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About puerh tea
Smoothness and mellowness is the speciality of Puerh tea. It is also famous for it's health effects, dietting in China. A bit about Puerh tea
What is puerh tea?
Puerh tea is the tea made in Yunnan province, P.R.China and it is made from Yunnan tea leaf with unique “post fermentation” process. The diversity in taste/flavor is the specialty of puerh tea. Puerh tea also has various beneficial effects on your body. There are two type of puerh tea "green puerh" and "cooked puerh".
The history of Puerh tea and it's origin
Puerh tea is the tea made from "Yunnan big tea leaf" in Yunnan province where the origin of tea tree.
In Yunnan province, the history of tea could be gone back to B.C. 2700. Menghai, where is one of the most famous puerh tea center, faces to the border of Myanmer, Vietnam and Laos and is knowen as one of the inner most depth of China. Puerh tea started it's history by the people lived there.
However, if you look at the consumption of @uerh tea, It is prospered in the cities like Chendu, Honkong and Guanzou. The difference in origin and consumption area gives the depth of puerh tea cultuer.
What is green puerh tea? What is cooked puerh tea?
"Cooked puerh" is made through post fermentation process. After tea leaf is rolled and dried, it is piled up under controlled temperature and humidity to promote fermentation and to grow ripen flavour of tea. The color of tea leaf turns to brown/black, flavor and taste become smooth and mellow like aged green puerh.
"Green puerh" is made through natural aging. After tea leaf is rolled and dried, tea is stored for years for natural aging. As years pass by, the color of tea leaf turn to dark brown, flavor and taste become smooth and mellow. The value(price) of the tea also increases a lot. Good aged green puerh has smooth and mellow taste with clear flavor.
Puerh tea is good for health
Since the ancient era, it's been said puerh tea is beneficial for human body especially for dieting and for diabetes. It helps to reduce the level of blood sugar. Some of the effects are proven through scientific researches, recently.
About aging
Puerh tea is comparable to wine. It is true especially for green puerh as the taste and flavor of puerh tea is significantly changed through storage over years of time. The new green puerh tea typically has strong bitterness and astringency with floral flavors while aged puerh tea has smoothness, mellowness with complicated flavors.
Not only to have better taste/flavors, but also the value of the tea increased significantly. The price of most famous puerh tea "Red mark round tea(紅印円茶)" has the value of several hundred thousand USD. Some of the vintage tea aged for 10 years is more than 1,000 USD or even 10,000USD.
How to make puerh tea?
Rare puerh teas
how to store?
It is not difficult to store puerh tea. All you need is to store puerh tea at relatively dry (humidity<70%) and to avoid foreign smells.
In Hong Kong or Guangzhou tea resellers has their "specialized" tea storage warehouse where temperature and humidity are controlled to be high (but not too high). It progresses the speed of maturation, however, there is a risk to spoil puerh-tea. In fact many wet stored puerh-tea are spoiled due to mold or other reaction occurred in storage. Generally speaking, dry storage puerh-tea are considered to be higher quality.