Hong Kong Teahouses and Pu'er: Pu'er's First Big Market

Sit down in a Hong Kong-style dim sum restaurant in Taiwan and the server's first question is often, "What tea would you like?" At the top of the menu, more often than not, is pu'er. That habit came over from Hong Kong. For pu'er, Hong Kong was more than a place to sell tea: it was the first big market outside Yunnan where pu'er became an everyday tea, and the place where a great deal of old tea was preserved.

How Pu'er Got to Hong Kong

Pu'er traveled outward along trade routes early on. In the Republican era, besides going into Tibet on the Tea Horse Road and south through Burma to South Asia, Yunnan pu'er also took a route east to Guangzhou, and from Guangzhou on to Hong Kong. Hong Kong was an important entrepôt at the time; pu'er landed and was stored there, then resold to Chinese communities across Southeast Asia.

After the 1950s, demand for pu'er in Hong Kong grew noticeably. Some researchers link this to the large numbers of people who moved to Hong Kong from the mainland at the time: teahouses and cha chaan teng had more customers and needed a tea that came in large quantities, held up to long steeping, and was affordable. After China's reform and opening up, pu'er was also one of the teas Yunnan exported to Hong Kong to earn foreign exchange.

The story of the Tea Horse Road is in The Tea Horse Road: Pu'er on Horseback.

Why Hong Kong Loves Pu'er

There are several common explanations for why Hong Kong teahouses favor pu'er:

• Holds up to long steeping: Teahouses brew a lot at once in big pots, and customers sit for an hour or two. Green tea and other light, fragrant teas tend to turn bitter and astringent when left to steep, but aged pu'er and ripe pu'er can take long infusions, and the flavor stays steady through several refills of water.
• Rich and smooth, good with dim sum: Har gow, siu mai, char siu bao, and rice noodle rolls tend to be on the rich side, and pu'er's mellow depth complements them nicely. It feels refreshing, cuts the richness, and gives a sense of helping digestion.
• Affordable: In the early days pu'er was an inexpensive everyday tea in Hong Kong, so teahouses could afford to buy it in bulk.
• Habit: A whole generation grew up drinking pu'er at teahouses, so "going for yum cha" came to mean ordering a pot of pu'er.

These are the commonly held views in the tea and restaurant trades; there's no clear documentary record of exactly when Hong Kong teahouses started serving pu'er.

How "Pu'er" Is Said in Cantonese

In Cantonese, pu'er is usually pronounced "bou2 lei2," which sounds like "bo lei," and in English it's sometimes simply written "Bo-lei" or "Po-lay."

Linguists note that older Hong Kongers said "bo nei," but over the past half century Cantonese has widely shifted the initial n to l, so the younger generation mostly says "bo lei." Because it sounds like the Cantonese word for "glass," some people thought as children that the pu'er at teahouses was "glass tea."

Ordering Pu'er at Dim Sum

• Yat zung loeng gin (one pot, two dishes): A pot of tea with two dim sum items is the classic old-style teahouse meal, and that pot is very often pu'er.
• Guk pou (chrysanthemum pu'er): Pu'er with a few dried chrysanthemum flowers is called "guk pou" in Hong Kong; the clean fragrance of chrysanthemum makes pu'er taste fresher, and it's an everyday order for many people.
• Lift the lid for more water: When the pot is empty, set the lid ajar on top of the pot, and a server will come to top it up with hot water.
• Other options: Teahouses usually also serve shou mei, jasmine tea, Tieguanyin, shui xian, and so on, but pu'er has always been one of the most-ordered teas.

Hong Kong Tea Merchants and the Circulation of Aged Tea

Hong Kong's hot, humid climate, combined with tea merchants and teahouses buying and stacking tea in large quantities, meant that a lot of pu'er sat in warehouses for more than ten years, sometimes much longer. Tea merchants played several roles in this history:

1. Importing and wholesaling: Buying from Yunnan and Guangzhou and selling to teahouses, cha chaan teng, and households.
2. Storage: Keeping tea for long periods in warm, humid warehouses, creating what later became known as the "Hong Kong storage" flavor. Storage practices are covered in Hong Kong Storage: Entering the Warehouse, Ground Storage, and the Origins of Aged Tea.
3. Re-export: Reselling pu'er to Chinese markets in Southeast Asia.
4. Custom orders: Hong Kong tea merchants commissioned specific recipes from Yunnan tea factories, and the birth of several classic recipe codes is tied to Hong Kong orders.

As Hong Kong's economy took off in the 1980s, pu'er also came to be seen as a commodity to stockpile. By the 1990s, many old Hong Kong teahouses and warehouses were being torn down and rebuilt, and aged pu'er that had sat at the bottom of warehouses for years resurfaced.

From Hong Kong to Taiwan

Around 1997, some Hong Kongers emigrated and disposed of family property, and large amounts of aged tea came onto the market. Hong Kong tea merchant Bai Shuiqing, recalling this in an interview with Taiwan's Business Today, said he began selling aged pu'er to Taiwan in 1987; a Red Mark cake cost about HK$1,000 in 1993 and had risen to about HK$10,000 by 1997. He also said more than 60% of the pu'er on the Taiwan market had been sold through him. This is the merchant's own account and can't be verified item by item, but the general picture matches the memories of many Taiwanese tea people: much of Taiwan's early aged pu'er came by way of Hong Kong.

The story continues in Taiwan; read Pu'er and Taiwan: From Hong Kong Aged Tea to Cross-Strait Tea Ties.

Hong Kong and the Origins of Ripe Pu'er

Hong Kong teahouses preferred aged pu'er, and tea merchants in Hong Kong and Guangdong developed methods of sprinkling water on tea and keeping it warm to speed up its transformation. In the 1970s, technicians from Yunnan tea factories went to Guangdong to study these methods, and after returning to Yunnan they developed artificial wodui (pile fermentation), and ripe pu'er was born. The details are in The Birth of Ripe Pu'er Processing.

FAQ

Why does everyone drink pu'er at Hong Kong-style dim sum? The usual explanation is that pu'er holds up to long steeping in big pots, its mellow richness pairs well with rich dim sum, and it was affordable in the early days, so over time it became the signature teahouse tea.

How is "pu'er" pronounced in Cantonese? Usually "bou2 lei2," which sounds like "bo lei." Older people said "bo nei"; later, Cantonese widely shifted the initial n to l, giving today's pronunciation.

What role did Hong Kong tea merchants play in the circulation of aged tea? They handled importing, wholesaling, storage, and re-export, and a lot of pu'er was stored for years in Hong Kong warehouses. When old teahouses and warehouses were torn down in the 1990s, aged tea was released in large quantities, and much of it went to Taiwan.

What is chrysanthemum pu'er (guk pou)? Pu'er brewed together with dried chrysanthemum flowers. It's a very common order at Hong Kong teahouses; the chrysanthemum fragrance makes pu'er taste fresher.