Caffeine and Puer

Puerh has roughly the same amount of caffeine as most other teas. See

I don my fire proof suite and step out once again to say that most of the caffeine comes out in the first few steeps.

A long rinse, which is traditional, removes much of the caffeine because it is highly water soluble. Now since a good puerh can stand up to many steeps you can start with a tea in the afternoon, throw out the rinse, get a some caffeine early on and then by evening you essentially have a tea that is very low in caffeine.

Puerh is unique in that it also is capable of inducing a phenomena called qi. Many will mistake qi for a caffeine buzz but it is really not. It is a type of energy often spoken of in Chinese medicine.

Mike Petro

(mirror in China)

Jenn,

It depends on what pu'er you are asking about.

Generally, 2 main categories: Cooked and uncooked pu'ers.

Cooked pu'er, 2 broad subcategories:

1. Hydro-thermal fermented and post dry storage. This pu'er contains a small trace of caffeine still. The heat generated during the hydro-thermal fermentation stage would have evaporated large amount of caffeine, leaving a small amount of it in the tea.

1. Hydro-thermal fermented and post wet storage. This pu'er contains almost no trace of caffeine, as the caffeine structure is completely broken down. But this tea needs some getting used to, as most don't like its musty earthy loamy peaty taste.

Uncooked pu'er generally contains higher amount of caffeine, again 2 subcategories:

1. Slightly fermented

1. Unfermented, this one has the highest caffeine content. When I drink this, I sleep about 3 hours a night.

If you are unsure of the tea, take Mike's advice and rinse out the pu'er. Pu'er, whether cooked or uncooked, usually tastes the best from the 3rd round onwards anyways.

:")

Danny

I've actually gotten to like the first infusion of the stuff Teavana sells. I used to pour the first two down the sink, but now I drink everything save the initial rinse.

stePH

-- GoogleGroups licks balls.

snip

In fact, to my understanding, it *is* a Chinese word *for* "energy." It is used in the Chinese for such words as electricity. Not to demystify it, but from my discussions with Chinese folks, it appears to be a word in need of demystifying.

Qi has also been the brunt of sarcastic jokes in some quarters, especially in reference to those empty-your-wallet-and-sell-your-first-born Pu'erhs of great age which might taste like nothing at all, but "you're not paying for the taste; it's all about the qi." (Smile when you say that, boy.)

Michael

Thanks because that is what I wanted to know. From yalls experiences (Yoda said experience is the best teacher) But I have spent may half slept nights cause I wanted that cup. (some may say Jonesin') I can drink Puer oh say 4pm and just have that cup till I go to bed. This is a most grand choice.I may do that tonight. That last late cup of Bai Hao made me jittery last night too. (But is was a new order and I HAD to taste it) see how I am??? About Unfermented, Maybe why some white teas are high in stimulation? Or maybe because theyre buds????? Not sure bout the qi tho Is it just with Puers? I get a sense of well being with most tea I drink and I drink alot of oolongs. But some puers, I just MUST keep brewing till I cannot go any further or am floating away with fluid intake.... Thanks all of you I am, going to choose my puer for this pm now. In the meantime I continue to taste these small bags of oolong, Ming Xian(wow) Shan ling Xi (Like a flower cup) Shi Zuo(a mellow cup with depth and ripe flavor). God I am in heaven!

Oh one more thing are there oolong type teas made like puers? I heard of an aged oolong in an orange or other citus? I have heard of the puer in pomelo..... Just asking cause you guys may just know about this. To paraphrase a statement Gerry once made My life aint worth a hoot till I have some! Jenn

Exactly: buds have more caffeine than mature leaves.

Yes:

/Lew

WNW wrote this review back in December 2001:

Which jives with what I know that it is an aged oolong stuffed in Pomelo which absorbs some sweetness. AFAIK aged oolong is just repeated quarterly refiring for about a year to enhance the oxidation. No matter what definition you give to the Pu it is at least fermented.

Okay I forked out the bucks for a golden melon based on a certain recommendation.

Jim

PS: Does any> > Oh one more thing are there oolong type teas made like puers?

Lewis snipped-for-privacy@panix1.panix.com9/29/05 16: snipped-for-privacy@panix.com

Lew,

Let's take this a bit further. A Pu'erh can be "raw" (green) or "cooked" (oxidized/fermented) when it enters the aging process in its cake (bing), brick (feng), or bird nest (tuo) form. Surely there are variations in the degree of cookedness in the leaf on the way to storage, and thus anything in the middle would be an "Oolong" by definition, right? Except that once the tea enters true poo production, it's Pu'erh not Oolong. In the case of the tea stuffed pomelo that babelcarp speaks of, I take it the actual tea therein is/was Oolong? But, something deep inside me says that ultimately it tea can be Oolong or tea can be Pu'erh, but it's got to make up its mind and claim its allegance at the end.

If you like you can attribute the brilliance of my logic to an overdose of caffeine, thus I leave the subject line untouched.

Michael

Space snipped-for-privacy@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com9/29/05

17: snipped-for-privacy@ix.netcom.com

To me, what you say makes good sense. Just a word on "Oolong," though. It's undoubtedly more (or perhaps less) than quarterly firings. By definition, isn't it a tea that is neither green (completely un-oxidized) or a red (completely oxidized), but rather a tea that is partially oxidized to any degree?

Neal is ensconced at his place, working on many projects, and fulfilling his many responsibilities while drink a number of teas.

Michael

Oolong is by definition some degree of oxidation. I tried to give one definition of 'aged oolong' which is more than sitting around aging gracefully unlike Pu'er which gets geriatric naturally, supposedly. When I see a moniker like 'aged oolong' the warning flags go up. AFAIK it is tea that doesn't sell and is 'enhanced' by repeated firings which takes on a new note that one markets as 'aged'. It has been described here as a process to wake up old teas that sit on the shelf too long especially oolongs. I see a guy on Ebay buying teas with a similar id that WNW used here. I guess if you are cutting stones and feeding cows teas you don't like there is not much time left in the day.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

...I whack me...

I see what you mean about the "aged Oolongs," and I tend to agree in the short term. Tea goes stale, give it a blast in the furnace, and voila, expensive Oolong, very rare, get it while you can. But, truly aged Oolong -- say over 10 years -- can be different, and quite nice. I had some 50 year old WuYi which tasted sweet and pleasingly woody on top of its oolong qualities.

I guess feeding cows all that lousy tea would keep you busy. I suspect cows these days would want nothing but the best.

Michael

Space snipped-for-privacy@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com9/30/05

08: snipped-for-privacy@ix.netcom.com

I wished my Wuyi Yan tea from the early seventies would age gracefully. It's been the past few years I've developed a taste for rock tea like Shui Xian and those tins from the seventies,eighties,nineties taste the same as today. My experience with storing tea is slow the deterioration from the elements but the taste doesn't improve with age even loose Poo Nee. I've never had a WuYi as you describe even a YunWu. There was a lot of the best Neal didn't like which he feed to his cows. At least he could fork out the money and admit he didn't like it.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

[Jim] [Michael] The aged Oolongs are, as you mentioned earlier, refired regularly along the way. The 50 year old was a unique tea. I've never tasted anythng like it before or since.

That's "fang", by the way.

"Cookedness"? You mean oxidation before firing, right? If so, yes, but usually "cooked" means the tea hanging around damp and warm for a while to accelerate - simulate? - the microbial action that takes longer with raw pu'er.

I think your question makes more sense if you generalize it: the use of the fruit skin as container during microbial aging seems, well, superficial. The real question, I think, is: can you make pu'er - or, less restrictively, hei cha - by starting with oolong or even black/red tea, or do those nice germs insist on green tea?

/Lew

Wow I guess so. It must have been from some private stock. I can't imagine a commercial company doing this for 50 years and deciding it was time to recoup their labor and storage cost by the whims of the market place. From what I understand repeated firings don't work for old teas that have initially sit too long so my old ShuiXian wouldn't benefit. Didn't someone mention they had good luck with improving the taste of new oolongs they baked or fired.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

Thank you, yes it is. GRRRrrrr.

God. I thought it was just yet another word opposite "raw." My bad.

Something is wrong here -- I think. Oxidized leaf goes into the making of shu, and unoxidized leaf into sheng. Isn't that right? If it isn't I withdraw myself form the august body. The damp blanket fakery is something completely different. At least, that what I *thought*.

The question for me was, Can you start with a semi-oxidized leaf instead of either fully or un-?

Michael

snip

[Jim] [Michael] Jim, give it a try. Just fire away in a wok or whatever. See what happens. Report back.

I'll let others refire their teas and report back about how great they taste. One of these days when I get bored ... Hum wonder if it would do any good for the taste of wet storage Pu without waiting thirty years?

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

The process of "cooking" puerh is called Wo Dui and involves taking mao-cha and wetting it down and "piling" it up. The process is very similar to composting, much like a compost pile "cooks" so do the puerh leaves. This post fermentation (aka microbial oxidation) process is very carefully controlled and the results are a more mellow and significantly darker tea. While it does remove the harshness of the young mao-cha, the end results do not compare to a well aged green. There is a tremendous amount of microbial action during this pseudo composting phase, so much so that a good airing out and a few years of aging is required to remove the microbial flavors. See

for more info.

I have seen both teas stuffed into a pomelo skin, however the majority seem to be oolongs. In Western stores these teas are often sold with puerhs because the vendors don't know where else to put them. Western vendors often mistakenly consider anything compressed to be in the puerh category. The taste between pomelo oolong and pomelo puerh is quite different though.

I am not familiar with the making of Oolong, but I do know that Oolong is NOT puerh, the raw materials are very different. Puerh is made from the leaf of the Yunnan Big Leaf Tea Trees (Yunnan Da Ye). The production of authentic oolong teas is restricted to a few geographic regions of China and Taiwan, NOT Yunnan nor the Yunnan Da Ye species.

Mike Petro

(mirror in China)