About Traditional Production:

Big-Leaved Tea

Big-leaved tea, specie that uniquely grows in Yunnan, is the material source of Pu'er Tea.

Picking Tea Buds

Picking tender tea buds, it's seasonal work from March to November, usually 3 times a month during this period. The best-quality leaves are produced in March.

Sun-dehydrating

Sunshine has alway been the best choice for predehydrating, it will take away 30% moisture from leaves. If it's cloudy, fresh leaves have to be kept indoor for hours till morning dew on leaves evaporates.

Stir-frying in wok

This is very important  procedure, it decides the quality of finished green tea, indirectly, affects the quality of Pu'er Tea. Tea leaves will be further dehydrated, turn withered and soft when being stir-fried in the hot wok, people keeps turning over tea leaves to make sure leaves will be evenly heated and won't be over burnt. High temperature would reduce enzymatic activity to prevent polyphenol in fresh tea leaves from oxidating, oxide may cause ugly red color in product and quality problems. Withered tea leave is with more toughness, which ensures it will be slubbed into sticks but not pieces  in later processing. In addition, heating brings about volatilization of aromatic compound in leaves to get rid of bad smell of rawness fresh plant may give off.

Slubbing or Rubbing

Softened tea leaves will be slubbed into small sticks, the normal shape of tea. This process will extract spare polyphenol out to lessen the bitterness in leaves, too.

Finished Green Tea

After slubbed tea is totally dried off in hot oven, traditionally in sunshine, it becomes Green Tea.

Weighing

Uniform weight of each tea cake is a port of your product's reputation.

Softened by Steaming

Dry tea is usually crispy, in order to make it easier to be shaped and to prevent it from breaking while it's compacted, it should be macerated and softened by steam.

Shaping

Use cotton bag to shape it roughly.

Compacting

Weight stone has concave bottom, it serves as mold at the same time, tea cake under it will be more regularly shaped  while being compacted.

Shaped & Finished Products

As seen in the pictures.

Final Sun-drying

Too much moisture in tea cake may cause mildew, in order to reduce water content left by steaming, sun-drying is a very necessary work before tea packing and storing. Normally allowable percentage is around 10%, additionally, sunshine also facilitates complicated chemical changes to happen inside tea cakes.

Packing & Storing

Pack tea cakes with cotton paper and bamboo shells, store them somewhere dry and well-ventilated, avoid direct sunshine irradiation, keep surroundings clean since tea is very absorbant to odors. Term for storing is not certain, can be depending on different consumer's tastes, age of Pu'er Tea on the market ranges from one year to over 10 years. usually longer storing gives more aging aroma, but less freshness.