Bittersweet of Pu Er

China Tour is always embed with compulsory shopping, some are tea, silks, medicine, jade, etc. I never have been fond of it.  For this trip, I wasn’t really interested in buying anything apart from the SiChuan pepper that I mentioned below. But, when we had a visit for compulsory tea shopping, I realized that despite numerous amounts of teas I have at home, I wanted this one: Aged wild Pu-Er from SiChuan. Why?

SiChuan (and Yunnan) has been famous for their tea for centuries. Their teas have travelled as far as 14000 miles, from SiChuan to Lhasa – Tibet. The trail is so long, so harsh, climbing up to 12,000 foot high to the Tibetan holy city. The trail is called “Horse Tea Road”. Why horse? Did the horse carry the tea? Apparently not; Horse and tea were bartered – the Chinese wanted the Tibetan horse, the Tibetan wanted the Chinese tea, thus the name.  On the most risky parts of the trail – on the snowy mountain, tea was carried by humans, t he porters can carry up to 300 pounds per person. The trip usually took 3 weeks without any snow storm, later they will continue with pack animals on smoother trail. Bartering tea with horses continued through many dynasties, from Tang to Qing. The tea porters’ era ended after Mao’s Culture revolution; the porters are all given piece of land for farming - no longer need to go for the deadly trail; in 1960s a new highway was built to seal the end of this ancient route. The trail is now abandoned. Only those who are seeking for adrenalins will go there. Some of the last porters are still alive to show you bits of the memory trail.

Pu Er tea is made from Camellia sinensis, a sub-tropical evergreen shrub. It can be made into green tea (unoxidised tea). But for the one I bought, the brick-tea – it’s made from larger leaves (said from ancient trees), processed in several cycles of steaming and drying, then the tea is mixed with gluey rice water, pressed into molds, dried and aged. Just like wine, Pu Er tea leaves taste better as it ages for years. The tea produced has a clear black reddish colour, with slight bitterness at first and a mild sweetness aftertaste. Old aged tea is believed to have many medical benefits, since it was oxidized slowly thus releasing all the beneficial volatiles; one of it is to cleanse your systems after greasy meals (that’s why the Tibetan likes it a lot) – thus make you skinnier… Wohoooo!!!

With all the thrills and romance about the tea, who wouldn’t be mesmerized to try the bittersweetness of Pu Er tea? I did!!!