Amid the nationwide tea-drinking trend, Pu-erh tea has gained increasing popularity. While aged tea is expensive and rare, mid-aged tea is costly and hard to judge in terms of quality. Thus, a delicious new Pu-erh tea naturally becomes the public's pursuit. So, how is a delicious new Pu-erh tea created?
Tea leaves are the foundation
A delicious Pu-erh tea must first have high-quality raw materials as its base. Although good raw materials don’t necessarily guarantee a perfect tea, they are a critical factor. Whether the new tea uses raw materials from Yiwu or the Greater Ban Zhang region, whether it’s made from ancient tree tea or terrace tea, or whether it’s based on spring or autumn tea leaves—what matters is that clear and accurate information about the raw materials helps consumers more objectively evaluate the quality of the new tea.
If a consumer buys a 100-yuan cake claiming to be made from Lao Ban Zhang leaves, regardless of the authenticity of the claim, the consumer will naturally judge the tea by Lao Ban Zhang standards. If the product doesn’t match expectations, it damages the brand’s reputation, potentially turning fans into critics. Therefore, when a brand specifies the origin of a product’s raw materials, it sets a visual and psychological benchmark for consumers. This is why tea merchants who falsify raw material information struggle to survive—they repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot until they can no longer move forward. The raw materials’ impact on Pu-erh tea products is that significant.
Processing technology is crucial
Most people have a general understanding of Pu-erh tea’s production process. The steps for raw tea—withering, fixation, rolling, drying, sorting, and pressing—may seem simple, but in professional tea factories, they are incredibly complex. Even slight differences in withering conditions or duration, or variations in fixation temperature and focus, can create distinct qualities and flavors in Pu-erh tea. For ripe tea, the pile-fermentation technique applied to Yunnan sun-dried raw materials is often treated as proprietary knowledge by different brands, forming industry secrets. If Pu-erh tea’s raw materials are like uncut jade, then the processing technology is the tool that sculpts it, directly determining the tea’s intrinsic quality.
Innovation and investment in aging costs
Some might ask: isn’t this article about delicious new Pu-erh tea products? Why mention aging? The reason is that many tea companies now release new teas that have undergone preliminary aging for a few years before hitting the market. For example, the recently launched Run Yuan Chang Brown Star Green Tuo was aged for two years before release. This approach not only challenges tea companies’ product planning and market foresight but also demands higher requirements for raw material reserves and time investment.
Traditional new Pu-erh raw teas are often intense and astringent, while ripe teas may carry fermentation odors, making them less appealing to non-experts. Preliminary aging mellows the tea’s taste and stabilizes its aroma, better meeting the daily drinking needs of the general public. Moreover, compared to expensive aged or mid-aged teas, preliminarily aged new teas offer higher cost performance.
Thus, crafting a delicious new Pu-erh tea is no easy feat. It involves meticulous control of raw materials and processing techniques, reflecting the producer’s dedication and market insight. Good tea is hard to come by—cherish it when you find it.
By Lin Anxue