Chinese Tea Culture 功夫茶 10 Yunnan Pu'er Tea

Pu’er Tea is a kind of dark tea found only in China’s Yunnan Province. It’s originally produced in the "Six Famous Mountains" in Xishuangbanna and gets its name from Pu’er, a town where most of the tea is processed and sold. Pu’er Tea has a long history. Early in the Tang Dynasty, tea trade between Pu’er and other areas already began.

Made from fresh leaves of big-leaf tea trees of Yunnan, Pu’er Tea has a distinctive aroma thanks to the special fermentation procedure in the processing steps. Pu’er Tea is big and rough in shape, black or brown red in color and the soup tastes mellow, leaving a sweet aftertaste. The tea is mild in nature and does no harm to the stomach. At the same time, it has medicinal effects of “fat removing, body slimming and digestion promoting” and is called “cosmetic tea” or “slimming tea”.

Pu’er Tea can be made into tea bricks after being steamed and compressed for easy storage. The nature of the tea varies - the taste changes with the length of time it’s stored; the longer it’s stored, the better it tastes. Thus, Pu’er Tea not only makes a good drink, but also a valuable collector’s item.