Purple buds occasionally appear on Yunnan's tea mountains; this is natural purple-bud tea. Zijuan is a purple cultivar selected from Nannuo Mountain tea trees and granted variety rights in 2005. Both are large-leaf, and made into pu'er, each has its own liquor color and taste.
Large-, medium-, and small-leaf tea varieties are classified by leaf area, calculated as leaf length times leaf width times 0.7: 40 square centimeters or more counts as large-leaf. Starting from this yardstick, get to know modern bred cultivars like Yunkang No. 10 and Zijuan, and the leaf types of Taiwan's tea plants.
The scientific name of the pu'er tea plant is Camellia sinensis var. assamica, the Assam variety of tea. It belongs to sect. Thea of the genus Camellia along with Camellia taliensis and Camellia crassicolumna, and it's a cousin of Indian Assam tea rather than the same group. Starting from the scientific name, get to know the background of the pu'er leaf.
In Taiwan, you can buy pu'er by tasting at a tea shop, picking packaged tea at department stores and supermarkets, comparing online, or looking for aged tea at auctions and tea gatherings. The strengths of each channel, why prices differ between Taiwan and Yunnan, the labeling to check on packaging, and steps for your first purchase.
If you're used to high-mountain oolong, Oriental Beauty, or charcoal-roasted Tieguanyin, how do you get into pu'er? A comparison of oolong and pu'er by tea plant, processing, and aroma; recommendations based on the Taiwanese tea you love; and water temperature, steep times, and leaf amounts all laid out clearly.
Taipei is humid even in winter, Kaohsiung is dry in winter and muggy in summer, walls near the sea easily sweat, and Alishan averages about 86% humidity. Using Central Weather Administration climate figures, here's how to store pu'er in different parts of Taiwan and different kinds of homes.
"Taiwan storage" is the tea world's term for pu'er stored naturally in Taiwan. Taiwan is a bit drier than Hong Kong and much warmer than Kunming, so tea transforms at a middling pace with a cleaner aroma. What defines Taiwan storage, how it compares with Hong Kong and Kunming storage, and key points for storing tea in Taiwan.
In 1994, Lu Lizhen led Taiwanese tea people into Yiwu, where production had all but stopped, and learned from old masters how to press cakes in stone molds and wrap tong in bamboo sheath; in 1996 they completed "Zhenchunya Hao." The story of this commissioned tea is seen as one of the key starting points of Yiwu's revival.
In the 1990s, Taiwanese tea people brought large quantities of aged pu'er back from Hong Kong, and in 1995 Deng Shihai published *Pu'er Tea*; Hao-grade, Yin-grade, and Qizi cakes became the shared language of collectors. How the collecting boom began, what was collected, and what happened afterward.
The tea plant's native range spans the border mountains of Yunnan, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, and there are ancient gardens and sun-dried compressed teas beyond China's borders too. Learn about tea on the other side of the border, how it relates to the name "pu'er," and how to read origin labeling in Taiwan.
Pu'er's geographical indication covers 11 prefectures and cities and 75 counties and districts in Yunnan. Besides the three main regions and Baoshan, Nanjian in Dali, Dehong, Honghe, Yuxi, and Wenshan, as well as Kunming and Chuxiong, are also included. A look at each one's tea and why it's included.
Baoshan City, northwest of Lincang and east of Myanmar, is one of the 11 prefectures and cities in pu'er's geographical indication protected area. Get to know the tea and styles of Changning, Tengchong, and the Gaoligong Mountains, and why Baoshan tea is relatively affordable.
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