Producing Pu-erh Tea Through Artificial Fermentation

Sorting into piles
Sort the sun-dried green tea into different piles according to their quality for pile fermentation.
Pile fermentation
"Pile" means to add moisture to the tea and control its humidity and temperature. In pile fermentation, pile tons of raw tea leaves together, add water, keeping the temperature within 58-60°C. The tea leaves are kept thus for 48 days. Fermentation occurs under suitable temperature, humidity and by the chemical reaction of the microbes and enzymes in the leaves.
The leaves turn reddish-brown and the tea liquid is red, bright, thick, mellow and smooth as you brewing it in teapot. Pile fermentation is a major step in the production of processed Pu-erh tea. The humidity, temperature, pile-stirring times and degree of fermentation should be flexible; it should be controlled according to the season and the tenderness of the raw tea leaves. Improper fermentation will produce substandard tea. This is why great importance is attached to the origin of the Pu-erh tea. Processed Pu-erh tea of different origin possess different taste and flavor.
Tests show that Pu-erh tea processed through artificial pile fermentation have the same physicochemical indices as the tea through natural fermentation. Post fermentation, the quality of the tea leaves become more stable. Consumers can drink processed tea immediately after buying, or store it for a while to reduce the dryness of the newly processed tea, thereby improving the taste. But there is no need to store it long. The artificially fermented tea is processed to satisfy the market demand ahead of time.
The terms "raw cake," "processed cake," "traditional Pu-erh tea," experts' definition of Pu-erh tea, the industry standards and the terms for techniques and processing are all closely associated with the development of the artificial pile fermentation.
Drying
After pile fermentation, the tea is dried and becomes loose Pu-erh tea.
Selection
After selection by machine comes selection by hand. This step is an important factor to the quality of the tea. Given that machines fail to pick the stem and impurities out from the leaves, only manual selection can guarantee tea quality.
Moisturizing
Moisturizing is an important step in making processed tea. Before compressing the processed tea, moisture should be added to the dried tea to soften it. After pile fermentation, tea cannot be steamed but can be moisturized to ensure that tea leaves form tight striations and will not crumble during compressing.