Tag Archives: puerh tea

Brewing Sheng Puer Tea – Science and Nature

Chen Lao Ban just came down from Kunming where he has a shop and we’re brewing a sample of autumn tea. He tells HM to move over and let him brew. “Your seat’s over there.” he says with an authoritative wryness.

He’s a big guy, but somehow manages to hunker over the chapan, focusing intensely on the brewing process.

How it started was this: someone had brought a bottle of water for us to try, and what was initially purely a test of the water evolved into a meditation on brewing parameters and equipment.

Different water, different pots, a gaiwan, different brewing styles, each time the result is different. We had, much earlier, dismissed the tea as being average, lacking in flavour (not surprising given the recent weather). Chen pronounces, with his usual style of scientifically peppered explanation, what precisley went wrong in the processing of this tea.

At times he seems to be something of a conjurer – but this description is misleading as it suggests a slight of hand which is inaccurate. There is no slight of hand.

If Chen Lao Ban is brewing a tea that he thinks is good or should be better, but has not shown it’s true colours, he will puzzle over how to adapt his brewing technique to get the best out of the tea.

He reminds me of a nature watcher perhaps, in the woods, hoping to see wildlife. He’s done his homework: he knows there are animals out there, he knows their habitat, he has a good idea about their habits, but it requires patience, skill, an understanding of the nature of the particular animal, and maybe a little cunning, to lure it out.

If one is not patient, one will see nothing. If one is patient, but not observant, one will also see nothing – keeping an open eye for any signs of movement is essential. Knowing where the animal may be, it’s temperament, and what skills to use to coax it out are essential, otherwise one will see nothing.

Of course, the precursor to this is knowing that you are in the right place to see something, in the right environment. If you misjudge the terrain, the search may well prove fruitless.

This is sheng Puer tea.

Post-conversation Conversation (On Wilting Shai Qing Mao Cha Part II)

I was recently talking with Wu Ya of Yunnan Scientific and Technical Publishing who, besides producing books on Puer tea, also publish the quarterly ‘Yunnan Puer Tea’ Magazine.

Wu Ya’s view echoed Tan’s: that it was not referred to in name in the past and that the wei diao period depended largely on how far a farmers trees were from the house. “What is important” he says “is that the fresh leaves are spread out and that they are not left overnight.” Adding that it was important for farmers to have a place (a small gazebo type shade structure) in their tea fields where leaves can be spread out in order that they stay cool whilst picking continues.

This view, not surprisingly perhaps, was reiterated in the Spring edition of Yunnan Puer Tea, which carried an article ‘Traditional and Modern Puer Tea Making Methods’.

The introduction differentiates traditional and modern methods as pre and post electrification. Essentially, tea making methods before and after 1956 (Three Big Transformations/san da gai zao). [This belies the earlier creation of a tea factory in 1938-39 in Nan Nuo Shan which introduced modern electric machines, but as they were essentially making black and green tea, we can perhaps ignore it in the context of the article. It is also of note that, because of the Nan Nuo Shan factory, set up by Bai Meng Yu, tea farmers in Nan Nuo Shan maintain they were ‘au fait’ with the concept of wilting much earlier than other areas, even though, at that stage, they were not making their own tea as they were obliged to sell their fresh leaves to the tea factory.]

Since wodui (wet pile) Puer tea production techniques were developed rather later in the 1970’s, the article does not consider shou cha in this comparison.

The article poses a central question:  “What are the effects on the quality of traditional and modern Puer tea production methods?”

In translation it might read something like this:

“Comparison of the effects on quality of traditional and modern Puer tea production methods“
1. Wilting 

Traditional method: Traditional production methods stipulate no particular requirement vis-a-vis wilting. If it happened, it was because the place where the tea was picked was far from where the tea was made, rather than being done deliberately. Thus, in traditional tea production, the craft of wilting was not stressed. Furthermore, there was no record or research of the function of wilting.

Modern method: Modern tea production methods, also have no specific requirements regards the wilting process, but some tea businesses, taking the practice from Wulong tea production, made ‘weidiao’ a set procedure in the production of Puer tea. The result is that Puer tea’s ‘kuse’ is reduced a little and the fragrance augmented. Another reason is that the fermentation process is accelerated and the rate of change in the tea is increased. Enzymes are a form of protein stored in living plants, they are one of the most powerful sources of transformation in organic matter.

People in the past referred to them as ‘yeast’ and believed that their function was to cause fermentation, today, modern science has confirmed that the function of enzymes is not fermentation, rather to act as a catalyst in living matter. In Puer tea, enzymes promote the release of fragrances and bring about other changes; enzymes in tea leaves have a direct relationship to the moisture content, temperature, humidity, etc.

After fresh leaves are picked, the process of dehydration is catalysed by enzymes. In the wilting process, between 10 and 16 hours, the activity of enzymes continuously increases up until 16 hours after which it starts to decline. *

The cataysing function of enzymes directly affects the formation of Wulong and Black tea. In Puer tea production, wilting can facilitate change and is beneficial to the teas quality.

Conclusion: Even though wilting is not considered a necessary process in both traditional and modern production, it is beneficial to the changes that take place and the quality of Puer tea, and is absolutely neccessary.”

*The article here is not suggesting that wilting in the Puer making process should be done for such a long time – it is merely describing the activity of enzymes in relation to time.

Yunnan Puer Tea Magazine, Spring 2011.

 

It would be easy to dismiss this as commercial patter serving the interests of big tea business so I thought it might be interesting to do a little ‘sondage’ of some publications to see if this point of view was generally supported.

A quick browse round publications in a local bookstore highlighted the broad acceptance of wilting shai qing mao cha for Puer tea. Pick up any Puer tea magazine and there’s always at least a couple of pictures of tea put to ‘wilt’. Of course, we could dismiss this as serving commercial interests, so here are a few more references;

Looking through some rather more official publications:

People’s Republic of China, International Standards GB/T22111-2008, Product of geographical indication (sic)- Puer tea.

“6.5.1 shai qing cha”

“xian ye tan fang – sha qing – rou nian – jie jue – ri guang gan cao – bao zhuang

Spread out fresh leaves –   kill green  –  roll  –  finish  –  sun dry  –  wrap“

Here they use the phrase tan fang – to spread out. There is no further detail

So here:

Yunnan Tea Basic Production Skills (Yunnan cha ye chuzhi jishu)

This book describes 6 steps to produce ‘dian qing‘ a term sometimes preferred for shai qing mao cha – the raw material from which all Puer tea is made.

“Basic process of making sun dried tea (Shai qing cha ye chu jia gong)”

“2 – tan qing

After fresh leaves have been collected, they should be spread out to a suitable depth. 10-15 centimetres, allow the fresh grassy smell to disipate and the fragrance to augment. No moisture should be visible on the surface of the leaves. When the leaves have lost about 10% of their weight they are ready to fry.”

Here they use the phrase tan qing but the meaning is the same as tan fang and the objective – to reduce the moisture content in the leaves – is the same.

One could also dismiss these government publications on the basis that they also have interests to look out for, so I picked up  a book I haven’t looked at in a while:

Liu Qin Jin is a fan of cooked Puer tea and no great fan of young Puer – he states in his book ‘Appreciation  and Brewing of Puer Tea’ that Sheng cha should not even be called Puer tea until it has acquired the properties that are associated with aged Puer tea – i.e appropriate cake and broth colour and flavours/aromatic qualities that are typically associated with a well aged tea. He puts that at a solid 15 years.

He describes what he outlines as the ‘Steps in making Traditional Puer Tea’, where there is no mention of withering, but on the next page, where there is more detail of the steps involved, the first is ‘Spread out the fresh leaves’ (xian ye tan fang).

He recommends spreading the tea to a depth of 15-20 centimetres until the moisture content has been reduced to around 70%. This suggests a slightly longer wilting time than others propose.

So, by way of drawing some kind of provisional conclusion, we might note that wilting has become an accepted practice, albeit without very clear stipulations, particularly regard to time. There appear to be no indications that wilting Puer tea for Sheng Puer is in any way detremental to the tea, or to the ageing process of that tea. It is most certainly widely practiced to varying degrees and has been done so for several decades.

Conversations – on Wilting Shai Qing Mao Cha

The issues of wilting Puer tea, good and bad tea making processes, and the consequent suitability of a tea for ageing are perennial.

Tan Lao Shi is probably in her 50’s. She’s already retired. She grew up in Luo Shui Dong where her family have been tea farmers for several generations. Her childhood, up until her early teens was spent at Luo Shui Dong.

I asked her about how the tea making process of Puer now varies from when she was young and specifically about the weidiao process; Could she confirm that wilting fresh leaves before frying was a recent introduction in the Puer making process.

The idea, she said, is only from the late 80’s or early 90’s. Prior to that there wasn’t that thinking. But of course, the tea was wilted. Not to wilt the leaves; “zhe shi bu ke neng de.” – ‘It’s impossible the tea was not wilted.’ she says.

She went on to describe a typical day and the tea making process; after breakfast, around 8 a.m her family would go to their tea garden to pick leaves. “The garden was as far as from here to the school. Not far.” (Jinglan cha cheng to the local primary school – perhaps 100 metres) “They would pick tea until around 2pm, putting it in big baskets, then they would bring it back to the house. In the afternoon, they would go again and pick tea, up till maybe 8 at night.”

Tan described how only when the afternoon’s tea was brought back to the house, and the morning and the afternoon tea was put together would it be fried and rolled. In her estimate, at the very least, tea was left for 5 hours before frying; so, whether it was done unwittingly or not, the tea was wilted. In fact, the idea of picking a relatively small amount of tea and taking it back to the house to process immediately seemed implausible to her.

Her explanation for lack of historical evidence is that people wilted the tea unknowingly. They were just putting it to one side until they were ready to begin frying. There was no specific aim. She challenges me to find the words weidiao or tan qing in any literature. “There’s no mention of it because no one recorded the information, but it still happened.”

She went on to talk about how the tea was piled up and not spread out on mats as is the manner now and how, as children, they would jump into the big piles of tea which was fun, but because they were worried about their parents being angry when they returned to the house, they would sweep all the tea back up into a pile prior to their parents return. So this tea was most certainly oxidised.

She talked about how, prior to the early 50’s, they would pick tea fairly crudely, picking older leaves along with younger ones. After that (probably 1952-53) they would still not be selective in their picking, but when they took the tea back to the house they would separate out the older leaves from the younger tips and leaves – up to maybe tip and three leaves.

The tea made form these older leaves would be put in baskets after rolling, bamboo skins were placed on top and stones ( she described the kind of large stones that were used for sharpening knives) were placed on top of the bamboo skins to weigh them down. As a consequence the leaves were tightly compressed. This tea was left for two nights. “We used to put eggs in the tea. After three days the eggs were cooked.”

She also described making autumn tea and how the weather in Luo Shui Dong could be quite cold, but when they put their hands in the tea it was hot. On the third day this tea would be put out to dry. After handling it, their hands were ‘black’ from the tea.

I asked her what the tea broth looked like. “Not black like shou cha is now.” she said. “About the same colour as that.” and pointed to some tea in a ‘piao-yi-bei’ that had the colour of say a 4 or 5 year old raw tea – a brownish, ruby-red.

This ‘fermented’ tea was sold to an export company for export to Russia. Tan describes when she was a child how Russians came looking for tea. She said the Russians knew the difference between spring, summer and autumn tea, and would not buy the summer tea.

The tip and leaf formations from the process described above were not treated in the same way. After rolling they were shaken out and left till the next morning to be sun dried. This tea was typically given to local officials and the like.

Not for all the tea in China

Heading east out of Porto, following the River Duoro, one eventually moves out of the verdant lower reaches and moves up into the highlands that feel more like the North Yorkshire Moors than Portugal. By swinging north-east, one eventually arrives at Braganca, home of Catherine – her father was the Duke of Braganca – the Portuguese princess who married Charles II in 1662, and brought along her penchant for a nice cup of tea.

Tea was first brought to Europe in the early 1600’s, but, having been popularised by Catherine who arrived some 40 years later, by the late 19th Century, tea had ceased to be the luxury item it was at the time of it’s introduction.

‘Not for all the tea in China’ perhaps still alluded to the value of tea, but also, rather more the quantity.

The price of Puer, volatile as ever, reached a new height recently; someone brought us some Lao Ban Zhang Summmer tea (yu shui cha). It actually wasn’t bad, but at 1000 RMB a kilo it wasn’t very attractive. As HM said, “Why would you buy Lao Ban Zhang yu shui cha, when for half the price you could buy the very best Nan Nuo Shan Spring tea.”

Of course, compared to Longjin and what have you, Puer is still inexpensive. But, as Puer tea moves further and further away from being an agricultural product, to being a quality, hand-crafted tea, made by farmers who want to see their standards of living rise (even if that might mean, from many an outsider’s view at least, a decline in quality), and as they become increasingly connected to a larger society which has inflation that’s probably closer to 20% than most care to acknowledge. Who’s going to tell them ‘bu xing!’

shuo bu qing chu – cant say for sure

Peng Zhe is head of the Xishuangbanna Tea Association. He was also, till last year,  head of the Xishuangbanna Tea Bureau, a post he stepped down from. He is a mine of information on Puer tea and very wise. A man of few words.

Recently, talking over lunch, which of course centred around tea he said   “The great thing about sheng cha is you can’t say anything for sure.”

Open House

We held a qing ke (open house) last weekend, but building work continues on a gazebo. It’s made from some timber and roof tiles from an old Dai house, supplemented with the remaining pine from the main building construction. It’s going to be a place to hang out and drink tea.

gazebo-dai-style

Built in the manner of a local Dai building rather than a Han style pagoda, there are some nominal similarities in design style between the two.  Tiles like these are made by Dai people outside nearby Menghun. The village nearby is also renowned for hand-made paper.

dai-gazebo

The roof superstructure needs to be more substantial to support the tiles.

gazebo roof

The toilet block replete with words of wisdom by friends from Suzhou. “It’s too white.” they said. “bu hao kan!”

toilet-bloc

A view from the road above the site. The white roof can just be seen through the trees.

view-from-the-road

New Year

Xishuangbanna does not have a particularly strong Han Chinese culture, nonetheless, during this season, many different ethnic groups celebrate their own new year ; Aini, Jinuo, Han, all have celebrations.

This last week has been the Jinuo New Year – several days of celebrations, for which cows and pigs are slaughtered and shared out amongst the households of the village.  Much is also given away to guests.

Yesterday I went with friends to Jinuo Shan.  We were invited to a friends house to eat.  This was followed by dancing.

A group of dancers, accompanied by others playing cymbals and makeshift drums,  go round the entire village, enter each house to dance and drink bai jiu and finish in the village square to continue the celebrations.

A basket of greens was tossed in the air above everyone’s heads, while the drinking and dancing continued.

In these situations, avoiding being more or less forced to drink home-made maize liquor takes great determination and – as far as the hosts are concerned – a degree of insensitivity to their cultural norms.  However,  Jinuo people tend not to be  as persistent as some other cultures in this matter.P02_R

All Jinuo people will wear some form of traditional dress for this kind of occasion; typically a jacket and a bag. Only the woman wear hats. The clothing is made using cotton that people have woven themselves, though the Jinuo likely never grew much cotton themselves, and although they apparently traditionally dyed cloth themselves using local plant dyes, it seems that this too is seldom practiced now.P05_R

There is very little tea in this particular part of Jinuo Shan now.  Old tea trees have been cut down to plant rubber which  encroaches relentlessly on more traditional farming areas.

P1020873_R

Climate Change

I just got back from a month in the UK.  The first visit in five years. Of course, I took tea with me. It was the first time I had personally taken much sheng cha from one climate to another, significantly different, climate.

From Jinghong to Kunming, with about 1200 metres rise in altitude, is already a huge change and it requires time, particularly, it seems,  for younger teas to adjust.  I had taken some Puer to Beijing a couple of years ago, but it was October, when the rainy season in Xishuangbanna is largely over and the weather in Beijing is still pleasantly warm, albeit quite dry, so the change was not so obvious.

Younger teas took the best part of three weeks before they started to taste anything like they do here. And even ‘here’ the change in sheng between dry and wet seasons is very noticeable – most typically losing it’s fragrance whilst the flavour becomes thinner.

I spent a fair amount of time also exploring different waters – bottled, commercially available water  – and even went as far as buying a small kettle since, even if you have good water, which you then boil in a calcerous old kettle the result will be compromised.

After trying many waters with different pH and mineral content I concluded – farbeit for me to advertise – that Volvic was the most suitable for the majority of teas.  It’s mineral content is not very high – it has very low calcium levels and the pH  neutral at 7.  The water we use in the shop has a similar profile, but with a few less minerals. It seemed that older teas were a little more tolerant of the cliamte change and poorer water quality.

The correlation of water and altitude (boiling point?) is also interesting; Nan Nuo Shan is blessed with ample crisp spring water.  It’s excellent for drinking when walking in the mountains and, at 1600 metres or more, makes a fine brew of tea. But when we have tried bringing that water back to Jinghong to make the same tea, the outcome is rather less favourable.  Typically less fragrant and more astringent.

My conclusions in the UK were supported by friends in France whom I went to visit at their home in the Cote de Luberon.  They  have some good experience of Puer and are very familiar with our teas being frequent visitors to Xishuangbanna. They can be visited in their shop in Lauris  ‘Galerie Yunnan’ where I’m sure they would be happy to share tea and stories.

By way of conclusion; of paramount importance is some tenacity in tea-making. If  one is trying a new tea, or even a tea that one is familiar with, but in a new situation, experimentation is key. Without the determination to explore

Early Spring Tea

We went out to Bulang Shan the day before yesterday and then HM went again yesterday to Lao Ban Zhang. He came back with lots of photos (thanks to a new camera) and a little new tea.

P1000376

It’s not old tree tea.  It’s tea from trees that are maybe 50-60 years old.  It seems no chemicals have been used on the trees…

The first one we just tried:

As HM said “The fragrance, flavour and aftertaste are all lacking.”  “Only the smokey flavour is (more than) enough.” 

But then, as someone said to us last spring “If it wasn’t smokey it wouldn’t be Lao Ban Zhang!”

P1000375

The tree (and woman) in Lao Ban Zhang that almost everyone who goes there takes a photo of.

 

Lao Ban Zhang consists of five villages:

Lao Ban Zhang, Xin Ban Zhang, Baka Nuan, Baka Long and Lao Man E.  All of these villages produce ‘Lao Ban Zhang’ tea, but they are all different. 

Old and New Ban Zhang are Aini villages (people who originally moved there from Nan Nuo Shan).

Baka Nuan and Baka Long are Lahu villages and Lao Man E is a Bulang village.

Old Tea (Let's go and have lunch)

We were drinking tea in the shop yesterday morning with a tea-friend when someone he knew walked past. His acquaintance was carrying a brick of  ‘thirty year old sheng cha’. A piece was uncerimoniously broken off for us to try. 

HM brewed the tea, poured us all a cup  then, after one mouthful,  “It’s not that old!” he  pronounced.  “Lets go and have lunch!”.

Later he conceded that the huigan was not bad but the cha qi, xiang qi, yun  were all lacking.  It also had that kind of flavour that I can only associate with shou cha. 

HM said ” I’m not sure how they made this stuff “.  Concluding it was wet-piled for a week or two to lighlty ferment it such that it could still be called (by some ) ‘sheng cha’, then after pressing, wet-stored and aired.  “That’s the kind of rip-off you get with Puer tea.” he declared with a sad expression.