ago. Its history is puzzling but the dry leaves were pungent. The tea carried a sour pickled plum scent that is indicative of a loosely stored, slightly aged tea.

Surprisingly, the slight sour note dissipated quickly from the first two infusions but the pickled plum scent filled the entire room throughout the tasting. It was one of the most aromatic puerhs I have tried and interestingly this was stored loose. Loose stored puerhs should theoretically lose their aroma fairly quickly. I wonder what the cake must have smelled like. I suppose the package the tea came in sealed the aroma in well.

The tea was quite dynamic. It was present in the head and the heart but it always kept in motion. Drinking it felt like how the body feels after a game of soccer. It was as though I collapsed down on the pitch after a passionate game, dizzy from blood still rolling through my body. The world and I were dancing. I may stop, but the world remained perpetually in motion.  

Bulang mountain puerhs err towards the bitter. By the second infusion, it was apparent that the bitterness lasted much longer than T Shop’s Bulang. A sweetness coated the mouth afterwards. The third infusion was bittersweet. Both bitter and sweet worked in tandem, allowing each other to sing without overpowering themselves.
I sat there and drank the tea and wondered why it chose such a tacky dress. I realized that the dress was empty. This tea didn’t exist anymore. The last of it was in our cups. Bittersweet cups indeed.