On top of Bulang Shan. People are not too sure but these Pu-Erh trees are over 1500 years old, and who’s counting? Maybe 1800 years or more. The leaves are palm size, and the tops are 25 or 30 feet tall. How long do these trees live? Camellia Sinensis, an incredible plant of longevity, also gives longevity to those of us who can’t live without it.
How can this be called anything but Camellia Sinensis Pu-Erh? The original tea of the world, a world treasure.
For Pu-Erh, ugly is the new pretty. The conventionally pretty white tippy buds(right) of the Spring Pu-Erh, are relatively useless for aged Pu-Erh. After a period of aging, these white tips will have no taste. Aging the tea requires the more mature hardy leaves (left). In the Spring, many of these large arbor type tea plants will produce some enormous silver buds. Uneducated consumers will prefer these….
What machines can not replace: hand sorting tea. Here, sorting through Sheng Cha, and Shu Cha on the right. Ensuring that every piece of leaf that goes into a compressed Bing is the right quality- Machines can never replace the discerning hand eye sorting such brittle large leaves. For many consumers, buying Pu-Erh compressed cakes blind means not only not knowing what the leaf quality inside the middle of the cakes are, or whether it is the right fermentation, but that if the hand sorting wasn’t done, miscellaneous items aside from reject leaves will certainly be included. Even good quality Bingcha will include several different grades, the prettier leaves on the outside, nevermind unreliable factories. Pu-Erh is the Wild Wild South of tea.
西定章朗Xiding Zhanglang area old tree Maocha. Parsing down to specialized and micro terroir is super important to Yunnan Pu-Erh. After all, processing is not as skill involved as Oolongs, so terroir, tree stock, age….all make the big differences. I am getting to know the taste of Bulang Mountain, with its dance of intricate, complex tastes of BITTER. The bitter note is what is crucial for aging Pu-Erh!
That said, there is a lot of latitude in terms of blending raw materials from sub and micro terroir. Different areas will contribute nuances and qualities that the tea masters want to achieve. There is no end to the subtleties with even just this one mountain!
From Maocha to brick in a few minutes, and literally hot off the press, the 250gm brick is a commissioned effort by Mr. Wang, based out of Guangzhou, who handles all the wheeling and dealing while the Bai’s make the orders. Mr. Wang says the Cantonese are demanding the Sheng Pu-Erh in large quantities again- after all, they prefer the real, slow, naturally aged Pu-erh. Made to naturally ripen in about 8 years in Guangzhou(translate: hot and humid), Mr. Wang no longer commissions Shu Pu-Erhs. Those are for the Mandarins in the North, he says with a quick sneer….
From Bulang mountain, these Sheng Bing will age well, as it has enough bitters and a nice fresh olive ‘gan’. The peacock cakes we have at the shop represent the taste of this region, the peacock being their tribal icon. This Zhong Cha brand Sheng Bing is the Yunnan /China Inc. original factory offshoot. Confusing? Well, again, the right mountain and right producers is what matters…. After all, in Berkeley we have Chez Panisse, and many chefs from there have gone on to open even greater restaurants of their own….