The History of Pu'er Tea

Throughout the history of Chinese tea culture, tea originated in Shennong, was famous in Lu Zhougong, flourished in the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty. Pu'er tea is rarely mentioned in historical records because of its location. In fact, Pu'er tea culture, as a representative of tea-horse culture, not only possesses the essence of traditional tea culture, but also has a unique feature that cannot be replicated.

The Development History of Pu'er Tea

In the eighteenth year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, the Qing court opened a horse tea market in Beisheng Prefecture, Yunnan. At that time, due to the huge demand for Pu'er tea in Tibetan areas, the Qing government agreed to open a tea market in Beisheng Prefecture at the request of the Dalai Lama to use Tibetan horses to change for teas, which greatly promoted the Yunnan-Tibet tea trade and the development of Yunnan tea industry. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the price of Pu'er tea reached its peak. At that time, the price of good Pu'er tea was twice that of gold or silver. From the Republic of China to the Anti-Japanese War, Pu'er tea has developed to a certain extent, and many time-honored teas from this period still exist. At that time, only best tea strainer, best tea infuser mug and best teaware brands were worthy of high-quality Pu’er tea.

Between the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War and the establishment of New China, the Pu'er tea industry and the entire tea industry in Yunnan was in depression. For a long period after the liberation, tea production in Yunnan paid attention to black tea and green tea, but did not inherit the fine tradition of Pu'er tea, and even large-scale felling and destruction of hundreds of years of old tea gardens, terraced tea gardens began to emerge.

After the reform and opening up in 1990, the total area of tea gardens across the country reached 2.4 million mu. In 1998, the output reached 1.55 million quintals, the export was more than 200,000 quintals, and the foreign exchange earned 22.5 million US dollars, creating the greatest glory in the history of tea in Yunnan. The types of teas developed from a single sun-dried tea in 1950 to roasted green tea, fried green tea, Gongfu black tea, Pu'er tea, scented tea and many other kinds of tea. Pu'er tea has also ushered in another glorious period. It is worth mentioning that in 1975, Yunnan restarted the production of Pu'er ripe tea.

Pu'er tea occupies a place in the Chinese tea industry. In addition to his historical and cultural heritage and the obvious distinction between leaf species, his unique production process is also extremely important. The tea production process is divided into picking, leaf selection, deterioration, fermentation, and forming. In these links, the difference between Pu'er tea and other tea species can be found. Although like green tea, Pu'er tea also has deterioration, but it only decompose some of the enzymes, while retaining a considerable amount of organic matter during the deterioration of Pu’er tea. When drinking tea, in addition to high-quality tea, high-quality Chinese teaware are also very important. The material of teaware are various, including glass teaware, clay gaiwan, ruyao gaiwan and many others. Winwin-world is a professional wholesale teaware supplier, and the tea set produced is exported to various countries. If you want to buy teaware online, please contact us.