Dark Tea

Dark tea (黑茶) is post-fermented tea by its original defination, where picked tea leaves raw product called rough tea (毛茶) be pressed into shape after withering, rolling and pressing, then sold and transported, the pressed tea will then undergo a natural process of gradual fermentation and maturation with time, from several months to many years. The tea leaves and the liquor made from them become darker with fermentation. The Dark tea has its legacy of supplying the teas from China’s south-west tea areas to the remote regions such as Mongolia, Tibet, etc., normally in the pressed form to facilitate the transportation, through the ancient Tea Horse Road (茶马古道). The tea that gone through post-fermentation can show great characters which has made some dark tea such as Pu-er very popular in the past couple of decades, and the price has also gone up dramatically. Pu-er (普洱) is Camellia sinensis var. assam (large-leaf tea), mostly in Yunnan province, China, some Pu-er tea trees have been growing for hundreds of years. Two main styles of pu-er production exist: a traditional tea, gone through withering, rolling and pressing, but not fermented during the production process known as raw pu-er (生普), the raw pu-er tea can go through a slow fermentation after the production, which can give it amazing characters which varies through the months and years of time, many people are zealously love them and this makes some raw pu-er very expensive. On the other hand, in order to achieve the charming character shown by the raw pu-er without having to wait for years, a modern, accelerated process known as WoDui (渥堆) was developed in 1973 to produce the ripe pu-er (熟普).