Continuing our Puerh Tea Series - we're now moving onto cooked puerh. Cooked puerh which is produced through a method created in the 1970’s. This method artificially speeds-up fermentation to achieve a flavour which is not the same as well matured raw puerh but does posses some of its richness of flavour. The best examples are excellent although they very rarely match up to top quality raw puerh in terms of complexity and refinement.
Processing involves:
1 laying the dried, loose raw puerh in cotton wrapping
2 addition of controlled amount of water to promote speedy fermentation
3 leaving the tea to mature for up to 90 days (depending of level of fermentation required) in humid and warm conditions.
4 Drying followed by sorting and grading
5 Leaving the tea in loose form for sale or compression into disks, bowls or bricks
6 Storage and maturation is necessary to allow aromas associated with artificial fermentation to dissipate. Good storage conditions (mentioned above) have a very positive effect on cooked puerh, making it more refined with dry, clean and sweet with mineral flavours.
Next week, the many and varied shapes of puerh.
