Aged raw puerh vs ripe puerh

I’ve tried some aged sheng (not a lot ) but its nowhere close to ripe puerh. And thats OK. i love them all !

HI Brian!

Raw and ripe pu’er, even though they are both given the name “pu’er”, are really two different animals. Aged raw teas will never taste like ripe style teas – the processing is so very different.

I’m with boyckik, I like them both. But I’ve met many passionate raw pu’er lovers who cannot stand ripe tea and consider it a desecration to the leaf. Each to their own, for sure.

Enjoy, my friend!

Garret

I agree with Garret and boychik. I would also say that “proper” storage is necessary for both. Especially sheng as it will absorb any odors around it. Shou will also to a lesser extent. You will have to find out which type of storage you like. Traditional with high humidity as in Hong Kong or Malaysia or dry storage as in a place like Kunming.
As said above some like one or the other and many as I enjoy both.

I agree with boychik, Garret, and mrmopar. I enjoy both. Just make sure you do give both a chance. Don’t go by what you hear or read. Try both and decide for yourself if you like both, neither, or one or the other. I’m actually running low on both. Speaking of, Garret, I saw you ran a sale of 15% off a few months ago. Just didn’t see it then. Will you be running another sale like that anytime soon? Looking at several of Mandala teas to order.

I prefer sheng (raw) and cannot stand the smell/taste of shou (ripe) pu er. Tried it numerous times, but yuck….
No expert (mrmopar is) but sheng is more complex…. imho

Ripes are either heavily fermented or lightly fermented. The light leaves room for the tea to age more and develop more complexity. Either way, ripes really do need to rest and breathe out for a few years. They go from red to more brown in the cup which is when I tend to like them better. At that point the “yuck” that some find in shou is pretty much gone. So I prefer 3-5 years old at least.

Hello Brian,

This may sound confusing but the answer is both YES and NO. Allow me to explain.

YES – if the raw teacake was wet stored. Wet storage or HK storage uses high humidity and temperature to speed up the aging process of a raw teacake. There are various levels of wet storage (light/medium/heavy), under heavy wet storage a raw teacake can become very similar to ripe puerh.

Unfortunately because wet storage can alter a raw teacake quite drastically within a short period of time it has been used as a way to misrepresent the true age of teas. If you are interested I wrote about this at the link provided below
http://theguidetopuerhtea.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-tea-market-series-in-china-article_30.html

NO – if the raw teacake was left to naturally age under what we call dry storage conditions. Should this be the case for 20 years then the raw teacake will be vastly different to a ripe puerh. The raw teacake in this case will have a more vibrant aged character and possess complexity and nuances. The tradeoff is that raw teacakes that are naturally aged take a long, long time to reach maturity.

Hope this helps.
VP