Pu-erh Tea (普洱茶) — Fermented Tea of Yunnan: Cooking and Pairing

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Pu-erh tea (普洱茶, named for Pu'er city in Yunnan province) is the most complex and most debated category of Chinese tea — a tea that undergoes two fermentation processes: a microbial fermentation of the processed tea leaves in warm, moist conditions (for shu/cooked pu-erh) and an extended aging under controlled conditions (for sheng/raw pu-erh, which develops complex fermented notes over years or decades). Unlike green tea or oolong which degrade in flavour over time, well-stored pu-erh improves with age — the finest aged pu-erh cakes (bing cha, 饼茶) can be centuries old and command extraordinary prices. In Cantonese yum cha culture, pu-erh is the most commonly drunk tea, valued for its ability to cut through the rich, fatty dim sum preparations and aid digestion.

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