What is Pu Erh Tea?
What is Pu Erh:
Pu Erh:Loose and Tea Cake
*tea fermentation is in fact oxidation where oxygen plays an active part.
Pu Erh is a post-fermentation* tea originated from Yunan Province. There are two types of Pu Erh, raw and tamed, result from natural and accelerated post-fermentation* respectively.
[Official Definition by Bureau of Standard Measurement of Yunnan Province (English translation): Pu Erh is a speciality tea made from a large leaf tea shrub called Camellia Sinisis Assamica, that grow in certain parts of Yunnan Province, it's a post-fermentation tea developed from local Yunnan sun-dried green tea. It is either in loose or compressed form.]
Just as the saying goes: a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, Pu Erh tea existed long before it was so called, with a history of over 1700 years. The name Pu Erh tea came into being only in Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Pu Erh was in fact the name of a district in sourthern Yunnan at Ming Dynasty, the place was famous for the production and trade of this speciality tea, it played a significant role for traders at the time that they named the commodity after the place.
How it is processed:
Pu Erh tea can be found in either loose leaf tea or compressed forms (usually round cakes of various diameters), compressed Pu Er are more common for easier storage and handling. The tea has a unique character that is not shared with any other type of tea: it improves with age. Pu Erh production contains some long guarded secrets. From what are available to publics, the basic process of making is as following:
- 1. Heating - deactivate enzymes in fresh leaves to reduce oxidation in next step.
- 2. Rolling - shape the tea, bruise cells to allow mixing of ingredients and chemical reactions thereafter.
- 3. Drying - normally are sun-dried to obtain a unique feature and facilitate post-fermentation. After this step, the tea is called Yunnan Sun Dried Green Tea, which is the raw material for Pu Er.
- 4. Post Fermentation - there are two ways, one is traditional, which let nature plays its course; the other was introduced into mass production in 1973, the technique was called "pile", in this process teas are piled up in huge quantities, controlled under proper moisture and temperature for weeks or months, to induce microbe accelerated fermentation/oxidation.
Classification of Pu Er:
Differed by post-fermentation* methods, Pu Erh are classified into two categories: Raw (green) and Tamed:
Raw tea is Yunnan sun dried green teas, it can be either loose or compressed into desired shapes. The taste of raw tea is harsh; hence it needs to be stored for natural fermentation/oxidation to refine the taste. Usually raw tea takes at least 6-8 years to become matured (that is become well balanced and form the unique Pu Er taste). In order to enjoy the tea without lengthy waiting; accelerated fermentation was invented to produce tamed tea. Tamed tea undergoes "piled" process, and tastes smooth and mild. Still, tamed tea requires 3-5 years to be matured to present full characters of Pu Er.
Differed by plucking seasons, there are spring, summer and autumn tea, and spring Pu Er has the best quality of a whole year.
Aging and Storage:
Like wine, Pu Er enhances and refines with age. Many factors such as origin of estate, process skills and even sun shines jointly play their parts in forming the taste of the final products. Matured Pu Er has a liquor color like red wine, tastes very smooth with a characteristic earthy flavor, and has a lovely sweet aftertaste. It has very low caffeine contents as a result of intense reaction during long storage .
Proper storage is important to increase the value and taste. Pu Er should be kept in a clean, dry and well ventilated place without foreign smells, and avoid direct sunlight and raindrops. Air is vital for the natural post-fermentation* process that uplifts the quality, storage container shouldn't be air tight, and therefore earthenware is ideal.
Normally, aging plays bigger miracle in raw tea, raw tea becomes highly enjoyable after 10 years good keeping, 20~30 years could make a good quality raw cake a vintage Pu Er. Due to accelerated fermentation, tamed tea doesn't develop so significantly as raw ones, normally tamed tea reaches its peak around 8 years and would not develop further. Affected by year of production, blends of raw materials and other processing factors, aging of Pu Er doesn't have a unanimous standard, and needs experienced tasters to make judgments. In fact as time passes by, requests on the environment of storage becomes more stringent and difficult to achieve, any trivial negligence could result in spoil of the long stored tea.
Preparation:
China YiXing Purple Terra Cotta pot is highly recommended. Ceramic and porcelain tea-ware is also a good choice.
