Located at the southwestern most corner of China, Yunnan province is considered the place of origin for the tea plant. Home to the famous Puer teas, it is also renowned for its tremendous biodiversity, ethnic diversity and breathtaking mountainous landscape.
Puer’s origin is the small town of Puer in Yunnan, where teas from the surrounding mountains were brought, pressed into bricks and cakes and sent out across the continent.
Puer Teas cannot be classified by color as they include green, oolong, red, white, and brick.
Puer teas traveled as far as Tibet, Japan and Europe. To reach its destination, the tea traveled though a range of climates and weather, often by horse and camelback.
For this reason, Puer became known for an aged, earthy quality that it developed along the way. They have been much praised for their quite distinctive flavor and health-giving qualities by generations of connoisseurs. Besides being nourishing, Puer Teas are a good digestive, as well as a general remedy for various ills.
Wo Dui
Nowadays, this earthy character is encouraged by a ‘Wo Dui’ process. Puer tea leaves are moistened (‘wo’) with water and stacked (‘dui’) in piles to undergo a unique post fermentation giving the tea a dark, inky color, rich smooth flavor, and velvet (Velour) like texture.