Shu Cha

Shu cha ( Chinese: 熟茶 ) is a relatively new term that came about as Pu’er becomes a popular subcategory. The romanization ‘shu’ in the term is ‘shou’ when without the suffix ‘cha’. That is because this the convention of how the term is spoken.

‘Shou’ in Chinese as an adjective has many meanings. It can be ‘cooked’, ‘ripen’, ‘familiar’, ‘grown’, etc. In the world of pu’er, it refers to those varieties that have undergone induced post-fermentation, therefore, not as ‘raw’ or ‘green’ as those that have not. Post-Fermented varieties are relatively sweeter and therefore more ‘ripen’, hence the term.

Shu cha is the counterpart for ‘sheng cha’ ( Chinese: 生茶 ), or ‘shengcha’. They are both widely used in the world of pu’er as two distinctly different sub-subcategories.

In the past, there was no such term as shu cha. Pu’er and many other dark tea varieties were allowed to turn dark naturally by exposing to environmental elements. They were post-fermented naturally. Induced post-fermentation came about in the 1950’s to 60’s and began to develop a structure for systematic advancement only in the 1970’s.

The term shu cha appears in the following articles and discussions in this site: