| Pu'er Tea Culture |
About Pu'er Teaกก |
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Ethnic ways of Tea Consumption กก
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Tea is classified into several kinds according to different processes: non-fermented tea, of which Green Tea is the most typical; half-fermented tea, which is represented mainly by Wu-Long Tea; and well-fermented tea, in this category Black Tea is what we are most familiar with. Pu'er tea is from Green Tea, but through further process, slightly fermented, at the same time with profound culture and history background. Tea Production in Yunnan can be dated back to around 1700 years ago, but because Yunnan was so geographically isolated, and the culture was so underdeveloped, historians can't find earlier recordation about tea of Yunnan than Tang Dynasty. The earliest description about tea of Yunna was found in the book written by Fan Chuo about 1100 years ago, he was sent to frontier region as an envoy by central government of Tang Dynasty. Local ethnic people planted tea in very unorganized way and drank tea together with pepper, ginger and cinnamon, this was what he observed during his stay. The first time word of Pu'er Tea appeared in the history was at the end of Ming Dynasty, approximately 380 years ago. At that time, tea production already developed to some extent, tea products began to be distributed in Pu'er, a small town in south of today's Yunnan. In Qing Dynasty, tea production in these regions got even further developed, more tea was gathered in Pu'er then sold to other places, tea trade in Pu'er became prosperous, businessmen assembled here for purchase, according to statistic in history book, only in one year of 1661, more than 1500 tons of tea was transported to Tibet from Pu'er. Outstanding tea production and trade industry brought Pu'er high reputation as well higher administrative status, at the beginning of 18th century, in 1729, Pu'er was set as a prefecture administrating tea producing areas around, tea from Pu'er even became standing tribute for royal consumption every year. Pu'er Tea got well-famed and spread abroad, in this stage, any tea from Pu'er would be generally called Pu'er Tea, this is the provenance of its name, but actually, most of these tea was not produced in Pu'er, Pu'er played only the role of distribution center then. Usually from original producing areas to distribution center, there was certain distance, due to the poor traffic and transport conditions in the past, the circulation of merchandise took much more time than today, moreover, most Pu'er Tea producing areas were under quite tropical or subtropical climate featured with high temperature and humidity, during process of transport, sales or store, tea in rough packing slightly fermented naturally, fermentation endowed tea with more smooth taste, more heavy flavor, more mellow aroma, even more healthy property, and in result more popularity. After realizing the true reason why Pu'er Tea was so unique, people began to on purpose keep newly produced tea for longer time before selling for happening of natural fermentation, what was more, some tea factories even developed technics to speed up this process artificially in order to guarantee bigger and quicker turnout, it's why in today, Pu'er Tea is roughly divided into two kinds according to different ways of accomplishing fermentation, naturally-fermented and artificially-fermented, one is traditional and the other more reformative. Because Pu'er Tea used to be impacted into regular shapes of cake, brick or others for the convenience of transport, people also called two kinds of Pu'er Tea respectively Green Cake and Ripe Cake. Here is something that should be spelt out, before 1960's, technics for artificial fermentation applied in tea production hadn't yet been developed, so there was no Ripe Cake before this. In this stage, special processing technics became the most significant characteristics of Pu'er Tea that made it known from other tea products. Besides the culture background and distinctive processing technics, different tea specie was also an important element for Pu'er Tea's inimitable flavor and quality. In Yunnan, big-leaved tea, Camellia sinensis var. assamica in technical term, is the major material source for tea processing, which differs from small-leaved tea widely planted in central China. Chemical substances contained in big-leaved tea like alkaloid, catechin, vitamin, aminophenol, polyphenols, etc., are of higher percentage than small-leaved specie, it makes the tea from Yunnan taste heavier and thicker, further process of fermentation softens the pungency left from fresh leave, makes it smoother for drinking at the same time. Now the rough idea about Pu'er Tea comes, long history background, unique process, larruping flavor, fine raw material, advantaged natural conditions, plus the hard work our ancestors paid, go together and become what Pu'er Tea is all about. |
