Re: Please someone explain differences in four pu-erhs.
Space Cowboy
http://community.livejournal.com/puerh_tea/
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=89
Basically:
cooked = ripe = shu
uncooked = raw = sheng
Shu is fermented and pressed into cakes. Sheng is not fermented and
pressed into cakes. Eventually over decades of aging Sheng will taste
like Shu. For all practical purposes you can consider them two
separate tastes.
Jim
On Nov 5, 11:04 pm, Lynxy <ly...@NOSPAM.geocities.com> wrote:
> Not knowing much about teas I am really confused with pu-erh
> classifications or variations;
>
> there are cooked and uncooked, raw and ripe pu-erh teas. Do they all
> still have a typical, distinctive, earthy pu-erh aroma, or they greatly
> differ ? I don't mean differences in quality, I mean differences in
> their smell and taste.
>
> Why they cook the tea before pressing it into a cake ?
>
> If I purchase a cake of raw pu-erh, do I leave it first to age
> couple of years in order to get that specific earthy smell and taste?
>
> Thank you.
Lewis Perin
> Not knowing much about teas I am really confused with pu-erh
> classifications or variations;
>
> there are cooked and uncooked, raw and ripe pu-erh teas. Do they all
> still have a typical, distinctive, earthy pu-erh aroma, or they greatly
> differ ? I don't mean differences in quality, I mean differences in
> their smell and taste.
>
> Why they cook the tea before pressing it into a cake ?
>
> If I purchase a cake of raw pu-erh, do I leave it first to age
> couple of years in order to get that specific earthy smell and taste?
See Mike Petro's Pu'er site for a good grounding in these issues:
/Lew
---
Lew Perin / pe...@acm.org
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html
Will Yardley
> there are cooked and uncooked, raw and ripe pu-erh teas. Do they all
> still have a typical, distinctive, earthy pu-erh aroma, or they greatly
> differ ? I don't mean differences in quality, I mean differences in
> their smell and taste.
"cooked" is just another term for "ripe" or shu (shou); "uncooked" (as
you'd imagine) is just another term for "raw" or "green" (sheng). "Ripe"
is really probably a better translation of shu than "cooked", because
the tea isn't literally cooked; it's more like composting.
Ripe tea is attempting to simulate the taste of well aged tea. However,
the taste of ripe tea is generally a little less complex and subtle than
a well stored aged sheng.
> If I purchase a cake of raw pu-erh, do I leave it first to age
> couple of years in order to get that specific earthy smell and taste?
A couple of years probably won't do much. You are talking about more
like 15-30 years at a minimum... maybe longer if you live somewhere
fairly dry.
--
Multi-lingual forum for Chinese and Japanese tea and teaware:
http://teadrunk.org/