Shu (ripe) Organic Puer Tea Ripe Refined

The shu (ripe) puer terapie refined is a product that can give another point of view on the fermentation impact on camelia’s leaves because of its loose life format. The choice of not pressing this product in the classic discoidal shape or Tuo allows to the puer to dissipate faster the humidity amassed during the fermenting process that is called wodui in Chinese. Because of this factor the flavor profile of the tea results immediately more clear and so even better to interpretate by the people who are approaching this kind of tea for the first time.

In the case of the ripe refined the infuse shows immediately the typical sweetness caused but the fermentation paired with a smooth texture. After this almost vanilla-like taste it comes a little bitter feature similar to the one of burnt bread’s crust. In the end, after this brief bitter phase, the infuse shows the other typical traits of shu like the taste of boiled vegetables and a soft refreshing feeling. We suggest you to compare the ripe refined with the shu (ripe) puer tea pine because, either if they share the same format, these two products give quite different images of fermentation and, so, two useful insight to better understand this kind of tea.

Place of origin

Yunnan, China

Production

After the harvest the leaves whither under the sunlight for a certain period of time depending on the tea masters evaluations before going into the “killing of the green” phase which is similar to the practice adopted for green teas. In this case, however, the leaves are heated in the iron wok with a lower temperature than the usual standards for a green tea so it is possible to preserve some enzymes capable of changing the the taste of the tea through the time. After the cooking process big quantities of tea leaves are piled, dumped and covered with big sheets to allow the beginning of the fermentation. The producer here have to move and wet constantly the leaves in order to achieve an homogeneous fermentation on all the vegetal mass. When this process ends, generally after o period which can take from 20 to 70 days, the leaves were spread all over the floor to let the microorganisms who started the fermentation dry, and get loose. Now it is possible to (eventually) press the tea and so provide to it the best conditions to being transported and aged.

Preparation

We invite you to brew this tea in the traditional Chinese style (gong fu cha) in order to extract more from your leaves. Following this preparation you could use 6 grams of leaves (about 4 teaspoons) in a gaiwan of 100 ml so you can obtains more infusions with different flavors. After a brief rinse of the leaves in a 100°C water you can go with a first infusion of 15 seconds and, after that, at the same water temperature, you can do multiple infusion adding 5 seconds every steeping time (15 – 20 – 25…)

These leaves could be steep about 7 times.

To prepare the tea in the western style we suggest 3 grams of leaves (about 2 teaspoons) in a 150 ml cup with 100°C water for a steeping time of one minute and a half.

The tea could be filtered if you want to avoid some little piece of the leaves during the tasting time and also the steeping time we recommend here could be modify on your personal preferences.

We recommend you to store this tea in a dry and cool place avoiding the direct sun light on the leaves.