In Europe, when beverages such as wine and whisky are aged, it is a wonderful union with nature - forgoing the fresh, fiery tastes of youth for something more layered and mature. What people perceive becomes richer as they age. You will know when you taste it, what you taste is time.
Europe has long been keen to age a variety of beverages, but has yet to see any good ageing in the tea category. However, if you've been to China, you'll soon discover that aged tea is as much a part of life as 21 year old whisky and precious vintage champagne.
The cultivation of tea originated in south-west China，since the Han and Tang Dynasties, Chinese tea and tea culture have gradually spread to East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe along the ancient land and maritime Silk Roads.Popular and known as "the magical oriental leaves".
Among the six major tea categories, experts classify Pu-erh tea as dark tea, and divide it into two types: raw tea (raw tea) and cooked tea (cooked tea) according to the degree of fermentation. raw pu-erh tea refers to stir-frying the fresh leaves picked from the tea tree in an iron pot to make it soft, and then manually rolling it to make it into a rope shape, drying it in the sun to become a sun-dried tea, and steaming the sun-green tea with steam to soften it. It is quickly compressed into different shapes such as cake, brick, Tuo, and melon, and then dried and packaged. Therefore, Pu-erh tea is also known as "compressed tea", "cake tea", "brick tea", "tuo tea" and "melon tea". ". Ancient Pu-erh tea is raw Pu-erh tea. The reason why it is compressed into different shapes such as cakes, bricks, Tuo, and melons is because in the past, the mountains and valleys in Yunnan were high and the traffic was extremely inconvenient, and the distance from the sales area was far away. The production method invented because of the difficulty of mass transportation.
Since raw tea is the most complete tea product that retains the activity of tea leaves, the shapes of cakes, bricks, Tuo, and melons bring some inconvenience to drinking, but inadvertently create a new environment for the transformation of the substances contained in tea. suitable environment. As the storage time becomes longer and longer, the raw pulp gradually begins to ferment and transform, the soup color gradually changes from clear to red and bright, and the taste gradually becomes more and more mellow and smooth, and has a unique old fragrance, which can reduce fat and remove greasy. The efficacy of the tea has become more and more obvious, and Pu-erh tea lovers are flocking to it. This post-fermentation characteristic of raw Pu'er makes the well-preserved raw Pu'er tea rich and varied in taste, which increases the cultural attributes of Pu'er tea and becomes a "drinkable antique". Shengpu has become a commodity with great value preservation and appreciation potential. Countless people buy and store tea like crazy.
The production process of fermented Pu-erh tea was not invented until the 1970s. It is inspired by tea experts in the Anhua dark tea production process. A tea product made by stacking and fermenting after heating. After 1-2 months of accumulated fermentation at high temperature and high humidity, the substances contained in sun-dried green tea are rapidly transformed to achieve the effect that both raw materials and ordinary raw materials need to be naturally stored for decades. However, the activity of sun-dried green tea will be reduced after stacking and fermentation, and its long-term preservation potential is not as good as that of raw tea. The quality of raw tea mainly depends on the quality of sun-dried green tea and the environmental conditions of later storage. The quality of fermented Pu-erh tea mainly depends on the stacking and fermentation technology. Therefore, in the Pu'er tea industry, there is also a saying that "raw tea depends on quality, while cooked tea depends on craftsmanship". Although the cooked Pu'er soup quickly achieves the effect of aged Pu'er in terms of color and efficacy, it also loses the unique charm of the raw Pu'er that changes and slowly nourishes under the baptism of time. The reason is very general. In modern times, some people believe that Pu-erh tea can only be called Pu-erh tea if it is made from large-leaf tea in the southern section of the Lancang River in Yunnan. This is really a big mistake. In fact, using fresh leaves from the tea area of Yunnan protected area, as long as the tea products made according to the Pu-erh tea production process are all Pu-erh tea, but the large-leaf tea is the most. It is distributed in the southern section of the Lancang River Basin in Yunnan. The water extract is the highest, which is beneficial to post-fermentation. Aged tea has the most mellow taste and is the top grade of Pu-erh tea. This is why the world produces wine. The grapes produced in Bordeaux, France are of the highest quality.
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