Puer Tea is among the highest quality puer teas in the world. It is hand picked from old and ancient large-leaf tea trees that grow high in the remote misty mountains of Yunnan, China. Our puer tea, also known as puerh, pu-erh, pu-er, and pu-eh tea, is sun dried and naturally aged to produce a healthy tea with a smooth, mellow, earthy taste. "Puer" is pronounced "poo-er", the "poo" rythmes with the English word "you" and the "er" is pronounced like the er in the word "ergonomic". Puer is the official spelling, named after Puer City, in Yunnan, China.

Our green puer tea and black puer tea are both made from the same pesticide-free tea leaves, but are processed differently. When green puer is processed, the aging process is slow and natural. When black puer is processed, the aging is accelerated.

Green puer is one of the rawest, least processed teas in the world. The leaves are tumbled in a dryer for about 3 minutes, rolled and then sun dried. The tea in this state is known as "mao cha" or "raw puer tea." The mou cha is either left as loose tea or pressed with an instant of steam to form a tea cake, tea brick or tuocha. Pressed green tea is then stored in a drying room for a day.

In Yunnan, after the tea is made, it is stored in a clean, well-ventilated environment, with moderate temperature and humidity. This is known as dry storage. The tea is further aged in the United States, in the fresh air and year-round moderate temperature and humidity of Marin County, California. It is an ideal place to naturally age puer tea.

Black puer is processed using the wordui (pronounced wor-dway) technique. The mao cha is placed in a pile. Water is sprinkled on the pile to help accelerate the aging process. The pile is closely monitored for temperature and stirred as needed. This stirring and piling process occurs repeatedly over a 70-day period. The process naturally produces its own heat. Then the leaves are dried and either left as loose tea, or pressed with an instant of steam to form a tea cake, tea brick, or toucha. The tea is then left to dry for two or three days in a drying room.

Pure Puer tea is a living tea. Our processing for black and green puer uses much less heat than in the processing of other kinds of teas. This allows certain beneficial microbes to live. This is why puer tea should not be sealed in a bag or closed in a tin during storage. It is best when it is allowed to breathe. This microbial aging causes the puer to improve with age, like a fine wine. Puer tea is the only tea which improves through the years with age. Green puer improves with age up to 65 years. Black puer improves with age up to 25 years.

Puer tea may be steeped around ten times, many more times than ordinary tea. Therefore, it makes a lot more tea for its weight than other teas. The average cost of our tea comes to about 4 cents per cup. This means that you can buy our tea for about 50% less than most bagged teas found in stores. You don't pay for fancy packaging, you get a great value in world class tea.