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1-Minute Guide: How to Break up Pu erh Tea Cake Like a Pro
Pu erh tea cakes can be stored long-term under the right conditions, becoming more fragrant and flavorful with time. To ensure optimal tea aging and convenient brewing, it’s best to pry off small portions of the tea cake as needed. But how to break up pu erh tea cake properly? Let’s dive into this quick, step-by-step guide.
How to Break up Pu erh Tea Cake Carefully?
How to break up pu erh tea cake, the goal is to preserve the integrity of the tea leaves. Intact tea leaves enhance the flavor and clarity of the brew. Breaking up pu erh tea cake into neat chunks allows for better extraction and ensures the best tea experience.
Preparing to Break up Pu erh Tea Cake
Before we know how to break up pu erh tea cake, we need to clean our hand and gather all the tools we need.
1. Hygiene First
Wash your hands thoroughly and dry them completely. Moisture can lead to mold growth during long-term tea storage and may affect the safety and flavor of your tea when you decide to break a pu erh cake.
2. Gather Your Tools
Use a dedicated tea knife. A proper tea knife helps break a pu erh tea cake while keeping the tea leaves intact. Avoid makeshift tools as they can damage the tea or be unsafe. If you don’t have a tea knife, a small knife might work as well.
3. Examine the Pu erh Tea Cake
Understand the Compression: When people press the pu erh tea cake, there are machine-pressed method and handcrafte stone-pressed. Machine-pressed pu erh tea cakes are tightly compressed and require more force, while hand-pressed(stone-press) tea cakes are looser and easier to pry.
Identify the Sides: The smooth, curved side is the front, while the back has a dimple or indentation. For the best results, it is a good idea to break a pu erh tea cake from the back. Because we want to keep a complete front side to observe the ageing situation of pu erh tea cake.
4. Set Up Your Workspace
Find a flat, sturdy surface and sit comfortably. This ensures you can apply steady pressure without risking injury. Make sure you’ve cleaned your area thoroughly and wash your hands to reduce any spoilage and contamination of your pu erh tea cake. This is essential before you break a puerh tea cake.
How to Break up Pu erh Tea Cake: Step-by-Step
1. Position the Pu erh Tea Cake
Place the back of the tea cake (with the dimple facing up) on your workspace. Starting from the back helps maintain the integrity of the front side for observation of aging over time.
2. Grip the Tea Needle or Tea Knife
Hold the tea knife like a pen. Align it toward the dimple, ensuring the point faces outward and away from your body for safety.
Use your other hand to steady the tea cake. Ensure the tea knife doesn’t point toward your supporting hand when you break a puerh tea cake. Exercise extreme caution. This will prevent unnecessary accidents from ocurring
3. Insert the Tea Knife
Gently twist the knife into the dimple, inserting it as deeply as possible without forcing it. Avoid prying at this stage.
Move 1-2 cm from the first insertion point and repeat the process, making additional insertions if you need.
4. Pry Off a Chunk
Use a lever motion with the tea knife to lift the chunk. Keep the tip steady while prying. For larger pieces, extend the prying direction outward from the dimple.
After Break up Pu erh Tea Cake
For Larger Chunks: If the tea chunk is too big, break it down further by hand into manageable pieces suitable for your brewing vessel.
For Smaller Chunks: If the tea chunk is too small, continue prying until you have enough tea for brewing.
For Right Size Chunks: Place the tea chunks directly into your gaiwan or teapot and enjoy.
- Use a Scale (optional): For the optimum brew amount, or at least until you get comfortable judging Chinese tea amounts, we recommend following our recommended servings as printed on our instruction cards after you break a puerh tea cake into smaller amounts.
Bonus Tip: Get a Free Tea Needle
After you know how to break up pu erh tea cake, do you need a tea needle or a tea knife? There is a good news for you. When you purchase a 200g pu erh tea cake from our shop you’ll receive a complimentary tea needle—perfect for starting your tea journey with the right tools. This is one of the most necessary and most used tools that every beginner should own. You may purchase other tools later on, but we recommend to have this.
Note: You may also write us a note on your order if you already have your free tea needle, or gift another to a friend on their next tea purchase.
Curious about how to brew tea after breaking the cake? Check out our guide on How to Use Gaiwan to Brew Tea｜3-Finger Method and elevate your tea experience.
