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Ripened Cooked Pu-Erh Cake

Aged Chinese Tea

Bold, smooth and woody, our Ripened Cooked Pu-erh Cake from Yunnan offers an authentic slice of Chinese tea-making tradition, perfect now or for future drinking.

From: Yunnan Province, China

SHU CHA CAKE
Delivery Info

Shipping policy

 

 UK Deliveries

Method

Cost

Carrier

Transit time

Standard

£3.50, Free - over £35

Royal Mail

2-5 days, Tracked

Tracked

£6.50, Free - over £100

DPD

1-3 days, Tracked

Next-Working-Day

£9.95

DPD

Orders placed before 2pm, Delivered Monday - Friday, Tracked

Saturday

£15.00

DPD

Orders placed before 2pm, Saturday delivery, Tracked

 *Most deliveries will be made within the usual time frame, but some areas and services may experience delays.

 

European Deliveries


Currently, there are some delays with sending parcels to EU countries from the UK. This is due to the UK leaving the European Union. We will keep you updated with any notifications as they happen.

Please note that a tracking number is not provided for EU Standard deliveries. 

CUSTOMS CHARGES: All commercial goods arriving from the UK are subject to VAT, Import Duty and a handling fee in the country receiving the goods.

Method

Cost

Carrier

Transit time

Standard

From £5.50

Royal Mail

3-7 days, up to 21*, Not Tracked (Offered for orders less than £50 only)

Economy

From £5.50

Royal Mail

3-7 days, up to 21*, Not Tracked (Offered for orders less than £50 only)

Tracked

From £15.95

Fedex

3-5 days, up to 8*, Tracked

*Most deliveries will be made within the usual time-frame, but some areas and services may experience delays.

Customers Ordering From Ireland - Please Note: Due to recent restrictions we are unable to ship Chinese teas to Ireland at this present time.

 

Rest of the World

 

Method

Cost

Carrier

Transit time

Standard

From £4.00

Royal Mail

8-15 days, up to 30*, Not Tracked (Offered for orders less than £50 only)

USA tracked

From £15.00

Fedex

2-3 days, up to 7*, Tracked

ROW Tracked

From £18.95

Fedex

1-5 days, up to 5*, Tracked

 *Most deliveries will be made within the usual time frame, but some areas and services may experience delays.

 

International Buyers (Including EU) – Please Note:


Import duties, taxes, and charges are not included in the item price or shipping cost. These charges are the buyer's responsibility. Please check with your country's customs office to determine what these additional costs will be before buying.

Customers Ordering From Ireland - Please Note: Due to recent restrictions we are unable to ship Chinese teas to Ireland at this present time.

If you have any questions, please contact us via sales@theteamakers.co.uk | 01322284923

*We aim to dispatch all orders within 1-2 days of receiving your request. However, this can vary during peak times and other conditions outside of our control. Therefore, the below estimates of shipping times have been provided by our couriers.

The origins of our Ripened Cooked Pu-erh Cake aged Chinese tea


This is the kind of cake we like: long-lasting, full of complex characters and with health benefits, to boot. Meticulously produced and packaged, our Ripened Cooked Pu-Erh Cake is an authentic Chinese tea that gives a brick-red infusion with a woody aroma and a wonderfully deep taste.

Produced in 2012 in Yunnan province, south-western China, this luxury ripe Pu-erh tea imparts an earthy flavour with hints of mushroom and a smooth mouthfeel. We don't recommend adding anything to this characterful speciality tea, though you could give it a dash of milk or honey to taste, if you like.

As a Ripened, or 'Shu', Pu-erh, our tea is made from the base Pu-er product called Mao Cha (meaning 'coarse' or 'unfinished' tea) which has been taken through an extra processing step called wet piling, carried out to hasten the ageing process. Our Cooked Ripe Pu-erh Cake was produced in 2012 and is made of gently rolled, curly brown leaves. Pu-erh can take several different forms, but ours is shaped into the frequently used Bing Cha disc-like shape – stamped for authenticity and beautifully wrapped in paper.

Read more about our Ripened Cooked Pu-erh Cake


What are the health benefits of Pu-erh tea?


While less studied than green and black teas, Pu-erh – which, in the first stage of production, is processed in the same way as green teas – has been linked to several health benefits. These include lowered blood pressure and cholesterol, and in particular 'bad' LDL cholesterol – possibly due to the presence of lovastatin, produced by the fungi that occur in Pu-erh teas during the fermentation process. As a fermented product, Pu-erh tea may also contribute to gut health by introducing beneficial bacteria into the microbiome.


What is Ripened Pu-erh?


Shu Pu-erh Cha, or 'Ripened Pu-erh Tea', is made in Yunnan using the wet piling ('Wo Dui') processing method. Invented in the early 1970s, the technique was developed to imitate the long ageing process of the original Sheng, or Raw, Pu-erh teas, which can take years to develop flavour complexity.

Sometimes described as 'cooking', wet piling works by approximating the ageing process via prolonged bacterial and fungal fermentation of the tea leaves in a warm, humid environment under carefully controlled conditions.

Producers start with Pu-erh Mao Cha, made from leaves of the assamica variety of Camellia sinensis that have been withered, pan-fired, then rolled and dried in the sun. To achieve fast 'ripening', the leaves are then given the wet piling treatment, which involves piling them up, dampening and covering them with wet cloths, then leaving them for upwards of 45 days. Occasional turning of the tea leaves and mixing them around ensures an even fermentation.


How to store Pu-erh cake


Pu-erh teas are best stored in a cool, dry place, away from temperature fluctuations and odours. If you intend to drink this tea within five years, we recommend gently breaking up the cake into small pieces, ideally using a Pu-erh prying pick (you could use a small blunt knife, in a pinch). This will leave more surface of the tea exposed to air, allowing for further oxidation and flavour complexity to develop.


Alternatives to Ripened Pu-Erh Cake


Now you've tried this Shu Pu-erh, you'll want to experience that other Pu-erh 'personality' – the Sheng style – and there's no better tea to try for comparison than our smooth and clean-tasting Raw Pu-erh Cake, also delivered in a solid form. Alternatively, you might like to try our loose-leaf varieties of this Yunnan speciality tea: perhaps our Yunnan Pu-erh, with its exceptional earthy notes; or our Lincang Ripe Pu-Erh, aged for nine years and from a premium Pu-erh-producing district of this historic tea-producing region.

Crafted from rosewood and brass, our Pu-erh prying pick is an essential tool to break apart your Pu-erh Cake. Also, to get the most authentic brewing result for your Pu-erh tea, we recommend that you use a Gaiwan from our Teaware store. For more speciality Chinese brews, from Jasmine Dragon Pearls to Lapsang Souchong, browse our Tea Shop.

Ingredients


Ripened, Cooked Chinese Fermented Tea

Tasting notes


This tea offers an wet wood and musky aroma and deep red infusion. A robust cup with earthy and oak notes and cacao and spicy mouthfeel.

Region


Yunnan is a province in the Southwest of China, bordering Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam to the South, and Tibet to the North. The relief is mostly mountainous, with high mountain ranges branching out of Tibet and running all the way to the South East of the province, with elevations between 5,500 meters in the North of the province to 1,500 meters above sea level in the South. North East Yunnan is mostly snow-capped peaks and high plateaus, with powerful rivers running down the slopes; the valleys of the south are more open, with fertile plains and irrigated fields.

Learn more about the Yunnan Region, China

The climate is similarly contrasting: the highest peaks experience a Tundra climate (ET), with freezing temperatures for most of the year and a least one month above 0°C – but below 10°C – leading to snow melting. Below is a Temperate Oceanic (Cfb) climate, with mild winters and summers with highs of 26°C, and precipitation across all seasons but particularly during the summer months, which are also cloudy.

The valleys at the southernmost part of the province experience a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), with high precipitation from May to October, and temperature ranging from 11°C to 35°C. With such varied climates and relief, it is no surprise that the region is famous for its biodiversity. Of the 30,000 species of plants found in China, more than half are in Yunnan! Over half of the province is covered in forest, with pines and conifers on the lower plateau, bursts of colourful azalea and rhododendron on the higher hills and fir, bamboo and juniper on the higher peaks. Similarly, the province is home to a dizzying array of animals, with hundreds of species of mammals, fish, reptiles and birds.

The tropical forests of the South harbour monkeys, bears, elephants and porcupines. Only a small portion of the land is arable, but the variety of climate means many crops can be cultivated. Rice is the main summer crop, along with corn, sweet potato, sugarcane and, of course, tea, which is mostly grown on the southern, tropical part of the province, all the way to the Myanmar and Laos borders.

How to brew

2g - 3g

2g - 3g

100°C

100°C

200ml

200ml

2 -4mins

2 -4mins

Ripened Cooked Pu-Erh Cake has a rating of 4.7 stars based on 35 reviews.