I have a love hate relationship with “foodie” mags like Food & Wine. I flip through them like you would a fashion rag or an issue of US Magazine at the airport. Flip, flip, flip, flip. Like popcorn. A little blurb on my new toothpaste catches my eye…..and so does the little ditty next to it.

You know those 1/3 page product splash-ad/plugs? This one mentions the p’ uerh tea and a very expensive tea room in Chicago. As usual, they take a Robin Leach kind of approach and dwell on how expensive the tea can be, rather than give much good info.

Tea is another obsession of mine, so I thought I’d champion this lovely and amazing tea that doesn’t cost you a lot of money. Despite what the tight ass “foodie” trend whores tell you.

P’ uerh is the more correct spelling, but there are variations. Likely, Pu-erh is what you’ll see at the tea shop or Chinatown. This tea is from the Yunnan province of China, but I won’t get into the myriad details. Tea snobs are worse than wine snobs, by half.

This tea is sold in cake form, most common in ancient China. The leaves are steamed, then dried. The damp green tea leaves are allowed to oxidize to a black leaf. Some people call this fermentation, but it’s not. If you don’t dry the tea leaves fast enough, they oxidize–that’s the difference between green and black tea. It’s more like what happens when you compost (all the people in the Northwest say, “heeeey!”) or malt barley–but more controlled. So the extent to which a tea oxidizes determines it’s end flavor. Pu-erh tea can also be aged, which further develops its flavor. Think of it as the Madeira of tea. It’s the aged versions of Pu-erh that costs the benjamins.

Everyday Pu-erh is on the lighter side of the black teas, like Oolong. It has a soft earthiness, but it’s also smooth and nutty. Think of a beer that’s more malt than barley and hops. Think of a perfectly aged brown sherry. Most of all think of almond butter. I love my genmaicha green tea, but when I want something softer, but still with a bit of toasty flavor, I drink pu-erh.

Pu-erh is a medicinal tea, helpful with the digestive system and loaded with the darling of the medical community: antioxidents! I get 8 small, gumdrop-sized cakes for $1.85 at my tea shop in the International District. Each cake can be steeped several times (3 or 4). Go to a trendy tea shop and you could pay as much as $1.00 for a small cake. If they look like those in the picture above , they are common, lightly aged pu-erh. But the Food & Wine blurb horribly misleads people into thinking this tea is/must/should be expensive, so beware of price gauging.