The puerh tea knife

For anyone who didn't know the answer to yesterday's pop quiz, this is a puerh tea knife!

I was looking up tea knives on eBay one day — the pretty, antique silver kind you use with scones — when I came across this different kind of tea knife, and it immediately struck me that why yes, we do indeed need a "puerh knife" for breaking off bits of puerh tea, which often comes in compressed "cakes" or "nests" of tea leaves. I happen to like puerh, but I do understand that this particular tea doesn't suit everyone.

There were several different varieties of these puerh knives on eBay, including a pretty wooden one with beads dangling from the handle, if that's more your style.

As you can see, once the tea is steeped the leaves look like any other tea leaves you've steeped yourself. This puerh is a Fengqing Raw Puerh Cake Tea sample from Teavivre, and you can see what the entire cake looks like here. So if any of you have some little nests or cakes of puerh tea sitting around, I highly recommend getting yourself a puerh tea knife!