Bad Pu'er

interesting..

I think the most common fake puerh you'll see are actually high- temperature processed green tea being pressed into cakes. They don't age well -- turn bitter and sour in time -- but tastes great now and is often masquerading as puerh as puerh prices are now higher than some low/cheap grade green teas.

MarshalN

interesting..

hi Mal,

The article, if anything, is not complete in its coverage on what makes bad pu'er...and on what makes a good fake pu'er, different people would have different views on that too.

In fact, if one takes a good look at pu'er through the years, fake pu'ers have been popping up now and again, it is not a current phenomenon, though the present pu'er fever accentuates the production of these pu'ers to supplement the high demand for the tea. It will not come as a surprise if everyone who has a pu'er collection has at some point, came into possession of fake pu'er - it will not be a surprise even if what most collectors who ardently profess their love of pu'er and its depths of nuance are in reality collecting the good fake pu'ers MarshalN described.

A good fake pu'er comes, in my personal definition, in 2 forms: the material, or the maocha; and the method of processing.

The material. Some puritans consider maocha outside of Yunnan province as "un-pu'er", meaning maocha that are harvested in the regions surrounding Yunnan. Even if they are pressed according to strict temperature regulations, many do not consider them real pu'ers as they taste different.

The processing method. We should worry about this. Using high heat to kill-green the leaves and then laying them out in the sun to dry, a vendor will tell convincingly that the leaves are "sun-dried". Using proper heat to kill-green the leaves, then drying them under the sun, then using too high a heat to press the tea, he will still tell us the tea is "sun-dried". To speed up production and export, the properly processed cakes are left in a drying room with heat turned up on high to dry the tea quickly, the tea is still "sun-dried". And I've not mentioned the tea processed during the wet seasons, when there is insufficient heat from the sun for drying, and the roll-drum processed maocha...

Bottomline is, we have to drink and drink and drink to tell the difference. I believe that other than a handful of experts in this area, most of us are still trying to tell the good fake pu'er from the real one apart.

Danny