2010 Jinggu Lao Cha Tou Ripe Pu-erh Tea

Name: 2010 Jinggu Lao Cha Tou Ripe Pu-erh Tea
Brand: Yunnan Sourcing Tea Shop
Price: 7.75 USD
Availability: InStock

by Yunnan Sourcing Tea Shop

$7.75 - $99.00

$7.75

$7.75 - $99.00

$7.75

Quantity

These smaller cha tou are from a 2010 wet pile batch of Jinggu harvested tea! Aged in Jinggu town from 2010 until 2024, these are well aged with little/no wet pile taste!

Creamy, chocolatey, smooth, and sweet ripe tea that lasts many many steeps! Nice warming qi and lubricating mouth-feel from start to finish!

We highly recommend brewing these "grandpa style" in a vacuum tea flask to get the best extraction! We recommend using one of the three products below, and steeping 10 grams for 60 minutes or more using just off boil spring water.

If brewing gong fu style we recommend using a pure silver teapot and long steeps of several minutes.

Region: Jinggu County of Simao (Yunnan)

Harvest time: Spring 2010

Cha Tou is a kind of tea nugget that forms naturally from the pressures of compression and heat that occurs during the fermentation process. Typically during fermentation process to make ripe pu-erh there is a pile of tea about 1 meter high. It is kept wet to allow the fermentation process and the pile is turned every few days to allow for an even degree of fermentation, moving the tea from the bottom of the pile (where it is hotter and wetter) to the top of the pile where it is cooler and drier. The "cha tou" are the leaves that ball up and get stuck together. The best cha tou are ones that have not been over-fermented and are smaller in size (like these).

Overall rating: 4.857143 / 5 from 7 reviews.

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Reviews

Sweet, Delicate, Clean-tasting!

"2nd 老茶头 I tried from Yunnan Sourcing. This one is smaller than the Aged Purple Lao Cha Tou, about the size of a broad bean each nugget. I find that I love this more than the Purple. Clean-tasting, delicate, very easy to drink. Still has the shu pu'er characteristics but very mellowed and easygoing. The Purple has more "fruit vinegar" taste compared to this one, which is more of chocolate and sweetness. All down to which you would prefer ☺️ Steeps very well and yields a rich auburn liquid even with short steeping time. Love it!"

— 番薯 (5/5)

Easy like Sunday morning…

"Thick, creamy and mellow."

— Ze *. (5/5)

Daily Drinker

"This puer is a steal for the price, it is an easy drinker and whenever I don’t know what to brew I reach for this one. Has a medium body and endures about 5-6 steeps but I’m sure a little boiling would give a hearty full cup. There is no musty smell, brews clean, buttery and a little bit of sweetness hidden underneath. Pretty solid as a daily drive."

— ayse (5/5)

Just Awesome!

"I am continually amazed by the customer service and quality of the products I have ordered. Yunnan Sourcing is my only source for Pu-erh. Thank you Travis!"

— Thomas j. (5/5)

Solid Pu-er

"Lots of Tobacco and leather notes with some dried floral elements"

— Levi V. (4/5)

I Brew This In a Pint Glass

"This was one of my first 2 teas from this company, good stuff. The first batches I brewed & some subsequent ones had the chocolate note + gentle sweetness. After that, some brews I've done have been strong, almost like a coffee. My latest brews taste more like a nicer US southern sweet tea; I considered adding milk to these last batches to make a crude thai iced tea, but that can overpower the tea flavor if your batch of milk is too strong tasting. I've gotten good at brewing this stuff in a pint glass. What I do is I bring the water to a boil & then let it sit for a few minutes so the water temperature goes down before I pour. Then I add 3 teapoons of tea or less to the glass. I pour a little bit of water over the leaves & swirl it for around 10 seconds, then I add the rest of the water. Some people prefer to dump the wash, but so far I'm not convinced that's necessary. Don't pour boiling water on this tea, it will come out bitter if you do that, still drinkable, but most people would prefer little to no bitter. I'd also recommend avoiding cheap metal anything when brewing this tea, you may end up with a metallic taste. Also, for the very first batch of this tea I made, I used too much tea & got a super concentrated brew that was nearly black in color, I'd taken an excedrin when I drank that too, the end result was feeling thinned out, very sleepy, & overcaffeinated all at once. If you make this mistake, taking a multi vitamin & some electrolyte powder got rid of most of those sensations for me, & what remained wore off a few hours later."

— Rayna (5/5)