Sheng Puer is Not Green Tea

Here are two teas from the same tree; on the left is green tea, on the right in sheng puer. We've lately had a number of conversations about the Shai Qing Mao Cha we made in a video blog. Some people hold that because the tea is heated and the internal enzymes are broken down, this is in fact a green tea. We believe differently, and today some Shai Qing Mao Cha and Green tea arrived from a single tea grove in Lancang, Puer, Yunnan. Placed side by side on this basket the difference in color is perceptible, with the tea on the left more green. Unfortunately you can't smell it here, but the green tea has the characteristic smell of green tea. The tea on the right smells of Sheng Puer.

Green tea is made by quickly heating a tea leaf to a high temperature so that not only are internal enzymes and the external microbiots broken down, but the majority of the water is quickly vaporized. This locks the in the green color. When frying, this gives the tea an almost buttery taste. But green tea can also be made by steaming or baking.

The First Steps For Making Puer

To make almost any puer there are six basix steps followed to fix the tea into what is called "Sun Dried (still) Fuzzy Tea" or "Shai Qing Mao Cha". This is what we did today at a tea grove relatively high for the Xishuanbannan tea region.

Nannuo mountain is a famous tea mountain in southern Yunnan. And we heard that there are some really old tea tree groves around here. One of them is famous because it was planted over a 1000 years ago. This is not the oldest tea tree in the region. This tree is special because this is the oldest planted tea tree.

We left the city Jing Hong after lunch, drove west towards MengHai. Nannuo mountain is on the way. But somehow we made a wrong turn and took the old road. We heard the road to MengHai is okay. But the road is pretty bad. We drove under 20km/h until we saw a big high way under a bridge we were on in the middle of nowhere. Strange to see a highway in the jungle. So we started to ask people directions and figured out that we went on the old road. But we had already arrived at Nannuo mountain, and it was a nice day for a drive. A good thing in Yunnan is that the day gets dark late just like my hometown Qinghai. So we are not too worried about the time.

Soon there is no highway anyway. There is only one road climbing up Nannuo mountain. Sometimes dirt, sometimes rock, sometimes a one lane concrete road that drops off abruptly. The road is so narrow we honk on the corners so other cars hear us; a truck even backs up once for us. We don’t know what we’ll find, and because the road is paved toward the end, I think it might be a big tea company who fixed the road so they can bring tea out easier. But then the paving stops at a gate to a village with primitive carvings of a man and a woman. We drive on, getting higher and the road getting worse. We ask people we pass on the road they all wave us on. We pass some small villages, a sign for a big tea factory. Along the road we see some signs saying protect old tea trees, don’t use herbicide on the grass. We have heard Yunnan old teas are more healthy because they often grows at dangous places. People can’t get there very easily. To pick these trees people need to climb up or use a ladder or even scafolding to get the tea leaves. It’s hard for famers to put chemicals on these trees. Also younger people all want to find a job in the city so not many people are left in these mountain areas taking care of the tea trees. So often just a little way past the highway, there are village farms full of older people who don’t really take care of the tea trees but just let them grow wild. This is what we look for. Across the valley we can see some tea terraces planted by humans, very neat rows covering a swath of the hill. But most of the foot-hills here are covered with different type of trees and vines and plants. A snake crosses the road and I wonder if it is poisonous.



We were almost on top of the mountain when we saw a small family. An old man was working on the muddy road by his door, and a young woman was picking dry leaves from a big flat basket. We said hi to them ask for the direction to the old tea tree. The woman is more shy than the man. The man told us we missed the turn. It’s actually a two kilometer walk off the road. We need to turn around and drive back to the last branch road, where we saw the totems of a man and a woman. We looked at the sun and he asked us to come in and drink a little tea. We said thank you to them and turned round. My husband said if they ask us again, he will stop and have a cup of their tea. As we pass a young man peeks out and waves, calls simply, tea. I laugh. The old man smiles and waves us onto the grass. After we stop the young man comes out and asked us again to have a cup of tea, then hike to see the tree. Well, we didn’t see the tree. We stopped and went in and ended up picking and frying and rolling tea with them. This was a wise decision.

We drank some tea picked three days before, and it was bright and light and pretty good, if not great. The first of this year, they said. Perhaps noticing our glances at each other, they said if the tea didn’t taste so good yet, if it was kept for few days it will get better. Perhaps the tea is too new. After all this is one of the higher mountains around known for some of the great old teas. Just a little way farther south is the dragon lake and the infamous Lao Ban Zhang old tea groves. There is a lot of forest taste in this tea. They made us another tea from 2007, a better year for tea, the old man says. It has some rice or popcorn smell. We have had those rice teas before, and some teas naturally have a rice smell. But in this one the rice taste is too strong. They tell me that they actually put a little spice they grow in it to make the tea smell a little like cooked rice. Points for honesty. The young man said these teas were made by their hands, and he wanted to show us where they made the tea and how they made the tea. We decided their tea was okay, and they were honest and friendly - these are good qualifications for teaching. So it began.

We followed him inside. They had big frames like bunk beds full of fresh tea leaves. These leaves they picked this morning and would soon start cooking. Back in the yard they had a small room with three giant iron woks in it. Those woks are where they cook the tea to remove water and soften the leaves. They said if we can stay here longer they can show us how to make Shai Qing Mao Cha tea from beginning to end. This is also called fixing the tea, and it is the first step to making any puer. Usually farmers are a bit secretive about how they do this, so... Off course we’d like to see that!

We went outside to the back of the building with woks in it. The young man got some grass and bamboo and lit a fire in a small oven under the woks. We got some tea leaves from the frames inside and carried them with a basket, dumping about about 4 kg into the wok. The temperature was about 75 degree centigrade. And the leaves popped and hissed. The young man put a towel around his neck to stop his sweat from falling down into the wok. He put on gloves so he could toss the leaves, touching the hot metal. There is a wonderful smell. He spins and tosses and works the leaves into a ball. After about ten minutes the leaves are dark and soft as dough. He puts them on a flat basket passed to his wife who sits behind him. She rubs and rolls the leaves with her hands as he goes to get another basket of leaves. After maybe 10 minutes her leaves look like small ropes and she stops and put them in a basket, tosses them loosely onto the inside frames again so that no leaves stick to each other. The tea leaves lie lightly piled overnight. Next morning they are put outside under the sun. If it rains, the leaves are still places outside under a plastic sheet until the sun comes or the leaves must be thrown out. After a whole day under the sun, the tea leaves will be dry. These they will sort, and pick the yellow big leaves out and use them to make a type of puer called lao huang pian. (Later I will write about the lao huang pian.) What is left that called shai qing mao cha. They can sell them to the market as sheng puer now. Or they can bring them to a factory that makes a brick or beeng with them. They will likely sell the tea at the kind of market we saw in Simao.

The young man told us only big factory can make shou puer. Small factory doesn’t have enough sha qing mao cha to make them ferment. Big factories put thousands kilograms shai qing mao cha together set them in a certain temperature and certain moisture for more than a month let them ferment to make shou puer. This is not a simple process and often it goes wrong.

This is the most busy season in a year and now is the most busy time in the day. As afternoon wanes and night falls the fresh tea leaves all need to be cooked. They can’t sit on the frame too long. And the tea dried by the sun needs get back inside before the dew falls. Farmers arrive on motorcycles or bikes with sacks of fresh tea leaves and negotiate a price for cooking it. A number of those who bring fresh leaves claim they are from old tea trees, and the young man and his father must carefully evaluate what they buy, and what they pick to cook with the limited time they have. We feel like we need to leave let them working, and we tell them we will come back and walk to that ancient planted tea tree. They were so welcoming we buy a little of this year’s new tea to bring home and see if it in fact gets better. They gave me some of the leaves I cooked and rolled myself. I need to let the sun burn them tomorrow to make my own tea. The old man tell us some story about the old tea trees and chat with us a little. We will come back and spend a more time with them.

On our way back we check the altitude: 1740 meters. We pass by the little towns and the tea factory where farmers are hurrying to in with huge bags of tea leaves to deliver them before the end of the day. Teas are being cooked and laid out in the last of the sun. The smell in the air is wonderful. We would like to hike in the mountains for an hour now, but soon it will be dark, and these roads make us feel we don’t have time to do that today. The blue sky and white clouds are closer to us and the sun is golden through the tall trees. We will see that old thousand year old tea tree and get something of the spirit from it one day.

Here's a video on making shai qing mao cha - the first step in curing puer tea.

Simao / Puer Tea Institute

A new type of dark red tea...

We visit a friend I made in 2008, a brother from a tea farming family near Jinggu who runs the family shop in Simao. When we walk in, three older women from Tsingdao are drinking a new local Oolong tea that tastes remarkably like a tieguanyin. Its aroma may not be as bright but the texture of the liquor is smoother and deep. This tea is the product of a young woman, who has learned how to make oolong tea from a Taiwanese teacher who recently held a seminar in Kunming. So not only have we found decent Yunnan White and Bud and Leaf white tea, but now Yunnan is also making oolong. She tells me that the tea tree that makes this Yunnan oolong they have been importing from Thailand for the last ten years. He mentions that the Fujianese have refused to teach how to make their tea because they claim it requires the tieguanyin tea tree, which is expensive and upon transplanting usually dies in Yunnan. The Taiwanese themselves copied oolong tea making from Fujian, so they readily agree that any tea tree can be cured into any type of tea. He gave me enough of his oolong to include two bags in each of our investors' shipments as a curiosity. I suspect he steeped his tea in much cooler water than one would generally use for a tieguanyin.

The Chinese tea economy is certainly headed for upheaval as knowledge that all types of tea can be made from all types of tea trees spreads. My friend hears us mention the minty Zi3Juan1 tea, which we had not tried before, either, and after a lecture on its genesis at a local tea studies institute, we got to see terraced hills circling low buildings or green houses. Each step of the way on flagstone paths, with unique tea trees collected from Yunnan, a bright yellow tree and a dark leaved, red and spicey one the internet claims is from the Nannuo Mountains, but we are told it is the result of a hybrid experiment. There are the white tea trees, the controversial zijuan, and some we have not heard of. It is a beautiful set of hills, the top of is a plateau park which locals stroll up the mountain to look off of. One isn't allowed to drive up and along the ridge where areas experiment with computerized watering systems that measure rainfall and UV bug catchers. Organic experiments are everywhere, one of which uses new species created and propagated and then sold to farms for their virtues, like big buds for growing white tea, sweeter, harrier leaves for bai mu dan. Dividing bragging from fact is often not easy, and there are competing theories as to the origins of Yunnan's new White and Oolong teas. My friend shows us a yellow-leaf tea variety, Huang2Guan4, which the institute is still testing. He says this tea should come to market in a year or two. See if it doesn't appear in Beijing by 2015, he says.



What would you be most interested in knowing when you tried this tea?

Tea and Weather: Yunnan, Spring 2011

Climate affects tea quality in many ways depending on the tea being made. Some teas are manufactured indoors, so weather doesn't affect them. The first pickings of each year are dependent on the winter and spring before and after a tea is picked. At best, the first buds of spring tea are the most flavorful, catching the sap as it surges out of the roots with the nutrients that have accumulated over the winter. The quality of the first spring buds do not necessarily decide the quality of later summer pickings; they do decide if a year will be remembered as great, however because more often than not for Yunnan dark teas. Paradoxically, if there is dry and cold weather there are fewer tea buds of lesser quality. These will cost more. A perfect year, on the other hand, will be cheaper due to more tea leaves hitting the market! If green teas are not so much affected, a good question to ask is what is a Yunnan dark tea?

The last few years have not been thought to be great tea years for Yunnan's famous dark teas. This is not the case in other areas. For example, 2008 and 2009's first green tea was bitter. However the 2008 and 2009 white tea in Fujian could be shade dried nearly to perfection. In 2010 the first green tea was fixed full of flavor even though the rains came early, but these rains made traditional white tea unavailable. In 2010 the first buds of white tea had to be dried electrically because the weather was too damp, making it oxidize into what the Fujanese farmers call Hong (red) Hao Yin Zhen and not Bai (white) Hao Yin Zhen. 2010 white tea is more expensive than it was in 2009! But for Yunnan dark tea there is a different story.

In Yunnan Puer tea comes from a wider swath of geologically diverse areas so the spring weather varies and it is not easy to make simple generalizations, however many tea traders do hold forth that 2008 was not a good year because there was a 2008 drought. In 2009 Lancang Wild Puer was much brighter in taste than 2010 because of the sparse rainfall again in Southern Yunnan. This year tea traders in Kunming are also saying 2011 has been too dry; the tea will be duller, leading even to wild-fires in the west. Some blame North China's seeding of rain clouds for this disturbance which has successfully created more rain in the north of China since 2008 (Yunnan is in the south of China). We are looking to sample the first spring leaves at Puer, Nannuo, and Menghai.

Shopping For Tea

Buying tea in China is not always easy, but these difficulties can be good learning experiences in how one shops for tea. Otherwise potentially disheartening experiences, being sold tea at inflated prices or teas treated to age quicker can also be great lessons, so it is important not to be too worried about making mistakes. Whether we have gotten angry or laughed, many of these experiences have resulted in us better understanding why certain tastes are superior or just how special properly cured teas are. To cite two examples, most Da Hong Pao tea sold is created through a mixture of three types of leaves, none of which come from the Da Hong Pao tree. Or in Hong Kong we were sold a sample of 30 year old puer only to learn that this had been stored in a room with elevated temperature and humidity, akin to a sauna, resulting in a white sheen covering the leaves and, most importantly, the flavors losing their distinction as the tea broke down through this forced aging, creating a taste dulled and flat. We didn't throw this tea away, and while we don't drink it, we keep it to show fellow tea enthusiasts. I like to think of these experiences being akin to the expenses and trials any student faces in matriculation and examinations.

Shopping for tea is like taking a course of study, and especially in China it requires time, a full chest of vigor, and a mischievous glint. Drinking tea should be an inspiring and calming activity, so it is paradoxical how easy it is to get angry when you know a little about tea and are tricked or sold inferior, sometimes fraudulent, even perhaps unhealthy, products. Tea has caffeine and other stimulants - in dark teas sometimes perhaps psychotropic elements - so after trying four different teas, a customer can loose touch with what she or he really wants, especially when an animated tea merchant is friendly, perhaps incompetent, and pushy. Often in China there is a period of testing when a merchant ascertains whether or not to respect a customer, and only after a customer detects fraud does the merchant fold and speak with new found directness, perhaps even then seeking the respect of this customer. So when a customer detects a misleading intention in a merchant, it is like passing a test and graduating to a new level of study.

We have come to believe this is simply part of Chinese tea culture, and as with any art or religion, for all the wonder there will be as much ignorance and fraud. For anyone wishing to learn just how complex and pleasing tea can be, another difficulty is that without tasting many truly remarkable teas it is not easy to know, and without finding an honest merchant one will never get to try truly remarkable teas. Even drinking great tea it takes time to learn to gauge what is in fact too thin or especially inspiring, and the sometimes disorienting effect of caffeine, etc in tea does not help. But don't despair - you don't want to learn to appreciate the best teas too quickly. We have been told that learning about tea is a double edged sword because unlike with alcohol where one can appreciate better and worse, with tea, having experienced good tea, it is much harder to then enjoy drinking inferior tea. There is much to learn in tea, and really there is no better way to learn than to plunge full of energy into the tea-shop neighborhoods and start drinking tea.

Tea shops in China expect to give away infusions of their teas. Indeed it is considered strange or ignorant that a customer would ever buy a tea without first trying it - unless, of course, the customer and merchant have a well-established relationship. So China’s tea shops lend themselves to any tea enthusiast's study. One can spend all day wandering among tea shops in tea wholesaling areas of town, spend nothing, and learn a great deal about the continuum of flavors that can be cured from the tea leaf. We generally feel we should buy a sample of those teas we enjoy drinking to try them again at home and to show respect for those merchants we like. And as we develop affinities for certain merchants, we return to them more often, perhaps in anticipation of a seasonal tea that will soon be arriving. Tea can be a profound social lubrication so it makes sense to discover merchants with whom one gets along. And to do this one should visit many shops.

A few guiding principles can help any student of tea venturing among new tea shops. Initially it is wise to establish a maximum price you will pay before going into a shop, and assume any price offered is about triple what what a knowledgeable customer will pay to buy that same tea. Establishing a maximum price you want to pay, empty the rest of the money from your wallet. If you find a tea you like you can honestly show the merchant the money you have to spend. You might be surprised to find that when you say you only have so much, and if you stay focused on that one tea you really like (and not on the cheaper tea that will be offered), then the price will come down as you walk out the door. Remain playful and buoyant but firm. A great thing about tea is that unlike when buying other types of art, like painting or sculpture, even books, as one learns to taste the full spectrum of tastes that can be cured from a tea leaf, it is much harder to make a mistake. Just beware your palate after too many cups of tea. Just like when it comes to cuisine, one really likes what one likes. And after you start tasting your tea, this sense will only refine itself. And finally, realizing you could be paying to go to a school that will (or won’t) teach you about tea, take your experiences as just that. There are expensive schools that teach tea appreciation, and many of them are not very good. So pay a little as you learn, and if you drink what you buy, you learn quickly not to buy bad tea.

Some shops hide their best teas until they think they will get the best price. And often a merchant will tell you every customer has a different palate. So once you have procured a tea you are confident is high quality, it can be very useful to bring some of this tea with you. You can couch your offering it in such terms as you want to show the proprietor what your palate, as a tea drinker, most appreciates. This might get you offered a better tea in return. Usually a merchant who has never met a customer begins by offering that customer the cheapest tea, requiring the customer work their way up the “ladder”. But beware, there is also a custom of showing a customer better and better teas, only at last to introduce a mediocre tea, insisting it is the best of them all. Others even mix inferior leaves with superior after allowing us to taste the superior leaves. For all these reasons it pays to stay aware, and frankly this is also why we like patronizing the farms that actually grow exceptional teas, especially returning to them year after year. While tea grows in popularity, most small tea producers have never met foreigners and are very happy to meet one who specifically likes their tea. Tea makers are much like artists, so to track down the actual maker of a certain type of tea can be a wonderful way to find a devoted teacher.

Defining Da Hong Pao

Traditional Da Hong Pao (literally "Big Red Cape) Oolong Tea grows in a protected UNESCO World Heritage site. Many tea scholars believe Oolong Tea was invented in this area, and the quality of the area's tea has kept a continuous culture protected here for at least the last millennium, when notably after the fall of the Tang Dynasty a Wuyi kingdom emerged here to be the only Chinese-Han controlled area in China. Different invaders and successive Dynasties found the revenue generated by this area's teas reason enough to tax them and leave them alone, but the diplomatic ability of local leaders also helped the area to flourish. It was the Qing Dynasty, China's last dynasty that made Da Hong Pao the official tea of the Emperor, which lead to the army's presence protecting what is today one of the most pristine areas left in modern China.

Da Hong Pao as a style of tea has only become prominent in the last few hundred years. The process by which this tea is repeatedly baked and rolled and heated is one of the world’s more complex methods for making an oolong tea. This process is believed to accentuate the tastes of particular minerals in the earth the Da Hong Pao tree grows in. This earth is found only inside the Wuyi National Park UNESCO protected area. This makes it very hard to increase Da Hong Pao production as new farms lack the proper soil. This same complex curing process is used on other tea varieties found inside the park. The taste of Da Hong Pao is considered to be one of the most complex of all teas. Enthusiasts of Da Hong Pao contend that what differentiates it is its greater depth and range of flavors which a tea artisan can extract from the leaf. Da Hong Pao tea's curing process is also unique in that for the first decade storage of a Da Hong Pao tea requires the tea be recooked every every few years. The tea is heated to remove moisture that is absorbed by the excessively dessicated leaves, but also during each re-cooking a new flavor is extracted from the Da Hong Pao leaf. It is said that often one re-cooking will not create a successful flavor and the tea must be set aside until a few years later when recooking can again be attempted. Old Da Hong Pao teas are exceedingly rare.

Inside the park many varietals of tea tree grow out of the red, crumbly, highly-mineralized stone, which gives the many teas from this area the common name, ‘rock tea’. Many of the tea trees most famous in this area were only popularized in the last three hundred years. In 1950 there were over two hundred and thirty varieties of rock teas which grow throughout the park. Mature tea tree leaves rang in size from a little finger to a whole hand. Almost all the tea trees are used to make tea, but each type of tree has a different taste profile and yield. The spindly Da Hong Pao tree produces fewer leaves than the other ‘rock teas’ and so it is thought to concentrate more minerals from the soil in the leaves. The Da Hong Pao tree is considered to be the variety which contains the most complex taste. It was a favorite of the Dynastic government of two hundred years ago, and it is still mostly reserved for the highest ranking Chinese government officials today. There are only five original Da Hong Pao trees left, and cuttings have been used to propagate the this varietal over the last few centuries, however only a small area contains the mineralized red soil that gives this tea its full depth of flavor, which means that as China has grown richer and demand for this tea increased authentic Da Hong Pao has become one of the most rare and expensive teas in the world. Traditionally Da Hong Pao trees in the park are classified by how many cuttings removed they are from the original trees. This classification has been discouraged by sellers of lower quality Da Hong Pao, and by the government, which keeps the best. It is also one of the most faked teas. There is an established tradition for imitating Da Hong Pao, made by mixing the leaves of larger yielding plants. Many tea vendors will readily acknowledge that much Da Hong Pao is not from the Da Hong Pao tree.

Perhaps due to the ancient tea culture here, farmers have a highly developed ecological theory of tea science which stipulates, among other things, that a tea tree yields more flavor when it grows surrounded by greater biodiversity. This leads to farmers having developed remote tea gardens nestled among narrow valleys which incorporate the surrounding plant life. Today all development inside the park has been halted, and these groves are in one of the best kept parks in all of China. It is a lovely place to wander. The biodiversity of this area is second only to Yunnan province in the far South of China. At the back of park behind these small rock tea groves there is a wilderness area. An institutes here maintains and studies an incredibly pristine ecology which dates back to before the last ice age. Somehow this area didn't get covered by the sheets of ice, and even now monkeys and tigers and bears still prowl through a vast protected area. The local museum guide claims over twenty species of poisonous water snakes still thrive. That put a damper on our wanting to swim in the enticing blue green water.

Setting aside Da Hong Pao's lofty claims, we are none-the-less enthralled by the ponderous aesthetics experienced through a sip of authentic Da Hong Pao. The best rock teas, including Da Hong Pao come from five traditional groves in the park considered to have the best mix of ecology, climate, altitude and soil. In the spring and fall of 2010 we made some very special acquaintances with families of traditional tea growers who farm one of these five most prized Da Hong Pao tea groves, called Shui Lian Dong. Most of their tea they sell to the government, but some they keep for themselves, and of this we got some.

We met a young woman from a family that had lived at the base of Shui Lian Dong (translated “water-faced cave”) until her family was relocated in 1998. She still has access to some of her family's ancestral tea trees, and we spent a few days with her trying these teas and visiting her plants inside the park. We chose a spring Da Hong Pao she picked in 2010 to offer here. She tells us the tea won a a silver medal in a local competition, but we are most impressed by the taste. We and our friends think the tea infusion exhibits the wonderful rounded body of flavor indicative of the best teas grown in the mineralized clay stone found only in this park. This tea also had another quality we can only describe as transporting. When we drink this tea, and we drink it a lot, we are reminded of ancient moss covered shrubs and the blankets of mist that curl among these red rock faces. There are no factories near here, only brisk moist mountain air. Writing about it now I will take a break and go brew a cup. Complex yet delicate, this tea makes apparent how full and lush, soft and sensual, intellectual and contemplative an oolong tea can be. We proudly agree it is one of China's national treasures.