Pu-erh Tea - Aging

Aging

Pu'er tea can generally improve in taste over time (due to natural secondary oxidation and fermentation). Teas that can be aged finely are typically:

  1. Made from high quality material
  2. Processed skillfully
  3. Stored properly over the years

The common misconception is that all types of pu'er tea will improve in taste—and therefore get more valuable as an investment item—as they get older. There are many requisite variables for a pu'er tea to age beautifully. Further, the ripe (shou) pu'er will not evolve as dramatically as the raw (sheng) type will over time from the secondary oxidation and fermentation.

As with wine, only the finely made and properly stored ones will improve and increase in value. Similarly, the percentage of those that will improve over a long period of time is only a small fraction of what is available in the market today.

Beginning in 2008, much of the Pu'er industry suffered a tremendous drop in prices. Consequently, many have lost their fortunes and some have even decided to stop selling, growing, or distributing Pu'er as a result of the financial loss plaguing many of those in the industry. Investment-grade Pu'er has witnessed declines in price as well, although not as drastically as those varieties which are more common.

Read more about this topic:  Pu-erh Tea

Famous quotes containing the word aging:

    “You are truly the generation in the middle! You have at once aging parents as well as maturing children to cope with, and you are not granted the deference accorded age, or the indulgence given the young.”
    —Helene S. Arnstein (20th century)

    “The politics of the exile are fever,
    revenge, daydream,
    theater of the aging convalescent.
    You wait in the wings and rehearse.
    You wait and wait.”
    —Marge Piercy (b. 1936)

    “Bourbon’s the only drink. You can take all that champagne stuff and pour it down the English Channel. Well, why wait 80 years before you can drink the stuff? Great vineyards, huge barrels aging forever, poor little old monks running around testing it, just so some woman in Tulsa, Oklahoma can say it tickles her nose.”
    —John Michael Hayes (b.1919)