Just miles from the border of Laos and Burma, is an area known as Xishuangbanna in Yunnan Province. This rugged country is known for producing China’s most mysterious tea: Pu Er.It’s mysterious and fascinating because of the unusual method of processing, the fact that it gets better with age (20-30 year old Pu Er is smooth and expensive), its unusual molded shapes (circular rounds, bell-shapes, small nubbins shaped like small mushrooms, and rectangular bricks), and its magical ability to reduce cholesterol. Yunnan Province is in southwest China, and its 20 million people are separated by the steep mountains that rise up sharply, similar to the famous limestone karst peaks of Guilin. Pu Er tea is named for the Pu Er area where the tea has long been traded and sold. The village markets are a fascinating scene, for unlike elsewhere in China, where most farmers dress in the same green Mao coats and yellow straw hats, one sees numerous minority peoples speaking different languages and wearing black tunics embroidered with brilliant reds and pinks. The tea they produce and sell in these markets is the mysterious Pu Er tea. Here are the facts you need to know. After the tea is picked, it is fired in large dry woks to stop oxidation. This tea is then slowly oxidized through dry storage natural aging, or quickly oxidized through wet storage fast aging, or undergoes “wo dui” oxidation, where the tea is piled in a warm room and covered with a damp cloth. Yunnan Pu Er (stronger tasting, good for multiple infusions) Organic Pu Er (mild, slightly sweet tea) Pu Er Tuo Cha (tiny nests of compressed tea) ________________________________________________________________________ Pu Er can be categorized as follows: Shou (mature) Pu Er: Green tea is oxidized quickly by piling in heaps and covering with a damp cloth in a hot room. This is the “wo dui” method, and generates heat within the pile just as piles of damp leaves do in the fall. (Another method is to store the tea in a damp room for a long period of time (called wet storage), but this often creates molds which many consider unhealthy.) Pu Er is either pressed and steamed into molds or sold as a loose tea. The pressed tea is shaped into bricks, round “nests” or into round wheels. In recent years it’s been popular to even press Chinese words into the tea. The processing of Pu Er tea is unique, and we wonder if it began when teas were pressed into bricks or rounds to be transported on horses long distances to Tibet and Central Asia. Along the way, the heat and dampness of the animals may have triggered an oxidation, which resulted in a smooth tea that got better with age. Although people in Yunnan and Tibet boil pieces of tea in a pot and add milk and a little salt, you might not find that recipe very appealing. Pu Er tea can be appreciated like oolong tea by brewing in tiny teapots with very short, multiple infusions. Or you can steep in mugs or larger teapots as well. Experiment with different aged teas (10 years old is mellow, 20 years is even better!), and try different amounts of tea and steeping times. The liquor of good Pu Er tea is chestnut brown and clear (not muddy). If you have pressed Pu Er, break off pieces of tea and steep. Some Pu Er lovers will steam the pressed tea first for about three minutes, break up the softened tea, and allow to dry for a couple of hours (in the shade) and store the loose tea in a container. Unlike most tea, Pu Er can be stored in a loose jar without losing flavor. In fact, a little air helps the tea to continue to age and mellow. With all honesty, the flavor of Pu Er tea is definitely an acquired taste. Reminiscent of the smell of damp earth or moss, only a few will really learn to appreciate Pu Er tea. But if it really does help digestion (that’s why it’s the preferred tea served in Cantonese dim sum restaurants), and reduces cholesterol levels in your blood, it’s certainly worth giving it a try. |
Archive for the ‘Pu'erh Tea’ Category
The Mysterious World of Pu Er Tea
Water, Temperature & Tea
Water quality is very important to a good cup of tea.
Tap water should be filtered with a Brita or Everpure filter to avoid chemical or other bad flavors. Hard water makes bad tea, so if you are out camping, you might want to bring your own water. Soft water or pH 7 water is best for green teas, and pH 7.9 for most teas. Temperature
A rolling boil is usually needed to bring out the full flavor of teas, but lower temps are recommended for green teas to avoid bitterness. Sometimes you can allow boiling water to sit for a minute to cool down, or you can splash a little cold water into the kettle. Try using a thermometer to get a better understanding. After awhile, you’ll develop an innate feeling for when the water is ready.
Temperature Scale
(Based on Tang Dynasty tea scholar Lu Yu)
Fish Eyes: 160-180° F.
Tiny bubbles begin to float to the surface. Ideal for delicate green teas.
String of Pearls: 180-190° F.
Strings of bubbles connect bottom of kettle with surface. Good for most green teas.
Turbulent Waters: 190-210° F.
A rolling boil. Best for black and oolong teas.
Tea Tasting 101
Tea tasting, like wine tasting, pays attention to similar factors: sight, smell, taste and touch.
Usually, a tea tester works for a large tea factory or is involved in buying. They test several teas of the same type, such as Ceylon teas from the same estate. The tester looks at three things: the dry leaf (appearance and feel), the liquor (color, flavor and aroma), and the wet, freshly brewed tea leaf. At home, you can simplify tea tasting by comparing two Darjeelings. Or for fun, invite a friend or two and hold your own tasting. 1) Dry Leaf
You can tell a lot about a tea by first examining the dry leaves. Gently press some dry leaves in your hand. Most new teas are a little springier and less likely to crumble than an older teas. Look for fibers, dust or stalks and note the leaf size. With some experience, you will notice whether the leaf appears shiny and fresh, or dull and stale. Buy a good quality tea and pay attention to its dry appearance as well as its smell. Remember your impression.
2) Infuse & Examine Leaf
Measure a level teaspoon of each sample into infuser. Use white or clear cups to view the truest color. Begin your analysis of the infused leaves as the cups are filled. Smaller flat leaves will show more body than larger twisted leaves, which take longer to steep. Steep the teas for a fixed time, generally three to five minutes.
3) Color of Liquor
After steeping, take in the aroma of the tea and examine the infused leaves for color and evenness. Color does not necessarily indicate the strength or body of the liquor, but every tea has a unique look, taste, and feel peculiar to that tea.
4) Tasting
Now you’re ready to taste the tea. Take a spoonful of the liquid to your lower lip and slurp with force to ensure that the tea is sprayed over the entire tongue. Move the tea around in your mouth, sucking in more short bursts of air in order to release more delicate characteristics. This step is important since we taste bitterness at the back of the tongue, saltiness in the middle, sweetness in the front and sourness on the sides of the tongue. If you were working in a tea factory testing room, you would spit the tea into a waist-high spittoon and move on to the next tea.
It may be difficult to describe your findings at first, but after sampling many teas you will begin to notice similarities and differences in color, taste and smell. Many teas have a typical “character” or flavor profile. You may want to start a notebook to record your impressions.
Tea Vocabulary
Select a few words from the list below to expand your descriptive vocabulary of tea.
Dry Leaf (un-steeped tea)
Desirable characteristics: Curly, wiry, neat, blackish, bloom, clean, leafy, nose, tip, well twisted.
Undesirable characteristics: Mushy, ragged, grey, dull, light, uneven.
Infused Leaf
Desirable: bright, coppery, smooth, self drinking, full, rich, soothing, smokey.
Undesirable: dull, dark, tarry.
Liquor/Brew
Desirable: body (light, medium, or full), bright, brisk, character, point, pungent, quality, strength, flavor, full, mature, self-drinking (does not need to be blended with other teas)
Undesirable: baggy, bakey, bitter, brassy, burned, coarse, common, dry, dull, musty, plain, raw, soft, stewed, tainted, weedy, thin, earthy, empty, hard, harsh, heavy, lacking, green (referring to black tea).
How to Brew (Steep) Tea
Steeping Tea Guidelines
Green Tea is best when brewed at a lower temperature. Let the boiled water cool on the stove for a minute or two, or splash a little cold water in the teapot or kettle, or just fill cold teapot or mug and add tea (no pre-heating). |
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Good tea is not expensive!
Keep in mind that a pound of tea makes 180-200 cups. Therefore, a $6.00 bag of tea makes 50 cups (33 mugs) at a cost of .12 per cup.
The Key to Tea- Oxidation
By Jason Dalrymple
Not many people realize that Green, White, Oolong, Black and Pu’Erh teas all come from one plant. It seems hard to imagine this is true when each type of tea tastes so much different from the others. The differences in taste, color, smell, and appearance come from the different processing techniques that make each tea unique although the main difference in each tea is the amount of oxidation it goes through.
Oxidation happens when the enzymes in the leaf are exposed to oxygen in the air after the cells of the leaf are broken in the rolling process. Many people are familiar with oxidation and may not even know it: when you bite into an apple and it turns brown, when the leaves fall in the autumn and turn brown as well; these are both examples of oxidation. The enzymes that are released initiate the oxidation process and the more the leaf is handled, crushed, and curled, the more quickly it will change color. Oxidation is stopped by heating the leaves, or firing them, and when the enzymes are heated the oxidation process winds down and is no longer sustained. Here’s a quick guide to the oxidation levels in each of the five teas:
White tea: Completely air dried, unprocessed and no oxidation
Green tea: (Chinese) Pan-fired to stop oxidation completely before it starts
(Japanese) Steamed to stop oxidation completely before it starts
Oolong tea: Partially oxidized
Pu’erh tea: Can be oxidized or non-oxidized and aged and fermented
How to Make a Great Cup of Tea
Many people ask how to make the perfect cup of tea but this question is relative to people’s taste so it is always tough to answer. Perhaps with more knowledge about what affects the taste of a cup of tea, you can experiment and find your own perfect cup.
Infusing tea is a matter of water, tea, temperature and time. The temperature of the water and the time will be determined by the type of tea and the size of the leaf. The flavor of the cup can be changed by adjusting the amount of tea, the temperature of the water and the amount of infusion time. You can use the following table as a guide to start out making whole leaf tea:
Black- 5 minutes at 205-210 degrees Fahrenheit
Oolong- 3 minutes at 175-195 degrees Fahrenheit
Japanese Green- 2 minutes at 160-175 degrees Fahrenheit
Chinese Green- 3 minutes at 170-180 degrees Fahrenheit
White- 3 minutes at 185 degrees Fahrenheit
The above table assumes 3 grams of tea with 8 ounces of water. If you aren’t able to strictly monitor the temperature of the water, you should know that 205-210 is just below boiling and for anything less, you can either let the water sit for a few minutes after it boils or you can add some cool water to bring the temperature down immediately
Tips To Store Tea
Green tea can be stored longer than other teas and still keep its original taste. But here are some more tips to stretch the freshness even longer. The tea should be stored in a closed aluminum or tin cans. The cans should be placed in cool and dark place. Keep the tea away from any radiation, light, and heat source such as oven, heat, and microwaves. The light and the heat can possibly change the taste of your tea.
We usually think that heat goes with Dry. But actually heat goes with humidity. It’s cold that goes with dry. So if there is a excess amount of heat, the tea go moldy due to the moisture that is released into the air. The refrigerator is a cool place but it’s not a good place for storing green tea. Besides moisture, tea is also sensitive to the fragrances of other foods, like onions or other herbs.
When serving tea, be sure to clean and dry the spoon before you use it to scoop the tea. A little water could ruin the whole can.
A good idea may be to store your bulk tea in smaller containers so you don’t ruin your entire lot if something goes wrong in your storage or use. You’ll thank yourself when you throw away the small container and still have the rest to use!
One last thing to keep in mind is to make sure the lid of the container you are using is tightly closed. It’s not a great feeling when you are cautious with everything else but find out later that the tea is still ruined because you forgot to close the lid…tightly.
Mr. Pham has great interest in tea, herbs, and their health benefits. He has created Nature Healthy Tea to share his knowledge on simple yet healthy tea drink.
Camelia Sinensis: The Tea Plant
By Jason Dalrymple
Name the five types of teas… Green, White, Oolong, Black, and Pu’erh. Now, what do these five teas all have in common? They all come from the Camelia Sinensis Plant and in fact, any drink that doesn’t come from the Camelia Sinensis plant is actually not considered tea, it would be considered a tisane or herbal infusion. Considering that tea is the second most popular beverage in the world, behind water, it’s surprising most people don’t know more about this amazing plant.
The Camelia Sinensis, or tea plant, is native to
When grown commercially, tea plants are placed close to each other with 1500 to 5500 being planted in an acre of land. These tea plant farms are often called estates or tea gardens and can be grown on plots of land as little as a quarter acre by a family or on hundreds of acres and maintained by a village of workers. The tea plants are typically ready to be harvested when they are five to seven years old and can be plucked for over 100 years.
Within this category of plant, Camelia Sinensis, there are different varietals that lend themselves to making tea. Within these varietals, there are two that are the most prevalent, Camelia Sinensis Sinensis and Camelis Sinensis Assamica. The first one, Camelis Sinensis Sinensis, has a smaller leaf and is indigenous to