There comes a time in the life of every tea geek when he or she will become curious about pu-er. This is because there are tea geeks out there who seem to think that pu-er is just about the only tea worth drinking. There are entire blogs devoted to pu-er (see, for instance, Ancient Tea Horse Road).
Pu-er is Chinese fermented tea. It is sometimes sold loose, but is usually pressed into discs, bricks, or small bowl-shaped nuggets (tuocha). It is made from a large-leaved tea variety (Camellia sinensis var. assamica). The most prized and expensive pu-er is made from wild tea trees, although I imagine the stuff I’m drinking, at $1.75/oz. is probably made from plantation tea. In days of yore, the fermentation was a product of aging, but since about 1975 the Chinese have employed a ripening process to imitate the effects of aging. The ripening involves “piling, dampening, and turning the tea leaves in a manner much akin to composting” (from Wikipedia’s pu-er article). Based on the smell of the stuff, the reference to composting did not surprise me.
In an adventurous moment, I added 2 oz. of tuocha pu-er to a recent Tao of Tea order. The little bowls are wrapped in paper, each of them about the size of a nickel. The odor of the dry tea definitely says “compost.” When brewed, it says “COMPOST!!!”. I rinsed the tea briefly and then brewed for about five minutes. The color of the liquor is very dark. A cup of pu-er looks like a cup of coffee, although maybe a little redder.
Faced with something that looks like mud and smells like compost, my hopes were not very high, but I was pleasantly surprised by the taste. It doesn’t taste like tea. The overall impression is more like a broth of some sort than like tea. It’s very mellow and has no astringency. It reminds me a little of shitake mushrooms.
I think the tea suffered from my very American way of making tea. I generally brew tea in a 2-cup teapot and then pour it out into an American-sized mug adorned with the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Hey, Picard was a tea drinker.) A great big mug of pu-er is a very mixed blessing. I would like to try pu-er in a gong-fu context, where the emphasis is on really savoring a small amount of well-made tea. (Watch this video if you don’t know what gong-fu is.)
I don’t see myself ever becoming a serious pu-er enthusiast. The teas I like best are bright, fruity Darjeelings, which are the polar opposite of pu-er. But I’m definitely glad I tried it, if only to see what the fuss is about.