My Partner Likes The Pu'er!

"Let's go to Marina Square!" I was all excited. The man raised an eyebrow. "Why? You're not a mall rat." Hahaha. Yes, it's an unusual request. But I wanted to check out LongRun Teahouse (龙润茶) which is known for its pu'er produced by its factories in Yunnan. To my absolute surprise, he agreed. He's been curious about tea too, and has only bad memories of it when he had to do tea lessons as part of some Chinese camp during school holidays because he royally flunked the subject. He's totally befuddled about my seemingly 'sudden' enthusiasm for Chinese tea, but is game to check it out with me.

At LongRun Teahouse, I took my time with the menu. Plenty of choices. But I wasn't interested in any of the green teas or oolongs, except the Iron Goddess. Oddly, they offer bubble tea (tsk tsk), and a refreshing blend of fruit tea. There's food proffered too. But I don't think I'll ever bother to eat here. We ought to try out the various pu'er they have. I'll return to check out their cakes of raw and aged pu'er as well. In this sort of setting when the apparatus indicate that I can't control the temperature of water, it's ideal to brew teas which require about 90°C - 95°C to bring out its flavors. We tried the Iron Goddess from Anxi (安溪铁观音), and an Imperial Pu'er (宫廷普洱).

Asked for a tea tray to brew it myself. Not impressed with the tea set, but well, in a commercial setting, I suppose I can't ask for more. Using the 'gaiwan' (盖碗) is not my preferred way of brewing pu'er, but it will work. Since there were only 2 of us, the portions in the packet of imperial pu'er were enough for both of us. The lady manager walked by to top up our hot water, and was curious about my portions. She asked if it held enough flavors. I grinned at her. "Of course." All a matter of controlling water and steeping time. :) Earlier, I had not bothered to split the portions for the 8g of Iron Goddess and that was too much, no matter how.

After tasting both, the man announced that the Iron Goddess is too floral, and he likes the pu'er. The 'cooked' type. o_O AIYOH. YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME. Wonder if I can train his palate to prefer other teas. Fairly sure he'd not mind my favorite Rock Oolong (岩茶) since that's robust, complex and flavorful. His palate is attuned to smokey single malts and coffee. It's a natural conclusion that he'd appreciate a smokey tea. In fact, he doesn't mind drinking pu'er on a regular basis now. He's on this new diet, you see, hitting the gym daily and all that. Somehow, he's totally convinced that he should give pu'er a shot in helping to speed up his metabolism. ARRRRRGGGGH. It's my weakest of all teas! I'll have to learn how to brew this properly, fast. GRRRRRRR.