"icetea" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> about the acient trees, puer is about post fermenting tea and aging,
> the tea bushes should not be to old or too tall or the water and all
> the tea goodies cant get to the tea leaves and they will be bland(root
> to leaf too far away, sorry guys) and lanky limp branches. green puer
> usually is cheap because it has not been aged much, black puers are
> aged. (quicky you can buy a cheap good green puer and age it yourself
> at least five to 10 years. and if done right you gotta great tea)
> pu-er, pu erh puerh, oh the spelling.......
> ~~icetea
> http://teaarts.blogspot.com/
>

I'll second Lew. HUH?! Whachatalkin' abot?!

Icetea, I see you are transplanting your understanding of Taiwan tea
cultivation to Pu'er. Not wholly true in what you said. There are 3
broad
categories of Pu'er: The Transitional, The Wild grown, The Cultivated.

Each will yield its own characteristics. If root to leaf is too far
away,
then half the trees we get on earth should be balding - relax, the
trees
have a more powerful & sturdier internal irrigation system than we
mere
humans know. And we are talking about trees, not tea bushes here.

Green pu'er WAS cheap, but thanks to the intervention of Taiwanese
businessmen and China mainland's entrepreneurs, things are not as cheap
as
you think they are these days. The raw ingredient in 2005 compared to
2003
had gone up almost 50%, this has no doubt perk up the living standard
of the
local natives, but modernisation has its evil face too, but that's not
our
discussion here.

Black pu'ers are aged? Black pu'ers are 'speed-cooked', but in chinese

terminology I've yet to come across a reference that says black pu'er
is
aged. Green pu'er often referred to as 'Sheng', or 'Qing'; and old
aged
Green Pu'er as 'Lao (old) Qing bing (cake)' or 'Lao Sheng bing', or the
less
used terms 'Yuan Jiu Lao Sheng (or Qing) bing' - Yuan (Original) Jiu
(Old).

Black pu'er, once it is aged over a period of time, is often known as
'Lao
Shou bing'.

Buy a cheap green pu'er and age it? Easier said than done, isn't it?
Firstly, it involves a set of elements that is beyond our control -
from the
weather to the ingredients to the processing methods. Not all green
pu'ers
are suitable for ageing, but the ability to tell which will age well
and
which will not, is an intricate knowledge that we are only beginning to

understand.

You are still young Kevin (hey I like your name!), and you should drink
more
pu'er before thinking (if ever) of investing in it. And if you intend
to,
buy from a trusted source, I'm sure in your quest for this tea you will
come
across those you can trust, and as an advice for a beginner, buy a
pu'er
from one of the better known factories if you intend to age a cake - at

least from record, we have a feel of their aged products, whereas from
a
factory that's new in the market for a couple of years, we still do
not
know how well will their products age.

Danny