The money I invested in the book “Pu-erh Tea” is already yielding a dividend.

After reading about it in the new book, I’ve been playing around with jacking the flavour of ordinary old loose leaf shou Pu-erh by steeping it alongside dried chrysanthemum flowers.

Early results are very encouraging – hopefully I’ll have a post up about it in the next couple of days.

This also got me thinking about loose leaf shou Pu-erh and mandarin peel. It’s common to see Pu-erh sold encased in mandarin peel, such as in this example sold by one of our local shops in town. Over time the tea picks up flavour from the fruit peel.

I think I’ll be back at the Chinese supermarkets bright and early tomorrow morning to see if they can sell me some dried Chinese mandarin peel to go in the pot along with the shou.

My new book also pointed me in the general direction of sub-categories of Pu-erh I hadn’t been aware of, such as Pu-erh tea paste, Crab Pincers, Old Yellow Leaves, Old Paka, and Cereal Flower Pu-erh.

Some of this stuff is quite rare, so it’ll be quite a challenge to track it down.

Should keep me busy for a while. Fun times ahead.