Probably everyone reading this who has the slightest interest in Pu'er
knows that the currently accepted wisdom is that the best Pu'er comes
from old trees.[1] Let's call people who believe this druids, after
the ancient Brits who worshipped other old trees. (I'm not mocking
these people; some of my best friends are druids, and I'm *almost* a
druid myself. I certainly don't wish to leave the impression that I
think druids are unintelligent or closed-minded.)

Lately I've been turning over a couple of doubts in my mind related to
the druid position. It's possible that these can easily be answered,
and that's why I'm ventilating them here and now.

==

The first issue is essentially a botanical one. If you're looking for
old-tree Pu'er, you need to know how to distinguish it from row-crop
leaf, of course. The best advice I've gleaned on this subject is that
the brewed leaves of old-tree tea will be bigger and thicker than
impostor leaves, with bigger veins and probably more levels of veins
visible: tertiary veins rather than just primary and secondary ones.
(I believe that this is less true for spring-picked leaves, which will
be more delicate.)

I asked a friend of mine, an agronomist with a doctorate but no
special knowledge of tea, about this. He said it might well be true,
but that there are lots of plants where leaf size has no positive
correlation to plant age. So I wonder if anyone can point me at
some science bearing on this question. (Nigel?)

==

My other question cuts closer to the heart of the druid position. My
experience with Pu'er and the people who sell it has pretty much
convinced me that the druids are right about *young* Pu'er, say from
the nineties up to the present. The old-tree tea from this era just
seems more interesting, more lively, than the plantation shrub leaf,
and I have a lot of confidence in the authenticity of at least some of
the old-tree tea I've drunk.

But young tea isn't the important stuff when it comes to Pu'er: it's
the older tea that really shines. And I think it's very unusual to
see persuasive claims in English about old-tree origin for Pu'er more
than 20 years old. Some of my favorite old Pu'er (I'm thinking of
Guangyungong and '60s Gaoligongshan) isn't even wholly made from
southern Yunnan leaf.

But I get the impression that there's a Chinese literature bearing on
what kind of trees were harvested for the recipe cakes of the '70s and
earlier. I'm not much use at this point with sanzui.com and Pu'er
Jianghu, though, and I don't doubt there are good sources I've never
even heard of, so I ask those who do read the Chinese literatu can
you shed any light on this?

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html
[1]I'm intentionally leaving aside the question of "wild" trees, since
defining a wild tree is rather iffy, e.g., is it wild if it was
cultivated 300 years ago?

> But I get the impression that there's a Chinese literature bearing on
> what kind of trees were harvested for the recipe cakes of the '70s and
> earlier. I'm not much use at this point with sanzui.com and Pu'er
> Jianghu, though, and I don't doubt there are good sources I've never
> even heard of, so I ask those who do read the Chinese literatu can
> you shed any light on this?

Lewis

I am no expert on pu-er tea. But since you ask, I spent 30 minutes
looking at some Chinese books on any comments on tea coming out of the
70s. This is what I found, judge it for yourself.

According to author Xu Chuan Hong, tea produced by meng hai, kun ming,
xia guan, ling qiang and pu-er cha factories in the 1970s and 1980s
are now highly sought after. In the social planning environment, the
factories are less profit focus. They are highly knowledgeable and
experienced, and exercise great care in tea-leaf selection and
processing methods.

Pu-er tea produced more recently are not bad, but there is a lack of
centrally imposed standard, the factories are less innovative. The
market is also diluted by copiers.

[that seems to the case for longjing tea as well, in which I have some
dealings with]

He also mentioned that fermented pu-er tea was invented in the 1970s,
but at that time, such tea used the courser, older leaves compared to
the post 1990.

It also says that good pu-er is formed from a combination of many
complex factors and it's difficult to put it to any single factor.



Julian
http://www.amazing-green-tea.com

I hit sanzui and the tea websites with a chat board occasionally with
a translator. You can tell it is a gold mine of tea information
obfuscated by the translation. It is my goal one day to make more
sense than what an online translator tells me.

Jim

Lewis Perin wrote:
....
> I'm not much use at this point with sanzui.com and Pu'er
> Jianghu, though, and I don't doubt there are good sources I've never
> even heard of, so I ask those who do read the Chinese literatu can
> you shed any light on this?
>
> /Lew
> ---
> Lew Perin /
> http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Space Cowboy > writes:

> I hit sanzui and the tea websites with a chat board occasionally with
> a translator. You can tell it is a gold mine of tea information
> obfuscated by the translation.

Amen to that.

> It is my goal one day to make more sense than what an online
> translator tells me.

Mine too.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

juliantai > writes:

> > But I get the impression that there's a Chinese literature bearing on
> > what kind of trees were harvested for the recipe cakes of the '70s and
> > earlier. I'm not much use at this point with sanzui.com and Pu'er
> > Jianghu, though, and I don't doubt there are good sources I've never
> > even heard of, so I ask those who do read the Chinese literatu can
> > you shed any light on this?
>
> Lewis
>
> I am no expert on pu-er tea. But since you ask, I spent 30 minutes
> looking at some Chinese books on any comments on tea coming out of the
> 70s. This is what I found, judge it for yourself.

Thanks!

> According to author Xu Chuan Hong, tea produced by meng hai, kun ming,
> xia guan, ling qiang and pu-er cha factories in the 1970s and 1980s
> are now highly sought after. In the social planning environment, the
> factories are less profit focus. They are highly knowledgeable and
> experienced, and exercise great care in tea-leaf selection and
> processing methods.
>
> Pu-er tea produced more recently are not bad, but there is a lack of
> centrally imposed standard, the factories are less innovative.

Less innovative in the absence of a "centrally imposed standard"?
That's counter-intuitive.

> [...]
> He also mentioned that fermented pu-er tea was invented in the
> 1970s,

Right; that would be shu (cooked, ripe) Pu'er.

> but at that time, such tea used the courser, older leaves compared to
> the post 1990.

When he says "older", he doesn't mean from old trees, does he?
Probably he means bigger leaves from later in the growing season, I
would think.

> It also says that good pu-er is formed from a combination of many
> complex factors and it's difficult to put it to any single factor.

Indeed!

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

> Less innovative in the absence of a "centrally imposed standard"?
> That's counter-intuitive.

The standard only specifies the quality needed to meet the grading
standard. So it actually free the producer to concentrate on the
quality, rather than on the marketing and profiteering. I think.

> When he says "older", he doesn't mean from old trees, does he?
> Probably he means bigger leaves from later in the growing season, I
> would think.

Yes, older leaves, not trees.

Interesting, I learn a couple of thing about pu-erh. Thanks. I still
have a so called 30 years old that I can't tell the good from the
one

Julian
http://www.amazing-green-tea.com

On Jun 9, 5:38 am, Lewis Perin > wrote:

> The first issue is essentially a botanical one. If you're looking for
> old-tree Pu'er, you need to know how to distinguish it from row-crop
> leaf, of course. The best advice I've gleaned on this subject is that
> the brewed leaves of old-tree tea will be bigger and thicker than
> impostor leaves, with bigger veins and probably more levels of veins
> visible: tertiary veins rather than just primary and secondary ones.
> (I believe that this is less true for spring-picked leaves, which will
> be more delicate.)
>
> I asked a friend of mine, an agronomist with a doctorate but no
> special knowledge of tea, about this. He said it might well be true,
> but that there are lots of plants where leaf size has no positive
> correlation to plant age. So I wonder if anyone can point me at
> some science bearing on this question. (Nigel?)

Hi Lew,

I don't think size has anything to do with anything, really. First of
all, the size of the leaf depends greatly on the sort of leaves
picked, and the season it was picked in. Fall leaves will be bigger
than spring leaves. I think that's pretty obvious. Size has nothing
to do with age, like your friend pointed out. Different regions also
have different sizes, from what I've seen, and thus using size as an
indicator is a sure way to druid-hell, I think.

I have seen/heard various methods for identifying old tree leaves vs
young tree leaves. Personally, I don't know if any of them really
hold any water, at this point. All I know is that there seems to be a
difference in the way it acts in your mouth and on your body, and
that, I think, is really the only good indicator.

>
> ==
>
> My other question cuts closer to the heart of the druid position. My
> experience with Pu'er and the people who sell it has pretty much
> convinced me that the druids are right about *young* Pu'er, say from
> the nineties up to the present. The old-tree tea from this era just
> seems more interesting, more lively, than the plantation shrub leaf,
> and I have a lot of confidence in the authenticity of at least some of
> the old-tree tea I've drunk.
>
> But young tea isn't the important stuff when it comes to Pu'er: it's
> the older tea that really shines. And I think it's very unusual to
> see persuasive claims in English about old-tree origin for Pu'er more
> than 20 years old. Some of my favorite old Pu'er (I'm thinking of
> Guangyungong and '60s Gaoligongshan) isn't even wholly made from
> southern Yunnan leaf.
>
> But I get the impression that there's a Chinese literature bearing on
> what kind of trees were harvested for the recipe cakes of the '70s and
> earlier. I'm not much use at this point with sanzui.com and Pu'er
> Jianghu, though, and I don't doubt there are good sources I've never
> even heard of, so I ask those who do read the Chinese literatu can
> you shed any light on this?
>

>From my very limited knowledge on this subject, I think anybody
telling you that a particular cake from 70s, 80s, or even early to mid
90s was made purely of one region or old tree leaves is lying to you.
>From what I understand, prior to approximately mid to late 90s, prices
for maocha for plantation and old tree tea was the same. In fact, old
tree tea might've been cheaper, because they were more difficult to
get to and in some cases, less desirable by those standards back in
the day. When prices are equal, there's obviously no need to
differentiate them, so the likelihood of anybody selling tea/making
tea who distinguishes them clearly would be.... low.

The whole old-tree business, afaik, started in the mid 90s when people
were trying to recreate Red Label or earlier cakes, and they think the
key to that is not using plantation leaves of new, young trees, but
rather older ones. That is about as much as I know.

Personally, I'm not entirely sure if there's a huge difference. That
said, you can definitely tell the difference sometimes when the tea is
in your mouth, so all we can do, I think, is just going by our
instinct and hope for the best.

MarshalN
http://www.xanga.com/MarshalN

MarshalN > writes:

> [...You can't tell old-tree leaves by looking...]
>
> [...Those good aged cakes weren't made from just old-tree leaves...]

Thanks for the news. I was tempted to say "thanks for the bad news",
but I'm not sure about that.

Assuming that nobody will come up with a persuasive argument against
what MarshalN's said, there may be consolations for those who want to
know how to find Pu'er worthy of aging. (What follows is just
speculation, of course; I've met tea farmers, but I'm not a tea farmer.)

First of all, it's good to be reminded that you need to rely on your
own sensory apparatus as you experience the tea. (I won't go into the
details here.)

But also, it brings to the foreground other factors that might account
for high-quality, age-able maocha:

- the farmer's skill and care in growing the crop;

- the farmer's skill and care in picking and drying the leaves;

- possibly, the farmer's avoidance of artificial means of increasing
yield.

Let me get even more speculative now. Maybe the fact that old tree
leaves tend to make good young Pu'er means that old trees are more a
proxy for good cakes than a direct cause of good cakes. Maybe the bad
cakes come not so much from plantation farming per se as from sloppy,
hasty plantation farming, and maybe old-tree farming is less
vulnerable to shoddy work one way or another.

There are any number of practices, I suppose, that could come under
the heading of bad tea farming. Maybe a tea agronomist can answer
this question: assuming a farmer is determined to saturate his soil
with fertilizers and pesticides, is it possible that old trees, with
their deep roots, would be less affected than younger bushes?

Another thing that comes to mind is that the leaves on reasonably tall
trees will probably get less sunlight in the course of the day than
the leaves on pruned bushes in uninterrupted rows. There are tea
people in both China and India who think you get better quality leaf
by avoiding full sunlight all day long.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

juliantai wrote:
> ... He also mentioned that fermented pu-er tea was invented in the 1970s,
> but at that time, such tea used the courser, older leaves compared to
> the post 1990.

Aha - this is interesting. Some people claim that shu Puerh improves
with age. I've had a few going back to the putative original of this
style, and didn't detect any benefit to long storage. Assuming that this
is sometimes true, however, perhaps it has nothing to do with aging at
all, but with the quality/qualities of the mao cha used in earlier decades?

-DM

On Jun 8, 10:38 pm, Lewis Perin > wrote:

> The first issue is essentially a botanical one. If you're looking for
> old-tree Pu'er, you need to know how to distinguish it from row-crop
> leaf, of course. The best advice I've gleaned on this subject is that
> the brewed leaves of old-tree tea will be bigger and thicker than
> impostor leaves, with bigger veins and probably more levels of veins
> visible: tertiary veins rather than just primary and secondary ones.
> (I believe that this is less true for spring-picked leaves, which will
> be more delicate.)
>
> I asked a friend of mine, an agronomist with a doctorate but no
> special knowledge of tea, about this. He said it might well be true,
> but that there are lots of plants where leaf size has no positive
> correlation to plant age. So I wonder if anyone can point me at
> some science bearing on this question. (Nigel?)
>
> ==
>
> My other question cuts closer to the heart of the druid position. My
> experience with Pu'er and the people who sell it has pretty much
> convinced me that the druids are right about *young* Pu'er, say from
> the nineties up to the present. The old-tree tea from this era just
> seems more interesting, more lively, than the plantation shrub leaf,
> and I have a lot of confidence in the authenticity of at least some of
> the old-tree tea I've drunk.
>
> But young tea isn't the important stuff when it comes to Pu'er: it's
> the older tea that really shines. And I think it's very unusual to
> see persuasive claims in English about old-tree origin for Pu'er more
> than 20 years old. Some of my favorite old Pu'er (I'm thinking of
> Guangyungong and '60s Gaoligongshan) isn't even wholly made from
> southern Yunnan leaf.

Thre are a host of questions emerging from this thread, some of which
have a botanical basis.

I worked in Yunnan during the mid 80's and have on my wall a dried
leaf of "Yunnan Large Leaf" cultivar - it is 11" long, whereas the
largest leaf I could find in Assam is but 8.5" long. Now those leaves
come from the maintenance layer i.e fully grown mature leaves. Tea is
non deciduous so Fall leaf is not bigger than Spring leaf. It grows
from a bud, gets bigger to maturity, stays on the plant for 2-3 years
then falls off, so you can find big leaf (and small leaf) on the plant
all year round. This big leaf on my wall is from a "row crop" plant
but the few old plants I saw in Yunnan had mature leaf of similar,
certainly no bigger, size.

(Julian) > but at that time, such tea used the courser, older leaves
compared to
> the post 1990.
Now while pu erh may be made from "big leaf old trees" it is for sure
is made from the younger (and much smaller) tips not the real coarse
old grandpappy maintenance leaf - though I confess I do not know
exactly which of the tender leaf makes the best pu erh (compare rule
of thumb: 1 Leaf & Bud for white tea, 2L&B for orthodox black and most
green teas, 3L&B for CTC black, 4L&B for oolong).

Reasons why pu erh may be better from old trees a

Old tree owners may themselves be older and more tradional and
therefore be more careful in plucking suitable leaf for their pu erh
than row crop growers of tea making cooked pu erh .

Old trees are grown in traditional shady spots and the leaves
(particularly older ones) may have built up a unique surface flora of
fungi and bacteria which, when the tea is aged gives a character that
cannot be matched by "cooking" (I prefer the term composting). Much
as a Roquefort cheese cannot be made in Stilton, nor vice versa.

Older leaf (though not the chewy old leaf) will have a different
balance of chemicals than younger leaves (certainly less caffeine and
less catechins but more amino acids and sugars as teh older leaves are
used as temporary storage tissue) - this change in balance may
influence final tea quality.

(Lew)
> Maybe a tea agronomist can answer
>this question: assuming a farmer is determined to saturate his soil
>with fertilizers and pesticides, is it possible that old trees, with
>their deep roots, would be less affected than younger bushes?

I doubt that farmers harvesting from the traditional old trees would
succumb to these chemical get rich quick tactics, it is really a
plantation mentality. But if an old tree were fertilized with NPK
under normal rainfall I would expect fertilizer leaching to full 5
meter root depth within 12 months of application.

(Lew again)
>Another thing that comes to mind is that the leaves on reasonably tall
>trees will probably get less sunlight in the course of the day than
>the leaves on pruned bushes in uninterrupted rows. There are tea
>people in both China and India who think you get better quality leaf
>by avoiding full sunlight all day long.
Properly grown hedges of tea will meet together wiythin a few years.
Light interception by the flush and the maintenance layer is pretty
much 100% meaning its virtually night below the bushes. Tea grown as
a natural tree never achieves that degree of interception so on
average a mature leaf on the tree sees more light tahn teh close
packed leaf within tea hedges.

I really would like to know exactly which leaf maturity (i.e. in leaf
numerical position on the shoot) is plucked for good pu erh - any one
know that for certain, either now or historically?

Nigel at Teacraft

Nigel > writes:
> [...]
>
> Reasons why pu erh may be better from old trees a
>
> [...]
>
> Old trees are grown in traditional shady spots and the leaves
> (particularly older ones) may have built up a unique surface flora of
> fungi and bacteria which, when the tea is aged gives a character that
> cannot be matched by "cooking" (I prefer the term composting). Much
> as a Roquefort cheese cannot be made in Stilton, nor vice versa.
> [...]
>
> (Lew again)
> >Another thing that comes to mind is that the leaves on reasonably
> >tall trees will probably get less sunlight in the course of the day
> >than the leaves on pruned bushes in uninterrupted rows. There are
> >tea people in both China and India who think you get better quality
> >leaf by avoiding full sunlight all day long.
>
> Properly grown hedges of tea will meet together wiythin a few years.
> Light interception by the flush and the maintenance layer is pretty
> much 100% meaning its virtually night below the bushes. Tea grown as
> a natural tree never achieves that degree of interception so on
> average a mature leaf on the tree sees more light tahn teh close
> packed leaf within tea hedges.

This makes sense to me, but maybe tea plants that have been allowed to
become trees are more likely to be shaded by other trees -
"traditional shady spots" above - than are the shrubs in neat rows,
even fully joined rows?

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Hail druid Lew!

I think MarshalN and Nigel have about answered your questions, so I
won't repeat his words. Here's something that might be of interest to
you, linked to the questions you asked, which may shed more light on
the answers you seek...

1. The vendor's classification of trees and their botany definitions
vary, so I'm going with the vendor's classification he tea plants
are generally classified as Wild Grown, Old Tree (arbor?), and
Plantation Grown. Wild Grown is a tree that is grown from seed, Old
Tree is grown from grafting, and may be semi-cultivated, or left to
grow in the wild. Plantation Grown I think, needs little explanation.
If a tree is grown from the seed and planted in a plantation, it is
considered Wild Grown, even if it fully cultivated. These said, a lot
also depend on the the location of where the trees are grown, whether
wild, semi, or plantation, not to mention the way the tea is
processed. In other words, Wild Grown may not be Old, Wild Grown may
not be Arbor, Wild Grown may not even taste good.

2. The shape of leaves from a Wild Grown tree can be irregular - the
leaves from two branches on the same tree may not look the same, I
think this is due to some genetic disposition. However, since what we
see are pressed leaves, it is difficult to tell them apart.

3. Taste is a more truthful way of telling the types of tea apart,
and where it is not possible to taste, we non-professionals can only
do some guesswork on the appearance of the leaves to 'tell' if the
leaves are Wild Grown or otherwise. The 'let's examine the leaves' way
is not really the best way, given that we are not botanists, the thick
veins and thick blades rule, as it was pointed out, may be leaves from
different seasons. For Wild Grown, one may need a magnifying glass and
search for the down (fur) on the leaves. Shoots and young leaves of
Wild Grown tree have very little or no down at all, as compared to the
others. The colour of the processed maocha (baked or sundried) from a
Wild Grown is much darker than the rest, a blackish dark green.
However, the ultimate indicator, as said before, is the taste. It does
not taste like pu'er in the initial rounds, at least the ones I know,
with a unique residual taste in the mouth. If you live close to a
chinese fresh food market, ask if they sell fresh chinese olives. Bite
into one, and after the sourness has worn off, there is lingering
taste in the mouth that is faintly bitter and quite astringent - that
would be close to what a Wild Grown pu'er would taste like. Bitterness
and bite - a Wild Grown pu'er is usually lacking in both of these,
which are more attributed to Plantation tea. Fragrance - Plantation
tea usually comes with a higher floral note that is tight in bouquet,
intense even. Old Tree, while the taste is not as bitter but with
bite, has a deeper wider floral note. Wild Grown tea reminds me of a
walk in the forest after the rain. A Ming period tea lover Xu Cishu
wrote: Tea plants that are often fed with fertiliser will strive well,
but its nuances weak. This is something the tea makers noticed, and
hence the art of blending came about. In the case of a wrapper
claiming Wild Grown, or Wild Arbor, there is a high chance that the
leaves inside are blended, though hopefully with a higher percentage
of truly Wild Grown or Old Tree leaves. If we are to look at
unblended pu'er, of the three, Old Tree seems to hit a balanced note
on bitterness, bite, fragrance and naunce, and is the preferred choice
of the consumer, taste-wise though, some might find it too singular,
unlike the multi-layering of the Plantation type. There will always
be consumers who like Plantation teas for the 'kick' in the tea, and
those who prefer the singular, unwavering taste in Wild Grown or Old
Tree.

Danny

writes:

> [...]
>
> The vendor's classification of trees and their botany definitions
> vary, so I'm going with the vendor's classification he tea plants
> are generally classified as Wild Grown, Old Tree (arbor?), and
> Plantation Grown. Wild Grown is a tree that is grown from seed, Old
> Tree is grown from grafting, and may be semi-cultivated, or left to
> grow in the wild. Plantation Grown I think, needs little explanation.
> If a tree is grown from the seed and planted in a plantation, it is
> considered Wild Grown, even if it fully cultivated. These said, a lot
> also depend on the the location of where the trees are grown, whether
> wild, semi, or plantation, not to mention the way the tea is
> processed. In other words, Wild Grown may not be Old, Wild Grown may
> not be Arbor, Wild Grown may not even taste good.

I think Wild Grown is a translation of Ye Sheng, isn't it? And maybe
a more accurate translation, especially since you point out that there
is "wild grown" taidicha, would be Wild *Born*, right?

So really, sorting Pu'ers into three groups this way is conceptually
messy. You would certainly expect a young shrub grown from seed to
yield leaves with different properties from the leaves of an old
seed-grown tree. So it would make sense to have four categories (at
least) rather than three. I'm wondering, though, if Old Tree and
Plantation Grown are necessarily opposites, for it's at least possible
to keep an old, waist-high tea bush yielding for many decades; this
certainly is common in Darjeeling. If you accept that Old Tree and
Plantation Grown are independent variables, then you have eight
categories!

> 2. The shape of leaves from a Wild Grown tree can be irregular - the
> leaves from two branches on the same tree may not look the same, I
> think this is due to some genetic disposition. However, since what we
> see are pressed leaves, it is difficult to tell them apart.


Wouldn't *everything* about trees grown from seed vary more widely
than among clones? (Here I'm talking about variation from plant to
plant, not within a single tree.) So tea from a bunch of adjacent
seed-grown trees, even if harvested the same morning, would in effect
be a blend?

> 3. Taste is a more truthful way of telling the types of tea apart,
> and where it is not possible to taste, we non-professionals can only
> do some guesswork on the appearance of the leaves to 'tell' if the
> leaves are Wild Grown or otherwise. The 'let's examine the leaves' way
> is not really the best way, given that we are not botanists, the thick
> veins and thick blades rule, as it was pointed out, may be leaves from
> different seasons. For Wild Grown, one may need a magnifying glass and
> search for the down (fur) on the leaves. Shoots and young leaves of
> Wild Grown tree have very little or no down at all, as compared to the
> others. The colour of the processed maocha (baked or sundried) from a
> Wild Grown is much darker than the rest, a blackish dark green.
> However, the ultimate indicator, as said before, is the taste. It does
> not taste like pu'er in the initial rounds, at least the ones I know,
> with a unique residual taste in the mouth. If you live close to a
> chinese fresh food market, ask if they sell fresh chinese olives. Bite
> into one, and after the sourness has worn off, there is lingering
> taste in the mouth that is faintly bitter and quite astringent - that
> would be close to what a Wild Grown pu'er would taste like. Bitterness
> and bite - a Wild Grown pu'er is usually lacking in both of these,
> which are more attributed to Plantation tea.

Sorry, but I can't make sense of the last sentence. Doesn't it
contradict what comes before?

> Fragrance - Plantation tea usually comes with a higher floral note
> that is tight in bouquet, intense even. Old Tree, while the taste is
> not as bitter but with bite, has a deeper wider floral note. Wild
> Grown tea reminds me of a walk in the forest after the rain. A Ming
> period tea lover Xu Cishu wrote: Tea plants that are often fed with
> fertiliser will strive well, but its nuances weak. This is
> something the tea makers noticed, and hence the art of blending came
> about.

Do you mean blending was used to supplement plentiful, insipid,
highly-fertilized leaf with a bit of traditionally cultivated leaf?

> In the case of a wrapper claiming Wild Grown, or Wild Arbor, there
> is a high chance that the leaves inside are blended, though
> hopefully with a higher percentage of truly Wild Grown or Old Tree
> leaves.

Here you mean blending with clonal plantation tea, right?

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

On Jun 24, 9:57 pm, Lewis Perin > wrote:
>
> I think Wild Grown is a translation of Ye Sheng, isn't it? And maybe
> a more accurate translation, especially since you point out that there
> is "wild grown" taidicha, would be Wild *Born*, right?
>
Wild Born would be most appropriate, but can a plant be
born?...calling linguists...

> So really, sorting Pu'ers into three groups this way is conceptually
> messy. You would certainly expect a young shrub grown from seed to
> yield leaves with different properties from the leaves of an old
> seed-grown tree. So it would make sense to have four categories (at
> least) rather than three. I'm wondering, though, if Old Tree and
> Plantation Grown are necessarily opposites, for it's at least possible
> to keep an old, waist-high tea bush yielding for many decades; this
> certainly is common in Darjeeling. If you accept that Old Tree and
> Plantation Grown are independent variables, then you have eight
> categories!
>
Let me see...1. Wild Grown 2. Old Wild Grown 3. Seed Grown in
plantation environment 4. Old Tree once cultivated and then
abandoned 5. Old Tree once cultivated, left on its own, and is still
cultivated once in a while by the minority tribes 6. Plantation
shrubs 7. Plantation trees 8. High Altitude Wild Grown 9. Lower
Altitude Wild Grown 10. High Altitude Old Tree 11. Lower Altitude
Old Tree 12. High Altitude Plantation 13. Lower Altitude
Plantation...like I stressed, we are not botanists...keeping it at 3
categories is much simpler to understand...the importance as mentioned
by the others, is not what you know about the trees, but what you know
about the taste. I don't think either of us are going deep into the
mountains in Yunnan and take up a course in botany anytime soon, but
we are drinking the tea, it would be more importance for us to know
the taste profiles of these categories. I'm sure you have some teas
that are labelled Wild Grown or Old Arbor, taste them, and look for
the differences and compare these to one from the plantation.

> > 2. The shape of leaves from a Wild Grown tree can be irregular - the
> > leaves from two branches on the same tree may not look the same, I
> > think this is due to some genetic disposition. However, since what we
> > see are pressed leaves, it is difficult to tell them apart.
>
> Wouldn't *everything* about trees grown from seed vary more widely
> than among clones? (Here I'm talking about variation from plant to
> plant, not within a single tree.) So tea from a bunch of adjacent
> seed-grown trees, even if harvested the same morning, would in effect
> be a blend?
>
Yes and No. I mentioned the irregularity of shapes, not its
contents...I think essentially, even in Darjeeling, the leaves picked
from the vast area of the plantation might be considered blends, since
plots of soil may contain different amount of minerals, the amount of
sun, dew, etc, on one area might be more than another...

> Sorry, but I can't make sense of the last sentence. Doesn't it
> contradict what comes before?
>
Erh, nope~ let me try it once more. Wild Grown: almost not bitter,
mildly astringent, low on the fragrance, the smell reminds me more of
a walk in the forest after the rain, a smell that is slightly pungent,
deeply vegetal, a smell that doesn't clog up the nostrils, but spread
deep into the lungs...gag me before I get too lyrical...

> Do you mean blending was used to supplement plentiful, insipid,
> highly-fertilized leaf with a bit of traditionally cultivated leaf?
>
It depends. Sometimes only other plantation leaves are used to
supplement the nuances and complete the note profiles. In the past
(60s-90s), Wild Grown and Old Tree leaves were not seen as porbably
maocha material. These leaves that were harvested by the minority
tribes were mostly bought by the processing plants cheaply, and
blended in to the pressing not because they were good, but mostly
because more cakes could be produced this way. These days, the
reverse is true...if we do the math, we'll wonder how many Wild Grown
and Old Trees there have to be to produce so many "Wild Grown" "Old
Arbor" labelled cakes...

> Here you mean blending with clonal plantation tea, right?
>
Yuppy.

Danny

Hey Nigel mate, good to have you onboard!

> Reasons why pu erh may be better from old trees a
>
> Older leaf (though not the chewy old leaf) will have a different
> balance of chemicals than younger leaves (certainly less caffeine and
> less catechins but more amino acids and sugars as teh older leaves are
> used as temporary storage tissue) - this change in balance may
> influence final tea quality.


To add on your bit, although I can't really comment on pu-erh, but
from what I know about green and oolong tea plants, (again no
scientific proof) the older plants (those past maturity) produced less
each year, but with higher quality. The tea plants I have in mind are
those 18 Longjing tea plants spotted by Emperor Qianlong couple of
hundreds of years ago.

The same for tea plants grown in high attitude (probably past the
optimum high).

> I really would like to know exactly which leaf maturity (i.e. in leaf
> numerical position on the shoot) is plucked for good pu erh - any one
> know that for certain, either now or historically?

Again, quoting from a source:

Pu-erh tea leaves can be picked in four seasons. Spring tea is the
best and is picked from February to April, the best being 14 days
after Qing Ming (5 April). A standard pick being 1 bud 1 leaf.

Summer tea is picked from May to July and is the second best.

Autumn tea is picked from August to October, being third best.

Winter tea is less available, they are normally consumed by farmers
themselves.

Julian
http://www.amazing-green-tea.com

writes:

> On Jun 24, 9:57 pm, Lewis Perin > wrote:
> > [...]
> > So really, sorting Pu'ers into three groups this way is conceptually
> > messy. You would certainly expect a young shrub grown from seed to
> > yield leaves with different properties from the leaves of an old
> > seed-grown tree. So it would make sense to have four categories (at
> > least) rather than three. I'm wondering, though, if Old Tree and
> > Plantation Grown are necessarily opposites, for it's at least possible
> > to keep an old, waist-high tea bush yielding for many decades; this
> > certainly is common in Darjeeling. If you accept that Old Tree and
> > Plantation Grown are independent variables, then you have eight
> > categories!
> >
> Let me see...1. Wild Grown 2. Old Wild Grown 3. Seed Grown in
> plantation environment 4. Old Tree once cultivated and then
> abandoned 5. Old Tree once cultivated, left on its own, and is still
> cultivated once in a while by the minority tribes 6. Plantation
> shrubs 7. Plantation trees 8. High Altitude Wild Grown 9. Lower
> Altitude Wild Grown 10. High Altitude Old Tree 11. Lower Altitude
> Old Tree 12. High Altitude Plantation 13. Lower Altitude
> Plantation...like I stressed, we are not botanists...keeping it at 3
> categories is much simpler to understand...the importance as mentioned
> by the others, is not what you know about the trees, but what you know
> about the taste.

Of course it's about what happens once you take the tea into your
mouth. I'm sorry if it seemed I was veering into pedantry. But when
I'm trying to understand something influenced by several factors, I
find it useful to try to break out all the factors, at least
conceptually, into a grid. Some of the cells in the grid will be
unimportant, maybe because they basically never happen; clonal old
tree might be an example of this. I think you were joking, at least
partially, in introducing some new categories, but some of them
definitely are used, at least in marketing.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html