What is Pu-erh Tea?

It’s a little complicated to answer. Pu-erh tea (普洱茶 pǔ'ěr chá) - also spelled puer, pu'er, puerh - pronounced 'pooh-err/arr' is many different things to many different people. It’s an anthropologically loaded beverage. History, ecology, philosophy compressed and weaponised into discs or bricks for our (in)convenience. 

It’s a drug, a cure, a problem, a comforting solution. It’s iridescent green-then-orange-then-dark-ruby-red; concentrated and distilled plant matter and bioactive compounds; volatile to the void of time and place. It's simultaneously a stimulant, a depressant, and an olfactory and cognitive agitator of significant power. 

It’s also incredibly delicious.

Tender buds and recently unfurled leaves are a common sight during spring in Yunnan.

ORIGINS OF PU-ERH TEA

Many years ago, pu-erh tea was a nobody. A regional, rural, rustic tea made and drunk by farmers in Yunnan, with the status of cheap export commodity. Mass amounts were exported across mainland China, as well as significant amounts to Hong Kong and Taiwan. People in these hot and humid environments soon noticed that pu-erh tea, if left alone for a few years,  would change dramatically. What initially seemed akin to a green tea would grow to become thicker and richer when brewed, with a deep brown liquid more similar to coffee than fresh tea. 

Bit by bit, demand for this dark tea grew until eventually a pu-erh production factory in Yunnan invented wet-pile fermentation as a means to replicating aged characteristics in fresh pu-erh without the usual lengthy timespan required under regular storage conditions. 

In short, wet-piling emerged as a means to keeping up with and meeting growing consumer demand for dark tea. But the real drama began when some foreign tea junkies showed up in remote parts of Yunnan scratching for more, with tea that had been stored in relatively drier conditions. Not so dark and opaque, but more soft orange to red or brown in colour. 

The taste was unlike anything else - complex, sweet, engaging. They began to revive local production in the old style before the dominance of big factories. Parallel to this, they also began discovering the impressive natural resources of remote southern Yunnan - tea trees left to grow wild in the forest with minimal intervention, often for tens to hundreds of years. 

Over the next 20 years, pu-erh tea rose spectacularly in price and fame. Many factors were involved in that saga and for those interested in it we highly recommend Jinghong Zhang's seminal work, 'Puer tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic' (2014) for a thoroughly engaging exploration of pu-erh tea’s history. Despite the bursting of the pu-erh bubble in 2007, the tea continues to be a complex, mysterious, ever-fluid, and above all incredibly delicious and unique experience.

DEFINING PU-ERH TEA

At the most basic level, pu-erh tea a type of tea that's made from large-leaf varietal Camellia Sinensis Assamica tea trees growing in Yunnan, China. In order to be considered true pu-erh, the tea must be sun-dried as this crucial processing step allows the tea's fragrance and flavour to deepen over time through purposeful storage. This ability to 'age' through storage is what makes pu-erh tea so distinctive in the wider realm of Chinese teas.

Sun-drying tea is integral to producing pu-erh tea as the slow and gentle dehydration  allows small numbers of microbes within the tea leaves to survive. These residual microbes will go on to flourish and establish colonies. As these colonies slowly eat away at organic matter in the tea cake, they leave behind organic by-products that lay the foundation for other microbial populations to emerge. 

This process - known as microbial ripening - results in a gradual transformation of the tea's compounds. Over time, fungal bacterial, and enzymatic activity will morph the tea's initial character leaving the tea with a uniquely 'aged' fragrance and flavour profile. 

In addition to storage and ageing, it's important to recognise that there are many, many  other factors that influence how a pu-erh tea smells, tastes, and feels. Different microclimates and growing conditions in Yunnan give rise to distinct region-specific tastes. For example, teas produced from neat rows of plantation bushes taste wildly different to wild growing old trees in the forest. Moreover, flavours can and often do vary greatly from mountain to mountain, village to village, and season to season. 

It turns out that when you just let tea trees do their thing over many years, the resulting teas are unpredictably unique and very difficult to reproduce. The endless permutations of base material, storage conditions, and the age of the tea make for a captivating pursuit of delicious and potent liquid.

THE TWO TYPES OF PU-ERH TEA

Raw (生 shēng) pronounced 'sheng' or 'sheung' pu-erh tea is tea that's either ‘young’ or ‘aged’.

These terms are very loose; but one might consider a young raw pu-erh tea to be around 1 to 7 years old, and aged tea from about 7 years and older. The flavour and appearance of aged raw pu-erh depends on how hot and humid the storage conditions were. Raw pu-erh tea can be brewed and enjoyed in all its stages - from freshly made to carefully aged - though many people prefer aged tea.

Perhaps controversially, some people don’t even consider pu-erh tea to be ‘real’ pu-erh tea until it has aged a certain amount. As a counterpoint, it is important to recognise that for most of its history pu-erh tea was not aged on purpose and it continues to be brewed and enjoyed when young by the people who produce it. 

At its best, young raw pu-erh is a balance of bitter, sweet, complex, and refreshing. Aged raw pu-erh can turn out many ways but most agree it tends to become smoother, sweeter, darker, and more complex, with all kinds of flavours and fragrances completely unique to the ageing process.


Ripe (熟 shú) pronounced 'show' or 'shoe' pu-erh tea is tea that has undergone an additional processing step known as wet-pile fermentation.

Wet-pile fermentation of raw pu-erh material turns the tea into ripe pu-erh. Going from raw to ripe dramatically changes the tea's character. Initially this process came about as an economical way to replicate the characteristics of aged raw pu-erh tea, as ageing tea through long-term storage requires significant time and financial cost along with obvious risk of spoilage. However, people soon realised that while wet-piling raw pu-erh tea made it much darker and smoother very quickly, it didn't quite replicate the complexity of a ‘naturally’ aged raw pu-erh tea and so wet-piled tea came to be known and enjoyed in its own right as a distinct type of tea. 

Interestingly, ripe pu-erh tea can also be aged through intentional storage, but to much less effect than a raw pu-erh. Ageing ripe pu-erh allows the tea to essentially dry out and shed residual volatile compounds that were leftover from microbial activity. These volatile  compounds are responsible for ripe pu-erh tea's distinctly funky aroma and earthy flavour. As these organic compounds dry out of the tea, they leave behind a subtler and more refined fragrance and flavour profile. 

Generally speaking, the main purpose of ripe pu-erh is to produce tea that's low in astringency, dark in colour, rich in body, and ready to drink right away. Owing to the intense conditions of wet-piling, ripe pu-erh tea is distinctly rich and smooth with a dark chocolate sweetness, in comparison to the more multilayered fragrance and flavour profile of aged raw pu-erh, which tends towards notes of fragrant wood incense, traditional herbal medicine, and wild honey.

UNIQUE QUALITIES

There are many delicious teas, but pu-erh tea has a particular quality that is hard to elucidate without drinking it; it is intense in all the right ways. It is divisive. People either love it or hate it. Many people are exposed to low quality ripe pu-erh and write the whole category off as composted fish garbage or rotting leaf matter.

But there’s a ladder.

The good stuff drives obsession; tea that is intense but enjoyable, lively, electric-feeling, unctuous. It tingles a certain part of the brain that keeps you coming back for a smack around the mouth that most other teas just don't provide to the same level. And this is ignoring the other, much more complicated and controversial side of pu-erh; the chaqi (茶气 chá qì) or what we might simply call, the experience tea provides  - other than taste - in the form of somatic and cognitive sensations. That's a whole other article.

To make a perhaps not apt and probably inflammatory metaphor; pu-erh tea is like whisky, if other teas are like beer. Pu-erh tea is morphine, if other teas are ibuprofen. It has all the appeal of wine; terroir, varietals, processing, vintages, aging, but you can drink it any hour and as much as you like, and the worst side effect is perhaps you’ll pee a lot or maybe become weirdly introspective (see: tea drunk). 

If you examine pu-erh tea on a purely self-indulgent basis, there's an argument to be made that pu-erh offers the drinker a more sensual, socially engaging, and longer-lasting brewing and drinking experience than that of alcohol and coffee. The cost-per-gram to resultant body-feel of pu-erh means it's also cheaper than most legal and illicit substances... not that we're experts.

A variety of epiphytic plants including orchids, hoya, lichen, and moss grow abundantly on an older tea tree's branches in Yunnan.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

If it isn't clear yet, pu-erh tea and its surrounding fanfare is as lively as it's combative at times; so take everything with a grain of your favourite pharmaceutical grade salt, including -  if not especially - what you read from us.

If you want to see what pu-erh is all about for yourself, we recommend exploring our entire collection of teas.

If you have any questions about our pu-erh teas, reach out and we can guide you.

We're strongly in favour of (and heartily advise) researching different viewpoints when it comes to all things pu-erh tea related. Below are some of our top picks and resources for learning more about pu-erh tea.

Zhang, J. (2014) Puer Tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic. USA: University of Washington Press.

Babelcarp Tea Lexicon

Piles of recently brewed fresh raw pu-erh tea leaves are left to strain on a metal tray, a common sight for us each year in the spring tea season.