We talk about Lao Man'E a lot. The teas available in the hills surrounding Lao Man'E village are in a class of their own. It's a bitter class, but what is a good sheng puerh tea without some bitterness. There are two major varietals in Lao Man'E. One is noticeably more bitter than the other. They are called Bitter and Sweet. You can for sure tell the difference.

In 2019 we bought some ridiculously high end material from Lao Man'E and created a very pricy bitter / sweet tasting set. We didn't press all of it and were saving it for a fun future project. This is what we came up with. We pressed all the bitter material into 5g dragon balls. We also pressed all the sweet material into 5g dragon balls. You will get 5 of each. Which is which? We don't know anymore. You'll have to taste them to find out.

Each packet has 10x 5g dragon balls. That's 50g of very high end Lao Man'E material. These are really good teas. Five of the dragon balls will be the bitter varietal and the other five will be the sweet varietal. 

Put your tastebuds to the Lao Man'E BS challenge. See if you can tell which are bitter and which are sweet. These are really potent teas and 1 5g ball is enough for a gongfu session where you would normally use 10g. Or just go full BS and steep with 2 balls.

Brewing Instructions

These steep super easy! Drop one ball into your brew vessel of choice 75-100ml or so. Add boiling water slowly. Let it steep for 30s and watch the ball open up. Discard this initial rinse. Wait 5 minutes with the lid on and the tea ball will be open and ready to brew. Start with quick steeps under 10s. With each re-steep adjust the steep time to your taste.