January 2010

This time of year I find that in order to stay warm I must always have a steaming mug of something in hand. It feels as though if I’m prevented from sipping a warm drink, I risk freezing up into an ice cube entirely.

You know I’m a huge coffee fan, but that doesn’t mean I’m anti-tea. In fact, I find that I must nip the coffee drinking in the bud by midmorning or I may overdo it on the caffeine. Too much of a good thing and all. So this only means that my tea drinking drastically increases in the winter to fulfill this ever present need to sip a cup o’ warmth.

I’m not a tea expert by any means, but I have had the opportunity to try several varieties. A few years ago my when my husband went to Beijing for work, he brought back flower tea and green tea which resulted in my first Chinese tea experience. While visiting Hong Kong in October we drank Jasmine tea with every meal and brought some back with us to enjoy as well.

My most interesting tea experience, however, came about last September, just before we left Brazil. The last few months of my time there I had the opportunity to meet and hang out with a fellow expat. Miranda is from London and married a Brazilian (Paulo) who happens to be from the same area we were living. They had settled there for a year or two while deciding their future plans.

Last summer, instead of a big wedding they set out on a round-the- world trip, and one of their stops was China and a tea tasting house. When we were able to meet after their trip Miranda presented me with this.

A pretty canister of Pu-erh tea. At that point I had never heard of it or seen it before. She let me know about its growing popularity and my excitement about having the opportunity to try it began to grow.

Pu-erh tea (also spelled as puerh, puer, pu-er and pu’er,) comes from the Yunnan Province of China from a town of the same name. It has over 1700 years of history and I’ve learned that it is quite the prized possession especially if it has been aged well which in some cases can be up to 65 years!

It comes in two varieties, sheng which is green and known as raw and shu which is black or sometimes referred to as cooked. Both start out the same way as maocha and then are preserved/processed differently.

For sheng, the maocha is lightly steamed and pressed into tea cakes. The microbes that remain in the tea result in the product undergoing a natural fermentation process as it is aged. Often left to age for at least 8 to 10 years the pu-erh turns from raw to cooked during this time. It is known for becoming smoother and less bitter as it ages.

For shu, the maocha is put into piles, spread out and wetted. Then it is covered to create something similar to a compost pile. From what I’ve read the technique for making the tea in this way is very detail oriented. It must be turned at the appropriate time and frequency to achieve the correct flavor and fragrance. Once the tea is ready, it is lightly steeped and pressed into cakes like the sheng. This method was developed to speed up the process of making pu-erh tea, but the sources I found didn’t indicate just how much more quickly the final product results.

I think it is well established that tea in almost any form is good for us. Well, okay, perhaps not the sugar-laden sweet tea (pronounced swate-teh) that we have in the south. But you know what I mean – oolong, green, black, jasmine, chai – they all have their individual health benefits to offer. Pu-erh is no exception.

Of course, as we often do with most ancient products consumed by other cultures, pu-erh tea has become a bit of a fad weight loss aid. I’m not commenting on that simply because I get tired of how my society must grasp perfectly good, real foods and turn them into money-hungry weight loss campaigns.

I did learn, however, that pu-erh tea has been found to be successful at lowering LDL cholesterol while raising HDL cholesterol (1). In addition, one study found that the tea has antioxidant and lipid-lowering effects and could potentially be used to reduce cardiovascular disorders (2).

However, do keep in mind the studies were done with rats consuming the leaves and extracts of the tea. I always pay attention to this because in grad school I did a research review of green tea. Of course there are health benefits, but most studies used extracts that would be equivalent to drinking 10 to 12 cups a day! Kudos to all the researchers out there who strive to evaluate foods as we would actually consume them.

The good part though is that drinking teas can be good for you overall. That is why I’m such an advocate for eating real, natural food and not worrying about the specific amounts, percentages and benefits. Healthy foods are going to work together to make you healthy overall. It doesn’t have to be so complicated.

So what type of pu-erh tea did I get?

I actually don’t know. Perhaps there is a way to tell by the label, but not speaking any form of Chinese, I’m clueless. Although I would suspect it is shu, as I’m sure the varieties aged the traditional way are likely untouchable regarding price.

I can tell you about the flavor though. The tea has a very rich, dark flavor, almost woodsy and the dark leaf that results as it steeps remind me of coffee grains. The overall flavor is incredibly complex as the production of the tea would indicate.

So if you come across real pu-erh tea, do try it. Not only does it warm me up, but it is very different from any tea variety I’ve experienced before.

Have you ever tried pu-erh tea, or do you have more details about it you can share?

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