Please someone explain differences in four pu-erhs.

Nov 06, 2009 3 Replies
L

Not knowing much about teas I am really confused with pu-erh classifications or variations;



there are cooked and uncooked, raw and ripe pu-erh teas. Do they all still have a typical, distinctive, earthy pu-erh aroma, or they greatly differ ? I don't mean differences in quality, I mean differences in their smell and taste.



Why they cook the tea before pressing it into a cake ?



If I purchase a cake of raw pu-erh, do I leave it first to age couple of years in order to get that specific earthy smell and taste?


Thank you.


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S

Check out these two Puer discussion sites:

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Basically:

cooked = ripe = shu

uncooked = raw = sheng

Shu is fermented and pressed into cakes. Sheng is not fermented and pressed into cakes. Eventually over decades of aging Sheng will taste like Shu. For all practical purposes you can consider them two separate tastes.

Jim

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L

See Mike Petro's Pu'er site for a good grounding in these issues:

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/Lew

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W

"cooked" is just another term for "ripe" or shu (shou); "uncooked" (as you'd imagine) is just another term for "raw" or "green" (sheng). "Ripe" is really probably a better translation of shu than "cooked", because the tea isn't literally cooked; it's more like composting.

Ripe tea is attempting to simulate the taste of well aged tea. However, the taste of ripe tea is generally a little less complex and subtle than a well stored aged sheng.

A couple of years probably won't do much. You are talking about more like 15-30 years at a minimum... maybe longer if you live somewhere fairly dry.

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