Puerh Edition The production & Processing of Puerh Tea Wu De We’ll be turning back to this article as time passes; it’s an excellent reference for how puerh tea is made. And understanding all that goes into this amazing tea furthers our appreciation of puerh. It is indeed a vast world! From forest to farm and from farm to factory, we follow the tea on its journey to our bowls. 茶道 uerh is unique amongst all growth tea is by far the better of these Tea, and lack many of the qualities P the genres of tea because the two. This refers to older trees. There that make puerh so special, as we importance of the raw material far is some debate about what consti- discussed in our article about this outweighs any processing skill. The tutes “old-growth” since tea trees in month’s tea. quality of most oolongs, for exam- Yunnan can range from dozens to ple, is determined as much by the thousands of years old. Arbitrarily, we Rough Tea (Mao Cha 毛茶) source of the leaves as by the skill of think that when a tea tree becomes a the one processing the tea. The val- centenarian (100 years), it can rightly All puerh tea begins with ue of puerh, on the other hand, is be called “old-growth”. Old-growth mao cha (毛茶), which translates as ninety percent in the trees. There are tea can then be subdivided into “rough tea”. Mao cha refers to the many kinds of tea trees in Yunnan trees that are wild or those that were finished leaf as it leaves the farm to and the source determines the value planted by people. Though planted be sold directly to factories small and of the tea. What village a tea comes by man, the latter are often indistin- large, or independently at market. from and which trees will decide its guishable from the former as they are Tea at this stage has been plucked value, in other words. Of course, both found in small gardens in the by hand, wilted, fried to remove the there is also plenty of dishonesty in heart of the forest. In fact, you would raw flavor (called sa“ chin” 殺青), the puerh world: material picked in have difficulty picking the trees out kneaded (ro nien, 揉捻), and dried. one region and then taken to a more from their surroundings without the These processes need to occur almost expensive one to be sold as native help of a guide. Another subdivision immediately after the tea has been tea, young trees sold as old trees, could be called “ecologically-farmed plucked, which is why they are done etc. This means producers and con- old-growth”, which refers to old trees directly at the farm rather than at the sumers have to be able to distinguish planted in gardens closer to villages factory. the differences between regions and and/or homesteads. Some people also Most varieties of tea include types of leaves. like to have a category for 1,000+year- all the same stages of processing as Puerh trees can roughly be old trees as well, calling them by that puerh, though unlike puerh, the divided into two main categories, name or maybe “ancient trees”. final processing often ends there and though it is useful to understand Plantation puerh (tai di cha) the loose-leaf tea is then packaged some of the subdivisions as well: is far inferior and often not organic. right at the farm. (Some oolongs old-growth (gu shu, 古樹) and plan- The trees there might even be several were traditionally finished at shops, tation tea (tai di cha, 台地茶). Old- decades old, but they aren’t Living as well. The shop owners would do 15 Puerh Is a Genre in Its Own Right Puerh tea is sometimes put into the black tea category (remember, this isn’t red tea, which is mistakenly called “black tea” in the West), but it should actually have a category all its own. Tra- ditionally, all puerh was fermented before con- sumption, whether artificially in the case of shou or naturally over time in the case of sheng. As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, tea lovers back in the day considered new, sheng puerh as “unfinished” and rarely drank it, except to see how it was aging. Therefore, all puerh tea was fermented and fit nicely into the black tea genre, which is catego- rized by post-production fermentation. These days, however, much more sheng puerh is consumed young than old. And since sheng puerh vastly overshadows shou in quantity the final roasting to suit their tastes.) and sold some of their and in historicity (shou only dates back to the six- Puerh, on the other hand, often trav- teas loose, though not as ties or seventies), sheng obviously typifies puerh els to a factory for final processing: much as compressed tea. tea. compression into cakes if it is raw, Although some of the tea One solution to this change in tea produc- sheng puerh or piling and then com- that was sold loose was tion/consumption would be to put young, sheng pression if it is ripe, shou puerh. fine quality, most of it puerh in the green tea category and aged sheng Some varieties of puerh are was considered inferior. along with shou in the black tea category. But also destined to become loose leaf. At We have a huge that seems much more confusing than just giving the start, that means that they remain collection of loose-leaf puerh tea its own genre. We think that since it’s “mao cha”, but once they are aged, puerh tea here. In fact, the oldest tea, and from the birthplace of all tea, they are technically no longer “rough we have so much that we puerh deserves its own genre! tea”. So an aged, loose-leaf puerh have also become collec- shouldn’t really be called “mao cha”. tors of rare antique jars to Traditionally, these loose teas store it all in. Loose-leaf were the ones that were grown at puerh, no matter how old, is always shape, leaf color or size, compres- smaller farms that didn’t have con- cheaper than puerh compressed into sion, etc. On the other hand, very tracts with any factory—often from cakes. One reason for this is that the few aged loose-leaf teas are pure. so-called “Border Regions” where cakes have an easily-verified vintage. Most of them are blends. Some were Yunnan borders Laos, Vietnam or Though there are fakes, experts have blended during production, though Myanmar. Such teas were then sold developed systems of identifying more often, tea was added later on to at market, traded between farmers them, using a combination of fac- increase the quantity of an aged tea. or bought and stored by collectors. tors from a kind of “wrapperology”, Sometimes blends of wet and drier- You can’t be certain, however, that which identifies characteristic marks, stored teas, or even sheng and shou a loose-leaf puerh is a Border Tea, color changes, etc., in the printing of are mixed to make a tea seem older as the big factories also packaged the wrappers to the cake itself—its than it is. When drinking aged loose- 16 Puerh Edition leaf puerh, it is a good idea to only place outdoors and indoors. The tea erations of experience the farmers rank them relative to other loose-leaf is withered outdoors for some time can tell by appearance and feel when puerhs, rather than believing in the and then placed in a well-ventilated the leaves are sufficiently cooked, date the merchant has given. While room, often shared by members of a and their timing is as impeccable some loose-leaf puerhs do have a dis- particular farming village. as any time/temperature-controlled tinct vintage, most are blends. Look- The heating process/firingsa ( machine elsewhere. Scientifically, ing at the wet leaves after steeping chin) is literally performed to remove the process is removing certain green will also verify this. the raw flavor of the tea leaf. This enzymes within the leaf that lend it Beyond that, cakes have been occurs in the production of most all the raw flavor, which in some variet- found to have more Qi than loose kinds of tea (except white tea, which ies is too bitter to be drunk. As we’ll leaf puerh, so that if the same tea categorically skips this process). In discuss later, the sa chin of puerh is were left loose and processed into a Yunnan, the heating process is still less-pronounced than in many other discus (bing, 餅), for example, and often done by hand in large wood- kinds of teas. then aged for thirty years, the cake fired woks. The temperature must After the leaves are fried they would have more Qi than the loose remain constant and the leaves have are kneaded (ro nien). This process leaf. Having done several experi- to be continuously turned to pre- also occurs by hand on most puerh ments where we stored the same vent any singeing. In larger farms, farms or villages near old trees. A exact tea from the same farm in both though not often in Yunnan, this is special technique is used to knead loose leaf and cake form, we can say done in large barrel-like machines the leaves like dough. This bruises for sure that the compressed teas age that spin around like a clothes drier. the leaves and breaks apart their cel- better, and not just in terms of Qi.