Don Mei : Hey Teaheads.
This is Don from Mei Leaf.
In this video : How To Break and Wrap Puerh cakes.
In this video we're going to be doing a [really] quick one, just showing you how to break into
Puerh cakes, and how to wrap them up for storage.
This video is going to go under the "Tea Master Classes" playlist.
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As I said, this is going to be a super-quick one.
I'm here with Celine, our resident Puerh tea cake wrapper.
Celine : [laughter]
Don : We have a cake up "Bloom Buster" here.
We've done videos on this tea already before, so I'm not going to talk about it, but you're
welcome to take a look at this product.
It's a really nice Lao Ban Jiang, sheng Puerh , 2016.
We're going to show you how to use a tea pick like this, and a tea inspection tray like
this, in order to break into Puerh cakes.
Then, immediately afterwards, were going to show you how best to wrap your Puerh cake
up so that you can keep it nicely for storage without making any mess.
Don : (to Celine) : Ready to go?
Celine : Yeah, sure.
[laughter] Okay.
I'm not a professional, but I just started doing this because I have a few Puerh cakes,
and it's like when you open it and you don't wrap it up it just goes all over the place,
and it is just really annoying.
Don : Yeah.
It can make quite a mess.
Celine : Yeah.
It's useful.
It is useful to wrap [the cakes].
Don : It's one of those things that takes a little bit of practice.
Celine : Yeah.
Don (to Celine) : But you've had a fair amount of practice now.
Celine : Eh!
Yeah.
Don : She's good at it.
It may not be as pro as some of the people that you see in China, where they can wrap
a cake in...
Celine : Army style.
It's just like [CELINE GESTURES RAPID CAKE WRAPPING]
Don : Yeah.
They can wrap them super-quickly, and amazingly linked, but we do our best to explain it to
you.
We're going to bring the camera around and I'm going to show you how to break into this
cake.
Let's break open this Bloom Buster here.
Let's open it.
We've already had some of this tea already.
As you can see, it's already been broken into a little bit here.
Here's my Puerh pick and this is a nice tea inspection tray [which is] really, really
useful to keep things neat.
It's got a nice edge around it and it's got a little pouring corner - you can see here
- that allows you to put the leaves into your teapot.
Now, here's a very tightly wrapped Puerh cake.
Puerh cakes have different levels of compression, but this one is quite tightly wrapped, What
you want to try to do is find the place which is the easiest - or least [resistant] - for
your tea pick.
So you need to look around your tea cake to find a nice little gap.
I can see one just about here.
You can see that when you put it in...
... Let me see if I can make sure it's in focus first before I do this... if you find
a nice easy breaking point it slides in a little bit easier.
Just [do] a little rocking motion back and forth, and if you feel like you're breaking
too many leaves then stop, come out, and try to attack it from a slightly different angle.
You need to be patient with [these] Puerh cakes.
You need to slowly leverage the leaves apart and find the area of least resistance.
You can see [that] once you find an area it starts to go a lot quicker.
Let's keep going, and make sure you don't just keep going in the same area.
The leaves around the edge tend to be the loosest, so just go around there first, loosen
them up, and it will naturally loosen the leaves further in.
So again, as soon as you feel that you're breaking it too much then just move it around
and then it will start to come.
You can also use your hands.
You can see here that this has started to come, and I can pull this directly off.
Now I'm going to put this cake aside.
Celine will show you how [to] wrap that in a second.
Now I just want to show you the real advantage of this tray here.
You can start to get very geeky if you'd like and start to sort your leaves out - because
there will be some broken leaves.
You just start to gently pull [and leverage] the leaves apart a little bit so that you
get as many whole leaves as possible.
Move them over the side.
Again, leveraging them all apart.
They start to come apart really easily after a while, and then you can move them to the
side.
You can keep going, and you can spend five [to] ten minutes just sorting through your
leaves so that you have nice leaves for your session, and you leave as much of the really
small, broken leaves aside.
You can cold brew those if you'd like.
[That's] a nice way to use up your broken leaves.
The tea tray is a really nice way for you to inspect your leaves, and also to sort them
out.
You can see how easy that is, without making a mess.
Then, as I said, once you've sorted your leaves out you've got this nice little area here
that you can use to pour [the leaves] into your clay pot, Gai Wan, or glass pot.
Okay.
I'm going to pour these away here.
We'll save [these] for [brewing] in a second.
[Then] I'm going to take this tea dust -- there's still lots of good leaves here, [and] I'm
not going to waste them.
Before you write that in the comments, these are not going to be wasted.
I'm just going to put them away for a second here so that you can be given the "master
class" [laughter], by Celine, on how to wrap a Puerh cake.
Now, it's much harder for you, isn't it, Celine, because this one has already been broken into?
Celine : Eh, it's all right.
Don : But go for it.
Show them how to do it.
Celine : Okay.
Even if your paper is kind of broke, it's fine.
What I do is put it this way around.
Don : So always with the little alcove here - that you can see - face side up, so you're
putting the flat face down onto the wrapper.
Celine : Indeed.
Whatever side you want to do, just start somewhere, and hold the cake a little bit in place with
your first hand.
Then just fold over...
Don : Okay.
You do it and I'll...
Celine : You comment.
Don : I'll do the commentary.
So it's about turning the cake, and not moving around the cake.
So [you] turn the cake, as opposed to trying to wrap around the cake.
The wrapper will already have been wrapped around your cake, so you should have pleats
that are already there, which should naturally fall into place.
But the key is to keep your hand quite still and stationary, [and] not move them, move
the cake around, and [you're] just really not making too many movements around the wrapper.
So keep going until you get to the end.
When you get to the end it becomes a bit more complicated.
Just try to wrap it up, squeeze it in, and turn it over and that should stay quite nicely.
Don (to Celine) : Do you want to do it one more time?
Celine : Yeah.
Sure.
Don : There you do.
Okay.
[You're] starting on one edge, and you can see how you're just pulling the paper from
the side.
You're just keeping your hands still, and pulling the paper towards you, and just twisting
the cake every so often.
Follow the pleats that are naturally there.
Take your time [and] don't pull too hard, because it might rip the paper.
Celine : [laughter] Okay.
Don : It's okay.
It's no problem if you do.
Celine : It's fine.
Don : [Then] it gets a bit tricky towards the end.
You see [that] she just wrapped it up in the end, just to give herself some space, and
it's this part -- do you want to do that part again, just a little bit slower - that last
bit?
Celine : So this bit, when you get to the end, I just pull both sides
Don : Yeah.
[You] pull both sides to make it flat.
Celine : You just grab this end here [or] I can grab here and push everything down there
so it's all ... Then you either flatten it over, but some people like to wrap this in
[the alcove]...
Don : And just really push it over inside the hole of the tea cake.
Then always store it the other way around to stop it from opening.
We advise you store it flat like that.
Celine : Yeah.
Don : Well done.
What a pro.
Okay, guys.
I hope that that was informative to you, and now you can break into your Puerh cakes and
wrap them perfectly like a pro.
That's it Teaheads.
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Other than that, I'm Don Mei, [and] this is Celine, from Mei Leaf.
Thank you for being a part of the revelation of true tea.
Stay away from the tea bags, keep drinking the good stuff, and spread the word, because
nobody deserves bad tea.
Celine : [WAVING] Bye.