Mr M arrived back from his business trip to China early this morning which is possibly the worst time to arrive in this house ever. Bed heads, grumpiness, cries of ‘I don’t have a shirt’ for school’ or ‘we need more cereals’, me telling everyone to hurry up. Not good.
He sat through all this with grace (and jet lag, I’m sure the jet lag helped immensely) and then unpacked his bags.
Tea. A lot of tea.
I had asked him to bring me home some ‘normal’ tea. (when in … China… and all that). I was after the local PG tips and hopefully the packages in the photo above contain just that from the local shop.
THEN he unpacked a lot of ‘gift tea’.
Oh boy.
The cute tin (hands off, they’re mine) only say it’s ‘Chinese Tea Gift’. When you open them:
they’re packed full of dried green tea leaves.
I probably shouldn’t have used a tea strainer… apologies to the tea purists…
Then there was this fascinating object:
This is (according to Google…) ‘puerh’ tea, packaged in a traditional patty/cake shape of exactly 357g, and it is a variety of fermented tea (who knew). A quick search revealed lots of interesting facts… (you can read more about it here if you’re interested)… it can take decades, hundreds of years to make, the process continues over time and apparently not two brews are ever the same because the tea continue to evolve thanks to the microorganism in it… people collect it, like wine… and my favourite… it can help you lose weight. We’ll see about this one!
It’s very dark and intense.
Taste test? Go on then…
It’s hard to say if I have a favourite because they’re so different.
The green tea is ‘very’ green. Fresh and young. Good if you’re thirsty…
The Puerh has a weird smell at first, but the taste is really good, warming and calming.
I haven’t investigated what’s in the vacuum packed little parcels in the first photos so… I’ll be back, as someone said once, and report on those. In the meantime…
cup of tea, anyone?
while you're ahead... 
What a fabulous collection of teas! How wonderful that your husband bought so many and such different ones too. Enjoy tasting them and drinking them, and using your adorable tins too! What a lovely hubby!
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I’ve just found time to visit your new home, very lovely and it serves tea!
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Thanks for visiting my blog Monica – loved to see all of the different teas that your husband carried back from China.
I visited China nearly 40 years ago when they still all wore little Mao suits, had pudding basin haircuts, and rode around on bikes. I do recall, however, that they were very reverential where the drinking and making of tea was concerned.
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