January Sipdown Prompt – a tea that makes you feel better when you are sick
Sipdown
This was a gift from whiteantlers long ago and it was a big enough sample that I have had it a few times now. Many thanks, friend! We miss you!
I am not sick, but I am drinking this tea with lunch as a preemptive strike because I am having red meat and I rarely eat red meat. My sensitive might rebel so I am going in early with the digestion help of puerh tea.
Does it work? It does for me. Years ago I had two pieces of pizza and then was daft enough to give in and eat the crusts dipped in garlic butter at the end. The food felt like an immovable insult sitting stubbornly in my belly and refusing to budge. At that time, I had only had puerh a few times and it was mediocre shu, but after sipping a cup of it the sun rose and the birds sang and all was right with the world.
This is really lovely. I think it has matured nicely into a very well-behaved sheng. I get a little smoke, some leather, no bite, no astringency, a little creamy/oil mouthfeel, and thirst slaking wetness. A hint of sweet soil follows. Really nice.
Edit to add: burger is finished and tea is going strong still. New note I notice without food obscuring it – minty minty minty! Some dry fall leaf crispness and aroma.
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I used to think all camellia senisis teas were the same until I did a deep dive on the internet and found that ripe puerh has inulin, and your gut microbes feed on that. So not surprising that it aids digestion :)
I didn’t know about inulin in it , Michelle! That’s awesome! Inulin is in Teeccino roasted chicory drinks, too. According to webmd, puerh bacteria produce lovastatin, and the older it is and the larger the population of bacteria, the more lovastatin is produced. The lovastatin supposedly causes the system to “ignore” some of the fats by basically binding with them, and allow them to pass on through without being digested, speeding up the movement of the food and eliminating the heavy feeling. This is an explanation I saw, could be wrong. But it seems to work! Inulin is a pre-biotic, so win-win!
I seemed to have confused chicory for ripe puerh, but I thought I read somewhere that ripe produced inulin. Probably on some wiki page that is now rescinded. I think all three, ripe, raw and chicory are good for gut health!
I always wonder whether they are testing ripe or raw when we see the health claims. Often it isn’t specified. I plan to drink it anyway, and if it is good for me then that is even better!
@ashmanra, that is a good question indeed! Since (I believe) the orthodox process involves a heat-kill to dry and stop oxidation, we can assume that it has the effect of pasteurizing the leaves, which become maocha as a green tea, possibly with a further intermediate heating steps before being portioned out and compressed. Of course we don’t expect the work environment to be sterile. So, much like Belgian-process beers, further microbial activity in Sheng Pu-erhs is the result of uncontrolled environmental introduction of fungi and bacteria. I suspect some spore-forming bacteria may survive the cooking process unless it is very long — over an hour at >100°C (think of the canning process). Shou, on the other hand, is piled a meter or more deep, moistened and inoculated with a culture of (known or unknown) microbes, much like a sourdough starter. Those microbes would rapidly dominate the tea leaf microflora, outcompeting any environmental or integral species. Thus it is possible that the two processes (raw vs. ripe) could differ considerably in their probiotic content. It is also possible that the inoculum used in Shou is derived from isolates found in one or more Shengs, and thus having similar probiotic content. I do not know how the inoculum for Shou Pu-erh is prepared and/or maintained, and I suspect it is a trade secret among the various tea companies, as they are among brewers of beers. I do not know the scientific literature of tea fermenting well enough to say anything beyond this.
I used to think all camellia senisis teas were the same until I did a deep dive on the internet and found that ripe puerh has inulin, and your gut microbes feed on that. So not surprising that it aids digestion :)
I didn’t know about inulin in it , Michelle! That’s awesome! Inulin is in Teeccino roasted chicory drinks, too. According to webmd, puerh bacteria produce lovastatin, and the older it is and the larger the population of bacteria, the more lovastatin is produced. The lovastatin supposedly causes the system to “ignore” some of the fats by basically binding with them, and allow them to pass on through without being digested, speeding up the movement of the food and eliminating the heavy feeling. This is an explanation I saw, could be wrong. But it seems to work! Inulin is a pre-biotic, so win-win!
I seemed to have confused chicory for ripe puerh, but I thought I read somewhere that ripe produced inulin. Probably on some wiki page that is now rescinded. I think all three, ripe, raw and chicory are good for gut health!
I always wonder whether they are testing ripe or raw when we see the health claims. Often it isn’t specified. I plan to drink it anyway, and if it is good for me then that is even better!
@ashmanra, that is a good question indeed! Since (I believe) the orthodox process involves a heat-kill to dry and stop oxidation, we can assume that it has the effect of pasteurizing the leaves, which become maocha as a green tea, possibly with a further intermediate heating steps before being portioned out and compressed. Of course we don’t expect the work environment to be sterile. So, much like Belgian-process beers, further microbial activity in Sheng Pu-erhs is the result of uncontrolled environmental introduction of fungi and bacteria. I suspect some spore-forming bacteria may survive the cooking process unless it is very long — over an hour at >100°C (think of the canning process). Shou, on the other hand, is piled a meter or more deep, moistened and inoculated with a culture of (known or unknown) microbes, much like a sourdough starter. Those microbes would rapidly dominate the tea leaf microflora, outcompeting any environmental or integral species. Thus it is possible that the two processes (raw vs. ripe) could differ considerably in their probiotic content. It is also possible that the inoculum used in Shou is derived from isolates found in one or more Shengs, and thus having similar probiotic content. I do not know how the inoculum for Shou Pu-erh is prepared and/or maintained, and I suspect it is a trade secret among the various tea companies, as they are among brewers of beers. I do not know the scientific literature of tea fermenting well enough to say anything beyond this.