The Processing Technique Of Pu-erh Tea

The processing is key to the special fragrance of Pu-erh tea. It is also the source of the various names used to refer to the tea. As artificial fermentation and natural fermentation are two techniques of the later stage of tea processing, let us first divide the tea processing into two stages-the preliminary sun-baking and the later fermentation.
1. Making raw material of Pu-erh tea—sun-baked tea leaves
Picking tea

Whether raw or processed, Pu-erh tea is rich in taste. Unlike green tea, yellow tea or white tea, where farmers need to choose the most tender sprouts, when picking fresh leaves for Pu-erh tea, farmers just pick sprouts with three leaves and some old leaves for their mellow fragrance after brewing in tea pot sets.
The Pu-erh tea leaves are picked in spring, summer and autumn, but those picked in spring are the best. According to the tea farmers, the fresh leaves and sprouts are picked in batches. In spring they usually pick one or two batches called the first and second batch respectively.
The first image that appears in our mind when visualizing tea-leaf picking is of women deftly picking leaves from the waist-high trees south of Yangtze River. The picking of leaves from the Yunnan big-leaf tea trees are more colorful. This is because the Pu-erh tea grows m regions dominated by the ethnic minorities. During the tea-picking season, the Hani, Blang and Dai people in brightly colored ethnic costumes and accessories paint a pretty picture. Secondly, tea trees, this region are not only large areas of short trees planted in the past 20 to 30 years (the so called terrace tea trees about waist or breast height), but also many tall 200-, 300-, 500- and even 800-year-old trees, forming a wonderful landscape.
Pu-erh tea farmers pick the leaves in many ways—simply reaching out their hands, standing on their toes and there are times when they have to climb the trees. The scenes are varied and rarely seen elsewhere.
Withering tea

Withering (or airing) is to reduce the humidity of the fresh leaves, to lower the temperature for baking the leaves and to soften the leaves. The natural process of withering is by exposing leaves to the air. withering in weak sunlight and withering with hot air in the rainy season.
Sha Qing (heating tea)
Sha Qing is a terminology in processing tea, which means heating and stirring.
Chao Qing, that is steaming, Zheng Qing or scalding in boiling water, Lao Qing or destroying the enzyme activity, thereby preventing the phenol substances from oxidizing and the fresh leaves from turning yellow or red and the quality of tea from changing. Heating keeps the leaves in the desired state. Except for a few types of tea, the first step of processing after picking tea is heating it. Among the many ways, heating in woks, as in Pu-erh tea is most widely used.
Put the fresh leaves in a heated iron wok. Using both hands pick up the tea leaves from the bottom of the wok and scatter them back into the wok. Repeat the process until the leaves are no longer stiff, their color has turned yellowish and you can smell the smoky fragrance of the green leaves.
Airing tea

Transfer the hot leaves into the bamboo basket. Scatter them with care to dispel the heat and cool them quickly to prevent the leaves from further changing due to the heat for the next step of processing.
Rubbing and twisting tea
Rubbing and twisting is to shape the tea leaves for the final product.
If the tea leaf is rubbed and twisted it will take a spiral form, like the green tea Bi Luo Chun.
Twist the Pu-erh tea into striations along the stem. Roll the leaves with both hands into a ball, then rub and squeeze them repeatedly forming an oval (like practicing Taiji). Apply pressure evenly, it the pressure is too light, the leaves are unlikely to form striations and there will be no tea extract.
This is not conducive for fermentation. Rubbing or twisting too hard will cause the leaves to break and become unmarketable. Once the tea extract starts oozing out. the hands feel sticky, smell freshly fragrant and turn light green. Stop when the 3 or 4 leaves on the stem have twisted into striations.
Drying tea

The twisted tea leaves are spread in bamboo baskets and put out in the sun to absorb sunlight.. These sun-baked green crude tea leaves are the raw material for compressed Pu-erh tea. However, most of the tea-pinking time in Yunnan coincides with the rainy season characterized by heavy and continuous rainfall. On rainy days, striations are often dried over gentle fire. That is why raw tea leaves picked in the raw tea leaves picked in the season smell smoky. Today, large quantities of raw tea leaves are machine-dried, yet the traditional | sun-baked green crude 1 tea leaves are the best in terms of quality.

Producing naturally fermented Pu-erh tea 
Compressing and shaping
Compressing the tea into different shapes eases packaging and transportation over long distances and time. The compressing technology was introduced during the period of the Ming Dynasty. The people of Yunnan reformed the various steps for tea production. Compressing tea by hand is still prevalent in the regions producing traditional Pu-erh tea (e.g., Yiwu).
Tea cakes are traditionally, sun-baked green crude tea leaves compressed into different shapes in the following steps:
1. Weighing: Usually a tea cake weighs 357-400g.Take a suitable amount of tea leaves in a perforated metal steamer.
2. Placing the flyleaf: Position the flyleaf with some striated tea leaves on it.
3. Steaming: Put the metal steamer over the steam to soften and moisturize the tea leaves for convenient compressing and post-fermentation of the tea.
4. Putting in the bag: Overturn the steamer into the cotton bag, and knead the leaves into a pile in the bag.
5. Kneading: Roll the bag tightly, knead the hot tea pile into a tea cake of even thickness, winding the bag into a spiral on top of the cake as shown. Press the spiral- shaped knot into the middle part on the back of the tea cake.
6. Compressing: Put the tea cakes under the special stone and stand on the stone to compress the tea leaves evenly. Today, machines are used to compress the tea leaves, but pressing manually shapes the cakes evenly and neatly.
7. Drying: Take the tea cakes out of the bags to dry in a cool place.
8. Packaging: Pack the tea cakes in cotton paper and fold the edge of the paper into the hole made by the bag knot on the back of the cake.