The Most Mystical Category – Pu’er tea with Jesse
🫖 Friday, September 18th | 17:00–19:00

Pu'er comes from the south-western corner of China, the province of Yunnan, which was remote and hard to access until recent times. Still, Yunnan has a striking variety of local languages, ethnicities, and cultures. And it's the place where the tea plant itself originally comes from.

Pu'er doesn't fit neatly into the categories familiar to us in the West. It's its own thing. It's made from a different varietal of the tea plant, and the processing is minimal and traditional compared to other teas. It's also one of the very few teas where aging is central to the experience, and aging is what this tasting is about.

Our main focus will be the contrast between two storage traditions: classic, wet, dank Hong Kong storage, and Taiwanese storage, which favors a drier, "purer" style of aging. Hong Kong-style storage in particular is something you rarely encounter outside East Asia. Both of our two main teas are roughly 20 years old: one a small, boutique production, the other a classic example of prestigious factory-style production. One aged first in Taiwan and now in Finland. The other comes to us straight from Hong Kong. Alongside these two main courses, we'll taste some other exampes to give us a wider context.

You don't need any prior knowledge of pu'er, sheng, shu, or storage styles to enjoy this. We'll walk through all of it together at the table. If pu'er is new to you, this is a rare chance to get a real feel for aging and fermentation in this style of tea. And if you're already a seasoned pu head, come anyway. You'll get to see exactly what shu pu'er is trying to imitate.

Ticket: 35 euro

Time: Friday, September 18th | 17:00–19:00

Venue: Muyō, tea & culture space, Uudenmaankatu 15, Helsinki