Greg,

I'm not sure what you mean by "there is no such thing as 'raw' pu erh," but
I suggest you visit Mike Petro's web site to clear up whatever
misconceptions you have about our use of the term.

Michael




legroups.
com5/4/05
> With all due respect, there is no such thing as raw pu erh. My family
> is in the tea plantation business for four generations. I have worked
> in our plantation for over 20 years. May be you are refering to green
> pu erh. It's colour looks like green tea. But that is the biggest
> misconception of tea outside China. Many, many decades ago some
> influential tea merchants who did not fully understand tea were telling
> people of the world the main difference between green tea, oolong tea,
> black tea, and white tea. Now every book, and every website uses the
> same definition--the major difference is in the fermentation of the tea
> leaves. However, this definition is extremely over simplified,
> misleading and mostly incorrect. The major difference between the
> different teas are that they all comes from different tea plants. Teas
> like apples, peaches and pears have many, many different varities. Some
> varities are perfect for green teas, while others are great for white
> teas, and still others are ideal for red teas (mostly refer to as black
> teas in the West). This white tea varities will never be used to make
> green teas and vice versa. Even in the green tea family there are
> countless sub-varities. This is only true in China, and Taiwan. India
> is now growing green tea, and white tea, but their altered varities
> work differently, and can never be as superior as the thousands of
> green teas in China.
>
> For people who are truely interested in the finest teas in the world,
> they should visit China many famous tea garden (plantations) the next
> time they are in the country. Most plantations welcome foreigners for
> visits.
>
> I do agree that zheng shan xiao zhong (lapsang souchong) is a good tea
> if people could find it at a fine tea merchant--it is not an easy tea
> to locate in North America. And the Koo Loo tea is very nice. It has a
> floral aroma. But again this tea is not catagorized as green. In its
> purest classification, this is a fully-fermented red tea; however, in
> the West, red tea is consider black tea. In North America, for the
> sake of simplication, yellow teas, and red teas do not exist at the
> current time.
>
> In most case, you seem very knowledgeable about tea. It took me many
> decades to truely understand the nuances, and I was literally borned in
> a tea plantation in Fujian.
>
> Greg
>