Pu’er: Myth of Origin & Reality of Blending
Tobacco harvesting, Yunnan
Pu’er: where do the tealeaves come from?
Even today, 9 years after the Chinese government formally declared Yunnan as the designation of origin (IGPRPC) for pu’er tea (5), a proportion of pu’er, in particular compressed ones, are produced from a mix of raw materials from everywhere, but the claim is always such and such famous tea mountain in Yunnan. We have a list of companies doing this, but cannot have the names published here.
Collection agents in different provinces or outside of the Chinese border may not be as aggressive as before — not that they are conforming to the origin designation declaration or claims by their Yunnan tea factory clients, but because of the dramatic shrinking of the market since the price crash in 2008. Collection activities outside of Yunnan is still going on — Pu’er today is still a few times the price before the rush.
At the same time, tea growing has already been given up in some farms in Yunnan. Yet the number of pu’er tea brands and tea factories is still on the rise. Why don’t the tea factories just buy from these farms closer to home, but have to spend the extra cash for leaves elsewhere?
Xishuangbana: More rubber trees than tea
Between shengcha and shu cha pu’ers, shengcha has been demanding a higher price. Shengcha, some refer to it as raw pu’er, has been the one that is driving the myth and the speculation ( and higher profit margin ). People believe that those made from what the market calls “large leaf” (6) varieties would increase in price perpetually.
Though the leaves of many tea cultivars grow large anyway, only certain local cultivars grow large young leaves for acceptable visual quality in the final shengcha products. They are stronger in taste to survive the years of maturation that will impose on them. A small proportion possesses good taste quality.
Tea tree in Pasha, Yunnan, marked with annual yield
Translation: Single bush number 3, annual yield ( dry tealeaves ) 6 to 10 kg, first flush ( green leaves ): 6 – 8 kg, — contact details —
Note: 6 – 8 kg of green leaves makes about 1 kg of dry leaves
However, there were not enough of these indigenous tea trees — those that are called “large leaf” varieties — left in Yunnan: extensive areas of older forests and old tea gardens had been cleared since the 1950’s (and only recently slowed down) to grow rubber. Unluckily that has been happening in the most famous pu’er regions in the Xishuangbana area (7).
Old tea farms
Tea farms from centuries ago, deserted because of wars, famine and the changing needs in the tea market, and therefore left alone to grow freely, are the prime sources for original quality Yunnan shengcha pu’er. Yet there are not enough of these to supply the hundreds of brands that are still crazily churning out thousands of various forms of compressed tea each day. The better ones have been either the monopoly or the cartel of a small number of top brands. So where do the others get their raw materials outside of the shrinking local supplies.
New tea farms
When the price of leaves of indigenous tea trees began to rise, there seemed to be an insatiable demand for such raw materials. People jumped in to expand or setup new tea farms. Some chopped up small leaf bushes to make room for large leaf trees. Yet old tea trees couldn’t be replicated in a few years. The over expansion upon the speculative trend and then the sudden price drop meant negative returns for the new growers, who were at the lowest pecking order in the production chain and therefore the hardest hit. They could not repay loans. The bankrupted growers had to sell the land and get jobs elsewhere, or switch to other crops that yield workable returns.
Daba, the lovely local tea leaf collection manager stood under her beloved old tea tree in her “backyard”. Daba is happy because she is fully covered by a major puer company. Many have to rely on their own.
Surviving in between the privileged and the powerful
Older farms, which are spinoffs from the few that produced black teas back in the late 1930’s, are more diversified with a range of cultivars and productions. They survive. Their connections with long-established factories are vital. Those who have access to older tea trees in famous regions prosper. With less competitors and an established market needs, they are now asking for a higher price than even before the crash.
On the other hand, to differentiate their “shengcha” discuses as being different from those that were made from the more usual tea trees, tea compressing factories (the so-called brands) needed to find materials at acceptable quality. The increase in new pu’er brands means a rise in demand for such leaves. That raises the price only to the better regions to access to which has since been monopolised by a few leading brands and those with privileges. Other factories need to find supply elsewhere.
One obvious candidate is leaves from the Dabai group of cultivars, which have large showy apical buds with downy silvery hairs. They originated in the eastern coastal province that is Fujian, all the way across the other end of China from Yunnan. As early as in the late 1980’s people have crossed these cultivars with local assamica varieties. Though they look good and taste sweet, but they are not strong and pungent enough as shengcha. Nevertheless, the demand during the height of the speculation craze was so great that much leaves were trucked to Yunnan. Sourcing from Fujian ceased only after the peaking of the trend.
