Last time, the editor shared some entry-level doubts about Pu'er raw tea, and many tea lovers deeply agreed with it. However, don’t think that only novices are clueless about raw tea. Even tea lovers who have been studying raw tea for many years may encounter doubts sometimes. Today, let’s discuss with you some in-depth questions about Shengpu among tea drinkers!

#1: How to identify ancient tree tea?

Pu'er tea trees are divided into three levels: platform, arbor, and ancient tree. Ancient tree tea is an arbor-type tea tree that is more than a hundred years old. To distinguish whether it is ancient tree tea, you can judge it from three aspects: taste, tea leaf veins and leaf toughness.

The aroma of ancient tree tea is high and delicate. The tea soup has a rich and round taste, a high level of taste, obvious characteristics of sweetness and spiciness, generally good body and tea flavor, and excellent brewing resistance. High-quality ancient tree tea can basically be brewed for fifteen times, or even more. When the tea leaves are brewed and you touch the leaves with your hands, you can feel the thickness and elasticity of the leaves of the ancient tree tea, and the veins of the leaves are prominent and clear. Pull the tea leaves slightly, the leaves are soft and not easy to tear, and the toughness is stronger than that of platform tea.

In terms of tea quality, aroma and taste of the tea soup, Taiwan tea is worse and ancient tree tea is better . Because of its better quality, ancient tree tea is popular among many Pu'er tea lovers, and its price in the market is also higher. Therefore, when purchasing ancient tree Pu'er tea, you must pay careful attention to the tea products. It is recommended to try the tea first to avoid being cheated.

#2: Buy pure tea instead of blended tea?

First of all, you need to understand the difference between pure tea and blended tea, as well as their advantages and disadvantages. Don’t blindly think that blended tea is necessarily worse than pure tea. Pure tea refers to the same variety of tea produced in a single village, which is generally divided into villages. Common ones include Lao Banzhang, Faofengzhai, etc. There are also some pure teas on the market that are classified by mountains, but the purity level will be relatively low.

Teas from each region have different characteristics. For example, Iceland’s raw tea is known for its sweetness and smoothness, but its taste is slightly thin; Brown Mountain’s raw tea is mainly sweet and refreshing, but has some bitterness and irritation. Therefore, when drinking pure tea, you can easily taste the flavor, advantages and disadvantages of each.

It is precisely because of the understanding of the weaknesses of pure tea that blended tea exists. Generally, tea blends are divided into three categories: tea area blends, year blends and grade blends. Through different blending techniques, we can learn from each other's strengths to make the tea taste and flavor better. The flavor performance of blended tea is average and stable compared to pure tea, the aroma and tea flavor have a certain degree of complexity, and the taste will be relatively balanced. After steeping the tea leaves and observing carefully, you can find that the tea leaves of the blended tea are inconsistent in size, shape or color, so you can easily distinguish between pure tea and blended tea.

Therefore, there is no advantage or disadvantage between pure tea and blended tea . In the past, the output of pure tea was smaller than that of blended tea, and the quality fluctuated every year, so the price was slightly higher than that of blended tea. It is recommended that when purchasing Pu'er tea, you don't need to worry too much about the pure ingredients and blending. The most important thing is whether the tea matches your taste.

#3: Will cake tea be of better quality than loose tea?

no! Tea product shaping has no direct relationship with quality. In fact, whether to press cake or not depends on the yield and storage conditions of tea cyanine. The storage space of cake tea is much less than that of loose tea. Pressing cakes does save a lot of space for tea merchants. However, there will always be losses in the process of pressing cakes. For some famous single-plant Pu'er, such as Lao Banzhang and Iceland Laozhai, there is basically no cake pressing due to the scarcity of output. So don’t misunderstand that Pu’er loose tea is the tea leaves left after pressed cakes, and the quality of the two cannot be judged by this.
Of course, whether you choose cake tea or loose tea depends on your needs. If you don’t have much space to store tea at home and you mainly want to store tea, it will be more convenient to choose cake tea. However, for daily drinking, the packaging portion of loose tea is relatively flexible.

 

Warm tips

- Price is not the most important thing -

Some tea drinkers may think that only expensive tea is worth drinking. If the taste of the tea is not to your taste, I believe you will not enjoy it even if you buy it at an exorbitant price. In fact, many potential tea villages produce good tea, but they have not yet been discovered by the market and are relatively cheap. The price of raw Pu'er tea ranges from expensive to affordable. Price is only an auxiliary indicator to choose the tea that suits you. You should not be too obsessed. .

 

- The famous tea area may not be suitable for you-

The editor has also met many tea lovers who blindly pursue famous brand tea areas, and I always feel that it is a pity for them. In fact, many tea areas in hills or villages also produce good tea. If you limit yourself to drinking Pu'er from famous tea areas, you will only miss out on many wonderful raw teas .

When purchasing raw Pu'er tea, you need to pay attention to whether your physical condition is suitable for the tea in that region. If you just follow the tea region, you may not buy the tea that suits you. Therefore, the editor often emphasizes that rather than chasing famous production areas and expensive tea, the most important thing is to suit yourself.

 

- Not all Pu'er can appreciate in value -

Although Pu'er raw tea has certain investment value, not all raw tea may appreciate in value. The investment potential of Shengpu is based on the interaction between tea cyanine grade, region and storage conditions . If the quality of the tea is not good, it will not be valuable even if it is stored for decades; on the contrary, even if it is a single tea plant from an ancient tree from Lao Banzhang, it will not appreciate in value if the storage conditions are poor.

The editor believes that it is unwise to choose raw tea purely for investment value. After all, the original intention of tea tasting is to drink tea that suits you. If these factors affect your perception of tea, no matter how good the tea is, it will be boring to you.

The above is the editor’s sharing about Pu’er tea. There are four types of raw Pu'er tea tasting activities going on this month. Join the tasting now and taste the varied taste of raw Pu'er tea!

Suggested reading:

Is it too complicated to learn Pu'er? The editor shares the doubts about getting started with Pu'er

Things to do before buying tea! Things you don’t know about tea tasting