There are many known varieties of tea that exist on the world. Most people have a tendency to stick to teas they like best, while others want to experiment with some different teas that are produced. It is this demand that causes the tea manufacturers to constantly come up with something new or simply pick a localised traditional tea and make it global. One such tea is Pu-erh Tea, a variety of fermented tea produced in the Yunnan Province of China. Its city of origin is Pu’er City. Darkening tea leaves to trade with ethnic groups at the borders has a long history in China. These crude teas were of various origins and were meant to be low cost. In recent decades, demand has increased again for Pu-erh Tea to be sold as the raw product without the artificial accelerated fermentation process. Certain teas are fermented using microbes and oxidising the tea once it has been dried and rolled. This process of fermentation is exclusive to China and produces a dark, black tea Hei Cha, also known as ‘red tea’ in China. Pu-erh tea is the best known variety from this category of teas. Traditionally Pu-erh began as a raw product known as mao cha (rough) - it can be either sold in this form or pressed into shapes and sold as sheng cha (raw). Both these teas go through the complex process of gradual fermentation and maturation with time. The wo dui fermentation process, that was developed in 1973 by the Kunming Tea Factory, hastened the process and produces a new type of tea Pu-erh Tea. This fermentation process was further adopted and developed by other tea factories. However, its legitimacy was questioned by traditionalist since pu-erh is an aged tea. All types of pu-erh can be stored to mature before consumption, which is why it is commonly labelled with year and region of production. Pu-erh tea processing, although straightforward, is complicated by the fact that the tea itself falls into two distinct categories: the "raw" Sheng Cha and the "ripe" Shu Cha. All types of pu-erh tea are created from maocha, a mostly unoxidized green tea processed from a "large leaf" variety of Camellia sinensis found in the mountains of southern Yunnan. Ripened or aged raw pu-erh is often mistakenly categorized as a subcategory of black tea due to the dark red colour of its leaves and liquor. However, pu-erh in both its ripened and aged forms has undergone secondary oxidization and fermentation caused both by organisms growing in the tea and free-radical oxidation, thus making it a unique type of tea. This unique production style not only makes the flavour and texture of pu-erh tea different but also results in a rather different chemical makeup of the resulting brewed liquor.
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