How to Identify Good Puerh Tea - Zhi Zheng Tea Shop

„Smokiness
The art of making tea from ancient tea trees is very old. Hand-roasting is not easily mastered. Any slight error will influence the taste of the tea. Smokiness or yan wei is one example but it should be distinguished from a burned flavour which is described as hu wei. The latter, typically arises when tea is not well roasted and is, unfortunately, not uncommon. Yan wei or smokiness is caused by oven drying. “

„‘Ripened’ Shou Cha (熟茶) tea is pressed maocha that has been specially processed to imitate aged "raw" Sheng Cha tea. Although it is also known as cooked pu-erh, the process does not actually employ cooking to imitate the aging process. The term may come about due to inaccurate translation due to the dual meaning of shú (熟) as both "fully cooked" and "fully ripened".“