Qing Xiang Pu’er
Wednesday January 17th 2007, 3:04 pmFiled under: General
Years ago, when I first started getting interested in Chinese tea, no-one had ever heard of pu’er, the black, earthy, fermented cave tea from Yunnan. Usually sold in bricks and cakes, pu’er is traditionally made from wild (uncultivated) tea trees that grow hundreds of feet tall in the jungle. Nowadays Pu’er is cultivated much like any other green tea, save that the plants are a different cultivar of camellia sinensis, and so look and taste quite different from oolongs and other green teas.
Oh, how I enjoyed the ten, twenty, even fifty year old aged pu’ers, aged and guarded like fine Bordeaux, or Islay single malt. Not knowing better, I purchased and drank whole stocks of wine-red pu’er from the most famous farms and tea companies of Yunnan, never keeping my own reserve, just drinking and enjoying.
That, as they say, was then. Now, I find myself in a desperate struggle to import high quality pu’er without breaking the bank. It turns out that as China boomed, and Taiwan invested deeper and deeper in the countryside, the world (well, at least Asia) turned on to pu’er big time, and suddenly, all the old stocks were gone, and prices were skyrocketing!
As my knowlege of tea grew, I found myself horrified at all that I had drunk (since I saved the labels), and how much they would be worth now. Each of those labels reminds me, with a whisper of scent, the delight of each of those teas. I cannot get them now.
I import pu’er, its a popular product. I have over 26 varieties, some loose, some brick, some round cake, some “golden melon”. Each visit to China, I go deeper and deeper into the countryside myself, looking for enterprising farmers willing to sell their own young stock (all the old stuff is long gone). I have a local agent to do the real bargaining, my Chinese is great, but no way would I bargain for myself!
So I wander, and hope. Someday, I’ll find an old farmer out of touch, out of time. I’ll sit with him and drink long cups of wine-red pu’er laid down before the fires of revolution swept the earth of dreams.
And drink up pure fragrance, Qing Xiang pu’er, wild, old leaves, like the land before it was found.
