Why Puerh is my favourite tea, and why you should try it!
- Harvey Cocks
- Feb 10, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 1, 2020
Puerh is one of those teas out there that in my opinion is the most interesting, dynamic and of course delicious. Today I am going to go over a little bit about Puerh, why I love Puerh so much and to finish off, talk about its history.
Disclaimer:
Links at the end of this post are affiliate links, this means that if you make a purchase through any of the links shown within this blog post, I will earn a commission for each sale. My honesty to my audience is a priority and thus why this disclaimer is in place.
So, firstly for those out there who don't know, Puerh is a type of tea that is vastly popular in Asian countries like Japan and China and is known to be one of the most expensive teas out there due to the fact of its unique features that goes into making the tea and of course the taste of it.
Puerh is a fermented tea and this is the key to what makes Puerh tea different compared to other types of teas. Fermentation in tea is essentially oxidizing the leaves over a period of time, and in return by extending how long the leaves are being oxidized, it depends on the type of Puerh that it is and this then concludes to affecting the taste and quality.
There are two types of Puerh as a tea, there is raw and ripe. Raw is as it sounds, it Puerh begins as raw and can be sold just like that with no fermentation but processing to the leaves are still done. Ripe is the opposite and is aged over years and years to be fermented and creates a different kind of taste to the tea and thus becomes its own category of Puerh.
The fermentation of processing Puerh teas into either raw and ripe starts off by pan-frying the leaves, then rolling the leaves, sun drying them and then you have loose raw Puerh tea which can be pressed into a cake and sold, or the loose raw Puerh tea is aged and it becomes a ripe tea by mold growing over time in the leaves as you would age some other food products. Below is a diagram to help those get a better idea.
What's really cool about Puerh is, not only can you just buy it in loose leaf form, but usually, to buy some you will buy it in a "cake" form, which as shown below in the images. It does look quite dodgy but is simply just tea leaves compressed into a disc shape to help retain the flavour and taste of the leaves. The process of this is by steaming the Puerh tea leaves and then compressing them mechanically by using a flat press and mould, sometimes in a bag and sometimes not to help keep the leaves together. When you buy a cake, you use a blunt knife or a special tea knife to cut away at the leaves and use them as you wish in your teaware.
So now onto why I love Puerh so much!
Firstly, Puerh tastes fantastic! I personally prefer raw over ripe due to the tasting notes of raw Puerhs being very refreshing, sometimes slightly bitter and earthy in tasting notes. Whilst ripe Puerhs are also nice, they have quite a dark, rich and bold taste to them which can be quite daunting at first for newcomers but it depends on what kind of tea mood you are in.
Secondly, the entire processing gone into the tea and knowing that you are holding something that has been aged for years or fermented is just fascinating to me! I love it when you can see and have something that has a history to it in itself and that comes with every tea out there but Puerh more so!
Finally, the packaging and premium quality/feel that comes with owning Puerh tea cakes. Usually as shown below in some images, you can see some packaging that most Puerh tea cakes are wrapped in, which depends on the shop and seller or manufacturer however in most cases some companies will draw art on their packaging to represent the kind of Puerh you are trying.
Mei Leaf Puerh Tea Cakes, on the left, is "Pendulum Meddler" and on the right is "Pollen Provider"! Links are down below if you want to buy them!
Now to finish off, let's have a quick look into the history of Puerh tea!
Raw Puerh tea has been around for years and years, however, Ripe tea was actually invented and developed into its own category of Puerh teas back in 1973 by the Kunming Tea Factory which created and discovered the fermentation process of Puerh teas in proceeding to be ripe.
Puerh tea in itself was actually named after a town called Pu-erh located in central Yunnan and was the selling destination from all nearby tea mountains to be delivered into the town and then to be sold or traded.
Finally, Puerh tea is very much compared with wine, as the age grows, over the years it improves the quality and taste of the leaves and in some cases, in the past years, Puerh tea has become so expensive based on the age of the cakes that a 357 gram 1950's Red Chop Puerh tea cake now sells for over $10k.
So there you go! Now you know why I like Puerh so much and why you should give it a go! Puerh in itself is my favourite type of tea and will always have a special place in my heart!
If you want to purchase some of the products shown in today's blog here are the links (non-affiliate):
Affiliate Links:
Puerh Teas from Art of Tea -
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