Aside from
vintage year, Pu’er tea can be classified in a variety of
ways: by shape, processing
method, region, cultivation, grade, and season.
Shape
Pu’er is compressed into a
variety of shapes. Other lesser seen forms include, stacked "melon pagodas", pillars, calabashes, yuanbao,
and small bricks (2-5cm in width). Pu’er is also compressed into the hollow
centers of bamboo stems or packed and bound into a ball
inside the peel of various citrus.
Process and
oxidation
Although Pu’er teas are often collectively classified
in Western and East Asian tea markets as post-fermentation or black teas, respectively, Pu’er teas in actuality can be placed in
three types of processing methods, namely: green
tea, fermented tea,
and secondary-oxidation/fermentation
tea.
Pu’er can be green teas if
they are lightly processed before being pressed into cakes. Such Pu’er is referred to as maocha if unpressed and as "green/raw Pu’er" if pressed. While
not always palatable, they are relatively cheap and are known to age well for
up to 20 or 30 years. Pu’er can also be a fermented tea if it
undergoes slow processing with fermenting microbes for up to a year. This Pu’er is referred to as "ripened/cooked Pu’er", and has a mellow
flavour and is readily drinkable. Aged Pu’ers
are secondary-oxidation and post-fermentation teas. If aged from green Pu’er, the aged tea will be
mellow in taste but still clean in flavour.
According
to the production process, four main types of Pu’er are commonly available on the market:
·
Maocha: Green Pu’er leaves that are sold in loose form.
The raw material for making pressed Pu’ers.
Badly processed maocha will result in an inferior pu-erh.
·
Green/raw Pu’er: Pressed maocha that has not undergone additional
processing. Quality green Pu’er is highly sought by collectors.
·
Ripened/cooked Pu’er: Pressed maocha that has undergone fermentation in the
ripening process for up to a year. Badly fermented maocha will create a muddy
tea with fishy and sour flavours indicative of inferior aged Pu’ers.
·
Aged raw Pu’er: A tea that has
undergone a slow secondary oxidation and a certain degree of microbial
fermentation. Although all types of Pu’er can be aged, it is typically the
pressed raw Pu’ers that
are most highly regarded, since aged maocha and ripened Pu’er both lack a "clean" and
"assertive" taste.
Regions
Yunnan
Yunnan province produces the
vast majority of Pu’er tea. Indeed, the province is the
source of the tea's name, Pu'er Hani and Yi Autonomous County. Pu’er is produced in almost every county and
prefecture in the province, but the most famous Pu’er areas are known as the
Six Famous Tea Mountains (Chinese: 六大茶山; pinyin: liù dà chá
shān)
Six famous
tea mountains
The six
famous tea mountains are a group of mountains in Xishuangbanna that are renowned for their climates
and environments, which not only provide excellent growing conditions for Pu’er, but also produce unique
taste profiles (akin to terroir inwine) in the produced Pu’er tea. Over the course of history, the
designated mountains for the tea mountains have either been changed or listed differently.
In the Qing
dynasty government records for Pu’er (普洱府志), the oldest historically designated
mountains were said to be named after six commemorative items that were left in
the mountains by Zhuge Liang, and using the Chinese characters of
the native language of the region. These
mountains are all located northeast of the Lancang River (Mekong) in
relatively close proximity to one another. The mountains' names, in the Standard
Mandarin character
pronunciation are:
1. Gedeng (革登山):
The term for "leatherstirrup"
(马蹬,
pinyin: mǎdèng)
2. Mansa (慢撤山):
The term for "seed sowing bag" (撒袋,
pinyin: sǎdài)
3. Mangzhi (莽枝山):
The term for "coppercauldron"
(铜鉧,
pinyin: tóngmǔ) 1
4. Manzhuan (蠻磚山):
The term for ironbrick" (铁砖,
pinyin: tiězhuān)
5. Yibang(倚邦山):
The term for "wooden clapper" (木梆,
pinyin: mùbāng)
6. Yōulè (攸樂山):
The term meaning "copper gong" (铜锣,
pinyin: tóngluó)
Southwest
of the river there are also six famous tea mountains that are lesser known from ancient times due to their isolation by the river. They are:
1. Mengsong Shān (勐宋山):
2. Menghai Shān (勐海山):
3. Jingmai Shān (景迈山):
4. Nánnuò Shān (南糯山):
a varietal of tea grows here called zĭjuān (紫娟,
literally "purple lady") whose buds and bud leaves have a purple hue.
5. Bada Shān (巴达山):
For various
reasons, by the end of the Qing dynasty or beginning of the ROC period, tea production in these
mountains dropped drastically, either due to large forest fires,
over-harvesting, prohibitive imperial taxes, or general neglect. To revitalize tea production in the
area, the Chinese government in 1962 selected a new group of six
famous tea mountains that were named based on the more important tea producing
mountains at the time, including Youle mountain from the original six.
Other areas
of Yunnan
Many other
areas of Yunnan also produce pu-erh tea. Yunnan prefectures that are major
producers of Pu’er include Lincang, Dehong, Simao, Xishuangbanna,
andWenshan. Other tea
mountains famous in Yunnan include among others:
·
Bānzhāng Shān (班章山):
noted for producing powerful and complex teas that are bitter with a sweet
aftertaste
·
Yìwǔ Shān (易武山) :
perhaps the most popular tea mountain amongst collectors.
·
Bada Shān(巴達山):
·
Wuliang Shān:
·
Ailuo Shān:
·
Jinggu Shān:
·
Baoshan Shān:
·
Yushou Shān:
Region is
but one factor in assessing a Pu’er tea, and Pu’er from any region of Yunnan is as prized
as any from the six famous tea mountains if it meets other criteria, such as
being wild growth, hand-processed tea.
Other provinces
While
Yunnan produces the majority of pu-erh,
other regions of China, including Hunanand Guangdong,
have also produced the tea. The Guangyun Gong cake, for example, featured a
blend of Yunnan and Guangdong máochá,
and the most recent production of these cakes contains mostly from the latter.
Other
regions
In addition
to China, border regions touching Yunnan in Vietnam, Laos, and Burmaare also known to
produce Pu’er tea, though little of this makes its
way to the Chinese or international markets.
Cultivation
Perhaps
equally or even more important than region or even grade in classifying Pu’erh is the method of cultivation. Pu’er tea can come from three different
cultivation methods:
·
Plantation bushes (guànmù, 灌木):
Cultivated tea bushes, from the seeds or cuttings of wild tea trees and planted
in relatively low altitudes and flatter terrain. The tea produced from these
plants are considered inferior due to the used of pesticides and chemical
fertilizer in
cultivation, and the lack of pleasant flavours, and the presence of harsh
bitterness and astringency from the tea.
·
"Wild arbor" trees: Most
producers claim that their Pu’er is from wild trees, but most use
leaves from older plantations that were cultivated in previous generations that
have gone feral due to the lack of care. These trees produce teas of better
flavour due to the higher levels of secondary metabolite produced in the tea tree. As well, the
trees are typically cared for using organic practices, which includes the
scheduled pruning of the trees in a manner similar to pollarding.
Despite the good quality of their produced teas, "wild arbor" trees
are not as prized as the truly wild trees.
·
Wild trees (gŭshù, 古树;
literally "old tree"): Teas from old wild trees, grown without human
intervention, are the highest valued Pu’er teas. Such teas are valued for having
deeper and more complex flavors, often with camphor or "mint" notes,
said to be imparted by the many camphor trees that grow in the same environment
as the wild tea trees. Young raw Pu’er teas produced from the leaf tips of
these trees also lack overwhelming astringency and bitterness often attributed
to young Pu’er.
Determining
whether or not a tea is wild is a challenging task, made more difficult through
the inconsistent and unclear terminology and labeling in Chinese. Terms likeyěshēng (野生;
literally "wild" or "uncultivated"), qiáomù (乔木;
literally "tall tree"),yěshēng qiáomù (野生乔木;
literally "uncultivated trees"), and gǔshù are found on the labels of cakes of
both wild and "wild arbor" variety, and on blended cakes, which
contain leaves from tea plants of various cultivations. These inconsistent and
often misleading labels can easily confuse uninitiated tea buyers regardless of
their grasp of the Chinese language.
As well, the lack of specific information about tea leaf sources in the printed
wrappers and identifiers that come with the pu-erh cake makes identification of the tea a
difficult task. Pu’er journals and similar annual guides
such as The Profound World of
Chi Tse, Pu’er Yearbook,
and Pu’er Teapot Magazinecontain
credible sources for leaf information. Tea factories are generally honest about
their leaf sources, but someone without access to tea factory or other
information is often at the mercy of the middlemen or an unscrupulous vendor.
Many Pu’er aficionados
seek out and maintain relationships with vendors who they feel they can trust
to help mitigate the issue of finding the "truth" of the leaves.
Sadly, even
in the best of circumstances, when a journal, factory information, and
trustworthy vendor all align to assure a tea's genuinely wild leaf, fakes fill
the market and make the issue even more complicated. Because collectors often
doubt the reliability of written information, some believe certain physical
aspects of the leaf can point to its cultivation. For example, drinkers cite
the evidence of a truly wild old tree in a menthol effect ("camphor"
in tea specialist terminology) supposedly caused by the Camphor laurel trees that grow amongst wild tea trees
in Yunnan's tea forests. As well,
the presence of thick veins and sawtooth-edged on the leaves along with camphor flavor elements and taken as
signifiers of wild tea.
Grade
Pu’er can be sorted into ten
or more grades. Generally, grades are determined by leaf size and quality, with
higher numbered grades meaning older/larger, broken, or less tender leaves.
Grading is rarely consistent between factories, and first grade tea leaves may
not necessarily produce first grade cakes. Different grades have different
flavors, and many bricks feature a blend of several grades chosen to balance
flavors and strength.
Season
Harvest
season also plays an important role in the flavor of Pu’er. Spring tea is the most
highly valued, followed by fall tea, and finally summer tea. Only rarely is Pu’er produced in winter
months, and often this is what is called "early spring" tea, as
harvest and production follows the weather pattern rather than strict monthly
guidelines.
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