[One fascinating aspect of the latest wave of commercialization in the borderlands of China and southeast Asia is the dramatic revival in popularity of Yunnan's Puer tea. Jinghong Zhang is a PhD student at the Australian National University who is studying the production, marketing and consumption of Puer tea. She has provided this brief report on the the latest opinions of tea connoisseurs about tea storage. See this earlier post for some background information on Jinghong's research on on Puer tea itself. AW]
As Puer tea becomes popular around China, ordinary consumers have learnt to distinguish two issues when they bargain in the teashops: ‘where is it made?’, referring to the origin of the basic tea material; and ‘how old is it?’, since Puer tea is known as ‘the older the better’.
Now a third issue is becoming important: ‘where is it stored?’. This added issue is due to people’s recent realization that the quality of Puer tea is not only determined by the raw material and the processing technique; neither is it true that an older tea is definitely better than a younger one; but quality also largely depends on what post-fermentation temperature and humidity the tea experiences during storage.
In the tea markets of Kunming, I’ve seen a teashop that specialises in Puer tea that has been stored in Hong Kong. Such Puer tea is called gang cang cha, literally meaning ‘tea out of a Hong Kong storehouse.’ The owner told me this was due to the special demand by some clients who appreciate the taste of Puer tea stored in Hong Kong rather than in Yunnan. He said that the humid and hot climate in Hong Kong could speed up the post fermentation of Puer tea, much quicker than being stored in drier place such as Kunming. Yunnan, no doubt, is the production place for Puer tea, but in the eyes of the big consumers in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Guangdong, Yunnan is no good for storage, and some of them even say that the Yunnanese don’t know how to properly store and consume Puer tea.
A big tea storehouse called tian xia cha cang (tea storehouse for the world), was established in Yuanjiang, Yunnan, in 2006. Yuanjiang is located in the moist and hot area of Honghe (Red River) valley, in southeast Yunnan. And it is said that one year’s storage here would be equal to three years of storage in Kunming. I visited it in June last year. All the teas were stored in the warehouse under controlled temperature and humidity (picture above). There I saw a compressed Puer tea in the shape of a pillar, whose color had turned dark red, really like shu cha, artificial fermented tea, although later I found it was actually sheng cha, naturally fermented tea (picture below). The label said it was produced in 2001 and been stored in Yuanjiang since 2003. I was shocked because I’d never seen such fast change on Puer sheng cha with the same age in Kunming.
The establishment of Yuanjiang tea storehouse aims to show that Yunnan is not only good at Puer tea production, but also good at Puer tea storage, a form of post-production. All the Puer tea being stored here will be sold later with added value from storage.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Maylee // Jun 10, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Hey Jinghong
Great post!
The storage issue is interesting. A French chef told me that in France they have awards not only for cheese makers but also for cheese storers. Apparently, cheese making and cheese aging and storing are seen as two distinct processes requiring different skill sets in France.
It sounds like Pu’er tea is similar.
2 jonfernquest // Jun 11, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Very interesting indeed.
Will have to find some and try it.
3 teadrinker // Jun 12, 2008 at 1:11 am
Hello Jing Hong, Interesting post although to say that Yunnan is a good storage place is very vague since the climate differences between the north, middle and south of the province are quite great. Saying that it is a good place to store tea is also advancing something that cannot be proved for now since nobody will know how a beeng cha will turn after 20 years or more. Pu erh tea has never been stored that long in Yunnan.
For the little info about the pu erh in the picture, if it does look like a cooked pu erh only after a few year it is because this type of pu erh is stored outside at the day light. looks good but I wouldn’t drink that thing.
4 varatphong // Jun 12, 2008 at 2:45 pm
There are generally speaking 2 types of storage for Puerh tea. I have recently uploaded articles on wet and dry storage. If you are interested in reading up on both, the articles are available at http://www.puerhcha.com/Pu-erh%20Tea%20Articles/Pu-erh_Tea_Articles.htm
Varat
5 Nicholas Farrelly // Jun 24, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Tea fans,
In response to Jinghong’s article there is now a long and very detailed discussion of Puer tea storage over at Cha Dao. Certainly worth a look.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
6 mark // Jan 1, 2009 at 6:01 pm
I see this is an old post, but the storage question seems to be a perennial one.
The arguments for wet stored tea are interesting. Nobody I know here wet stores tea, not because they don’t know how to, but becuase they don’t like it. For most people here, cang wei puer is not their favoured drink!
Efforts to try to establish a historical basis for wet storage are, it seems, sketchy; nobody I know knows of any evidence (anthropological/archeological ) that people in ‘banna systematically stored Puer in caves, underground etc.
Maybe in other, dryer areas that has happened, but in Jinghong, if one really wanted to speed up the oxidation process, one might consider hauling one’s tea down to Mengla (considerably more humid). To people here that would seem a little ‘over-the -top’.
Maybe one develops a taste for whatever is locally available. Every area or bio-region has it’s own suitable diet, like Eskimos eating rotten meat. What works in one place doesn’t neccessarily work in another!
7 Nick Nostitz // Jan 1, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Interesting, never came across this post.
I do appreciate Chinese tea since nearly 20 years. Storage in Bangkok and Malaysia indeed does speed up the fermentation process. Wild Arbor Pu Erh tea i have bought nearly ten years ago is much more aged than comparable ten year old tea that was stored in much dryer Kunming.
Care though has to be given that mold does not develop, and that the tea is stored in a place of good air exchange.
I am very doubtful of artificial wet storage, to many things can go wrong. It is better to drink a lesser aged sheng of good quality. Tea with too much wet storage does taste like foul old socks.
Some people spend too much effort on storage. The most important factor is the quality of the tea itself. A lousy tea will never make a good drink, regardless how long it has been stored. Recently i spent way too much money, cheap for its age though, on a brick of undefined 20 year old Yiwu tea. I don’t drink it – it is a stale and completely uneventful experience. My own self stored teas are leagues better.
10 years patience has paid off. And there are kilos of teas in my store that will be ready to drink over the next years.
8 Peter // Apr 25, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Ive visited this spring Yunnan, went Kunming and then to some famous tea mountains. I tried many teas on different places in Yunnan and I was very suprised with tea from 2006 and 2007. We had some in Yiwu and they aged very well. At that time, at the end of March, the humidity was there about 70% which I regards a very good base for aging. You get the aroma preserved very well and the some bittereness suppressed. Good place for dry storage althought I believe Kunming could be a good place for ‘very’ dry storage. Let’s see what the upcoming years of puerh archiving will bring. Good article Kathy, thx.
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