------Program code: DO-080831-00672 (what's this?)
Source: CCTV.com
08-31-2008 09:48
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In 225 AD, when China was divided into three kingdoms– Wei, Shu and Wu – Prime Minister of Shu, Zhuge Liang, led a Southern Campaign to Yunnan. But there, his soldiers struggled with the local conditions, and many of them succumbed to eye disease. The story goes that Zhuge Liang picked the leaves of a certain tree, boiled them, and gave the soldiers the boiled water to drink. This cured them.
The leaves were from a tea tree. Chinese people first started drinking tea as early as 1,700 years ago. Initially, tea was regarded as a herbal medicine.
Yunnan is considered the home of the tea tree. It’s here that the Puer tea trees grow. Puer tea is cherished by a certain group of people living in another part of China, who drink it for its health-giving properties.
In Tibet, there is an old saying: “Better three days without food than a day without tea”. The fact is, on the Tibetan plateau, people’s diet consists mainly of beef and mutton. There is little by way of fruit and vegetables. The advantage of puer tea for people living on such a diet, is that it can help the digestion.
Historical records show that Tibetans began drinking puer tea at the time of the Tang Dynasty, after Princess Wencheng brought some in her dowry when she came to marry the Tibetan leader Songtsan Gambo in 641. Before long, drinking tea had become popular across all Tibet’s social strata. However, puer tea wasn’t grown in Tibet. It had to be obtained through trade, in exchange for Tibetan horses and medicines. As a result, the famous Tea and Horse Trail was opened up, over the mountains between Yunnan and Tibet.
For a time, tens of thousands of horses would cross the mountains from Tibet to Yunnan every year. Tea-trading routes would radiate from Yunnan, across a region that included Viet Nam, Myanmar, Thailand, India and Southeast Asia, even reaching as far as Europe. Puer tea, it could be said, bridged the civilizations of East and West.
The early 19th-century Qing Emperor Daoguang was a tea aficionado and expert. As a way of encouraging tea-growing, he ordered that a nationwide tea contest be held.
Many kinds of tea were entered in the contest. Several were famous, and had been drunk by previous emperors. As for the black tea brought by a young man named Che Shunlai, a tea trader from the town of Yiwu in Yunnan Province, it attracted little attention to begin with.
However, Emperor Daoguang tasted the puer tea and liked it so much that he chose it there and then to be a tribute tea. He even wrote four characters, “瑞貢天朝”, meaning Divine Tribute to the Kingdom of Heaven. He ordered officials of his household to have the characters inscribed on a plaque, which they would take to Yunnan to present to the Che family. Thus, puer tea was granted the highest possible imperial recognition.
Before long, drinking puer tea was fashionable at the Qing imperial court and among the nobility. The emperor also gave the tea as a gift to visiting overseas envoys.
The fashion of drinking puer tea among the elite was soon being copied by the common people. The Qing Dynasty writer Wu Daxun, in Travels in South Yunnan, indicates that the health benefits of puer tea were widely recognized. He wrote: “A cake of Puer tea can help the digestion and keep out the cold. A recipe book states that puer tea can improve the eyesight, ease thirst and raise the spirits.”
Modern medicine has confirmed that the health benefits ascribed to puer tea in the past, are based on sound scientific principles.
Studies have shown that puer tea leaves contain more than 300 microelements. Among them are various substances that are known to be good for the human body. They include polyphenols, catechins, protein and amino acids.
Puer tea has a slightly bitter taste, due to the caffeine it contains. The caffeine is the same as that in coffee, and as such it is both a stimulant and an aid to the digestion. More than 60% of the nutrients in the tea dissolve within 5 minutes in boiling water. Therefore, drinking the tea not only quenches the thirst, but also promotes the health.
The medical effects and unique taste of puer tea come from the aging process. Among the hundreds of different tea varieties in China, only puer tea is mellowed by aging. Its quality is improved by the long period during which it is transported and stored.
An investigation of the aging and flavour of puer tea should start with the leaves chosen for it.
Although the leaves are hardly remarkable to look at, they hide many secrets.
The Mystery of the Aging and Flavour of Puer Tea– The Leaves
The largest, tallest tea trees in the world grow on the mountains of Yunnan. This region produces not only puer tea, but also black, green, oolong and other kinds of tea.
Although they are all called “tea”, they are different in terms of their taste and colour. The differences originate with the conditions in which the tea trees grow and the size of their leaves.
The tea-producing regions of China are mainly situated south of latitude 33° N and east of longitude 98° E. Moving northeast, the height of the tea trees diminishes and the leaves become smaller and thicker.
Tea trees are either broad-leaf, medium-leaf or small-leaf. The size is judged according to the 2nd or 3rd leaf growing just above the roots of new branches. If it is less than 14 cm2, it is classified as a small leaf; between 14 and 28 cm2, it’s a medium leaf; and from 28 to 50 cm2, it’s a broad leaf. The small leaves tend to be crisp and hard, while the broad ones are thick and soft. Roughly speaking, around 300 broad leaves weigh 500 grams, while in the case of medium and small leaves, the same weight is achieved by 2,000 to 3,000 leaves. This difference is due to the divergence not only in the size of the leaves, but also in their water content.
Broad leaves need to be soaked for longer than smaller ones, because they contain more effective substances such as polyphenols and caffeine. This also explains their mellower flavour.
Regardless of their size, new leaves are all green. However, the fermentation, which begins soon after the leaves are picked, is easier for broad leaves because they contain more water. In the case of medium and small leaves, their flavour escapes as the water evaporates, so fermentation has a greater influence on their taste. The degree of fermentation determines the ultimate flavour and colour of the tea.
For many centuries, tea farmers have been improving their tea processing. They have learned to control the degree of fermentation through the techniques and timing of their processing, in order to improve the tea’s ultimate flavour.
The degree of fermentation is dependent on the size of the leaves. The broader the leaf, the higher the degree of fermentation needs to be.
In black and yellow tea, broad leaves are fully fermented and then dried. Dark and oolong tea are semi-fermented, which means that the fermentation is halted at a certain point in order to retain the unique flavor. Green tea is made from small leaves, which are dried immediately after picking to prevent fermentation.
Puer tea is made from broad leaves that are even thicker than normal broad leaves. The taste is a little bitter, even after full fermentation. This requires aging to take place after the fermentation. Therefore, it is called post-fermented tea.
The aged flavour of puer tea is a masterpiece jointly created by Nature and the tea growers.
The middle and lower reaches of the Lancang River are the origin and distribution centre of puer tea. The natural conditions are ideal for the growth of tea trees; the annual temperature averages 17 to 22℃, and the climate is subtropical. The region contains areas of vastly differing altitudes, and receives plenty of sun and rain. So it’s ideal for tea trees to thrive. Tall, old trees can be seen almost everywhere. The town of Yiwu on the Lancang River in Mengla County, is at the heart of tea production here, that of puer tea in particular.
