Sheng Puer, Shu Puer and Maocha: characteristics and differences

When it comes to tea, the world of Puer is perhaps the most mysterious, fascinating, and controversial: Puer are teas with ancient origins, produced only in a specific area of China, namely Yunnan, with special processing methods. Their value has risen exponentially in recent years, abetted by a number of speculative bubbles that have driven the market crazy, with huge fluctuations in their price.

This is an almost unknown category in the West, partly because the taste of these teas moves far away from the classic delicate flavor of green and white teas, or the robust, fruity hints of red teas. Here the aromatic range is enriched with unexpected flavors and notes to be found in the undergrowth, incense and moist earth, making for an incredibly surprising experience.

So let us try to take you on this little journey of discovery and tell you about the wonders of Puer teas, from their production to their incredible history.

What are Puer teas

The term “puer tea” is often mistakenly used to refer to the whole category of Chinese fermented teas: in fact, puer teas are only a part of the fermented teas produced in China and, as we will see later in this article, they meet very specific parameters to be considered as such.

But let’s start with the basics: what is a fermented tea? It is a tea that undergoes a transformation by molds and bacteria, which act by changing the organoleptic characteristics of the camellia leaves. It is a bacterial process, not just an enzymatic one (as is oxidation for oolongs or red teas, for example), and it requires special conditions to take place, such as high temperature, very high moisture content, and scarcity or absence of oxygen.

In China Fermented teas are generically called heicha, “dark teas” or “black teas” (not to be confused, therefore, with the Western classification, which calls “black teas” what are more correctly called “red teas” in China), and are also different from each other depending on the types of bacteria and molds that grow in a given geographical area: In fermented tea from An Hua county in Hunan,for example, the fungus is developed. Eurotium Cristatum which causes characteristic golden-yellow dots to appear on the leaves, so much so that this tea is also called “Golden Flowers” (Jin Hua in Chinese); as for Puer tea, on the other hand, produced in Yunnan, the fungus responsible for fermentation is theAspergillus Niger. Ciò farà sì che i due prodotti abbiano caratteristiche differenti, sia nell’aspetto che nel gusto e nell’aroma.

There are few loose-leaf ones-most fermented teas are pressed into a variety of shapes: classic round cakes, bricks (“Zhuan”), single-portion discs resembling large coins, even mushroom-shaped blocks.

Now that we have clarified what a fermented tea is in general, let us see what is meant by Puer tea.

The Puer tea is a special fermented tea produced only in Yunnan, a Chinese province in the far southwest of the country. The name derives precisely from thevillage of the same name, now a city-prefecture (also transliterated as Pu’er or Puerh) where this type of tea was originally grown and processed. The leaves of this tea are of the Daye Zhong variety, i.e., large in size, and are often picked from wild and even ancient trees (such as the Sheng Puer Gua Feng Zhai Gushu tea), of which Yunnan’s forests are rich.

We can now delve into the details of Puer tea production, seeing how its two variants, Sheng Pu er and Shu Puer , come about.

Maocha: the basis of Puer tea processing

All Puer teas are processed from a green tea that forms the basis for the entire process: this is Maocha. Maocha is produced specifically to be processed as a Puer tea and differs from other Yunnan green teas in that the oxidation blocking or sha qing process takes place at lower temperatures than usual. In fact, in order to start fermentation, not all enzymes have to be deactivated and this is done by avoiding heating the leaves above 80°C. This is traditionally done by hand in huge woks: the leaves are then rolled and dried in the sun.

Thus, Maocha is Puer green tea in its raw state, with leaves that have not yet been pressed or fermented: it is not usually sold to consumers because it is an unfinished product, thus unripe and with an astringent, bitter taste. It can, however, be infused as a test by producers or prospective buyers to taste the quality of the leaves that will then yield the final Puer tea. Lately, some people have also begun to call Maocha some Puer teas that have been pressed and dried but have not yet begun the aging process: surely this is because the market has also expanded to include those who wish to mature their tea themselves, instead of buying it already aged by the producer.

Sheng Puer: the raw Puer

The term Sheng Puer literally means “raw Puer”-what is meant by this? It refers to the fact that the production and aging of this type of Puer tea occurs naturally, letting time act on the product and let it develop all the characteristics of aromas and flavors that will make it unique and ready for consumption.

Maocha, a basic green tea, is pressed into cakes and stored in special rooms with controlled humidity and temperatures in order to ferment and age. This last stage, for the tea to reach full maturity and be sold for consumption, occupies a time frame of about 5 years. Before this time, usually a Sheng Puer is not marketed, as it is not yet ready: it will be astringent and too pungent, lacking the aromaticity and smoothness given by years of aging. It happens, however, that there are younger Shengs that are already incredibly ripe and lovable: so much is also done by the year of production and the conditions under which the tea was aged.

And, like a good wine, the older the Sheng Puer ages, the sweeter, fruitier, and more intense the flavors become. Sheng Puer usually have notes reminiscent of ripe pear, quince, incense, resin and dry wood, with just a hint of smokiness. Leaf color remains a mélange of light hues, with various shades of green, brown and beige and presence of silvery-white buds. The color of the liquor ranges from golden yellow to amber orange, with good transparency.

Though rarer than the pressed ones, there are also excellent leaf Sheng Puer, such as the Puer Sheng Ancient tea from Menghai, with a smooth and fruity taste.

Shu Puer: the Cooked Puer

When we talk about Shu Puer, we are referring instead to the so-called “cooked” Puer tea. The reason for this designation can be found in the manufacturing process, which involves human “help” to speed up fermentation so that it can be sold more quickly. This is a modern product, created in 1973 and devised by the Kunming Tea Factory to meet the high demand for Sheng Puer, but it needed years to become a finished product.

The processing steps of a Shu Puer, while always starting with Maocha, differ from those of Sheng Puer in a rather sensitive way.In fact, Maocha leaves are spread and piled on the heated floors of large enclosed rooms and sprayed with water at regular intervals. Every 15 days the leaves are turned over so that all sides are in contact with the floor, benefiting equally from the heat. The leaves are then covered with cloths to further increase heat and humidity, giving a decisive boost to the fermentation, which is completed in less than 60 days. At this point, the leaves can be dried and sold loose, or pressed and dried, most frequently in cake form, such as the Puer Five Star Qi Zi Bing Shu tea, or brick, such as the Puer Shu 7581 tea.

There are very high grades of Shu Puer, such as the Puer Shu Palace Grade tea or Gong Ting (literally “imperial court”) denoting the best quality cooked Puer, consisting of a bud and the first tender leaves, still covered with soft bai hao.

The aromas of a Shu Puer tea are an ode to the earth and the undergrowth, with olfactory notes reminiscent of wet wood, bark, damp leaves, and mushrooms. The flavor is surprisingly sweet and enveloping, with hints that call to mind an autumn walk in a forest just after the rain. Compared to Sheng Puer, the liquor of a Shu Puer is dark like coffee, almost impervious to light.

Shu Puer also gains value and sweetness as it ages, the body becomes more velvety and dense, and the complexity of aromas and flavors increases.

Shu Puer also are excellent allies for health and well-being: consuming several cups a day brings many benefits to our bodies, including lowering blood pressure, better digestion and helping to control cholesterol levels.

History of Puer teas

What are the origins of Puer te as and fermented teas more generally? One has to go back millennia and, as is often the case, recount what was a chance combination of events that turned out to be quite fortuitous.

Puer tea found its birthplace in China’s Yunnan province millennia ago: the indigenous Pu people, who inhabited the forests and consumed tea made from the leaves of wild trees, destined some of it to the emperor as tribute. These peoples over time gave rise to the many ethnic minorities with which Yunnan is still rich today: it seems that their descendants, the Bulang, were the first to start tea cultivation in these areas hundreds of years ago, and they still hold many acres of land in Menghai County on which ancient tea trees grow.

So far we are simply talking about green tea, produced in very ancient times and thus the ancestor of what would later be Puer tea as we know it today. A turning point in the production of Puer tea and fermented teas occurred under the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 A.D.): tea, and in particular that produced in the far south of Yunnan, was a most precious commodity, regarded as tantamount to medicine and exported and bartered with other goods. For convenience of storage and preservation, tea was therefore produced not in loose leaves but in pressed leaf cakes, which were also perfect for being transported over long distances and stacked in large loads.

One of the greatest necessities for the Chinese empire at that time was to own horses-we are not talking about just any horses, but strong, sturdy equines suitable for warfare: the best were Tibetan horses. In Tibet, on the other hand, the frigid temperatures and harsh life on inaccessible mountains made tea a basic necessity: it was a medicine, an invigorating liquid for physical exertions and great for warming up. Thus were born the various routes of the Ancient Tea Horse Road, which unfolded from Yunnan westward to Tibet and further south to India: caravans with beasts of burden of different kinds, laden with pressed tea, traveled thousands of kilometers in months, sometimes even years, to reach Lhasa and other remote parts of Tibet.

During the journey, there was no way to control weather events or to save the tea more from rain, humidity and temperature changes: the only protective barrier was woven bamboo leaves inside which the pressed tea cakes were placed. Thus the tea cakes during the journey were transformed: from simple green tea, modified by living microorganisms, the tea that left Yunnan would ferment along the way. Having arrived at its destination, here the green tea had thus become a heicha.

The production and trade of the unique Puer tea from Yunnan continued to grow even under the Ming and then Qing dynasties, without stopping even with the establishment of the Republic of China in the early 20th century. When Mao’s communist regime was established in 1949, Yunnan received further economic aid to develop its potential, with the construction of new companies and investment in a variety of research projects that led to theexpansion of its tea-producing areas.

Today, Yunnan is the second largest tea-producing province in China after Fujian: among the various types of tea produced, Puer tea obviously remains its flagship.

Yunnan: the production areas of Puer tea

We have so far spoken generally about Yunnan, a Chinese province recognized not only as the home of Puer tea but as the birthplace of the first tea tree. Here grow lush forests of wild trees, some hundreds and even thousands of years old, with thick trunks and heights of even more than 15 meters, with ancient roots that sink deep into the ground, absorbing nutrients from that rich and special soil.

Within this province, characterized by a tropical and monsoon climate and bathed annually by abundant rainfall, we find several areas of Puer tea production. Here are the main ones:

• Xishuangbanna Prefecture: the southernmost mountainous area of Yunnan bordering Laos, which includes historic Puer production areas also known as the Six Mountains: Menghai, Nannuo, Bulang, Youle, Yiwu and Jingmai.
• Puer Prefecture: north of Xishuangbanna, includes the famous areas of Jinggu and Wuliang and the city of Simao.
• Lincang Prefecture: going up further to the northwest, bordering Puer Prefecture, is this area that includes Fenqing County to the north-famous for producing some of the sweetest and smoothest Puer teas in all of China.
• Baoshan Prefecture: area north of Lincang, with mild winters and humid but not too hot summers. A perfect climate for tea growth.
• Dali Prefecture: a less famous area but producing excellent Puer teas, northeast of Baoshan.

The city of Kunming, Yunnan’s capital and home to the famous Kunming Tea Factory, is also worth mentioning. It is not a production area, but it certainly remains a major center for the Puer tea trade, hosting the most important tea markets in all of Yunnan.

Puer tea: a controlled geographical indication product

Over time, the need arose to safeguard such a special product from imitations: in the early 2000s, in fact, the speculative bubble created led the price of Puer tea to soar, that many could not resist the temptation to create fake and sell them for exorbitant amounts as authentic Puer teas.

It was thus decided that Puer tea-to be defined as such-had to comply with certain rules. The decree“GB/T 22111-2008 Geographical Indication Product Pu’er Tea” which came into effect on December 1, 2008 and was approved by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine thus established the standards for a tea to be called Puer:

• the tea must be produced in Yunnan province
• the leaves must be of the axamic or Da Ye Zhong variety, i.e., large leaf
• the tea must be dried in the sun in a natural way
• the production process must include some special features, such as blocking oxidation at less than 80°C

Buying a Puer tea today, therefore, gives you a good percentage of certainty that you are buying an authentic product, born and processed in its territories of origin.

How to recognize a good Puer tea

There are several factors that determine the successful production of a Puer tea. In addition to the provenance of the leaves (Puer tea from wild and ancient trees has for obvious reasons much more complexity in its aromas and flavors), it is critical that both the production stage and the tea storage stage, during which in Puer tea continues to ferment, have been well accomplished.

If, for example, in the brewing stage of a Shu Puer the floor and room temperature is not properly high, the tea is very likely to develop bad smells reminiscent of fish or excessive earthiness. Or, if the storage of a Puer is done incorrectly, the tea will develop musty and cellar smell notes-all smells that immediately signal to our noses that something has gone wrong, before we get to infuse the tea. Sometimes tea has not been properly protected during aging, losing much of its aroma: once infused, its leaves will taste of little or nothing.

On the other hand, to distinguish a good Puer from a medium-low Puer, we look mainly at taste and persistence. A good Puer tea will have a sweet flavor, a well-structured, smooth and enveloping body, a balanced and complex taste with pleasant and intense notes, and a long persistence.
If it is a well-made Puer tea, it will give you many infusions with the same leaves, up to 10 or 20 in gaiwan and at least 5 or 6 if infused Western style. Definitely not a tea to drink in a hurry before rushing to work!

We have intrigued you with this focus on the Puer teas? In our online shop you will find many kinds: Shu and Sheng, from wild and ancient trees, in loose leaves or in cakes, in bricks and even in convenient single-portions for single infusions. You just have to try them: discover Tea Soul’s selection of Puer teas!