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Raw Pu-Erh Cake

Aged Chinese Tea

With its smooth, earthy flavour, this Raw Pu-erh Cake from Yunnan is the perfect choice for both seasoned and novice drinkers of this speciality Chinese tea.

From: Yunnan Province, China

SHENG 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 Raw Pu-erh Cake aged Chinese tea


For anyone new to the joys of Yunnan's most celebrated tea, our excellent Raw Pu-erh Tea Cake provides a deliciously smooth initiation to the style. A classic Pu-erh – earthy, musky and with notes of wet wood and grape skin – it also has plenty of deep, aged complexity for connoisseurs.

Made of brown and orange-tinged leaves pressed into an authentic Pu-erh cake, this luxury Chinese tea has a deep amber-coloured infusion that hints at its maturity. Belonging to the 'Raw' category of Pu-erh, or 'Sheng' teas, its leaves are stored and left to age naturally, sometimes for decades, with the process of oxidation and fermentation triggered by external bacteria and fungus as opposed to enzyme changes in the leaves.

Due to the slow microbial fermentation processes, Raw Pu-erhs like this one acquire rich characters and a smooth flavour that make them among the most prized in China. As a fermented product, Pu-erh's health benefits may include the introduction of beneficial bacteria into the microbiome, thus aiding digestion and making this a good tea to drink an hour or so after you've eaten.

Read more about our Raw Pu-erh Cake


What is Pu-erh tea cake?


While Pu-erh is sometimes produced as a loose-leaf tea, more often it comes in a 'cake' form that harks back to the days when the teas were compressed and carried on the backs of horses, mules and camels across the Chinese empire. Pu-erh first became popular in the Tang dynasty (618-907), with the teas sorted into bamboo baskets of various shapes for easy transport. Today, the shapes remain, used mostly for presentation and for ageing. While the disc-shaped Bing Cha ('Cake Tea') is the most common, others include: Jin Cha ('Tight Tea'), for leaves pressed into a mushroom form; Fang Cha ('Square Tea') for brick-shaped tea; and Tuo Cha ('Bowl Shape Tea'), in which the leaves resemble a bird's nest. You'll also find Pu-erh teas pressed into anything from bamboo tubes ('Zhu Tong Cha') to oranges ('Ju Pu Cha').


Alternatives to Raw Pu-erh Cake


Now you've tried this Sheng Pu-erh, you'll want to experience that other Pu-erh 'personality' – the Shu 'Ripened' style – and there's no better tea to try for comparison than our Ripened Cooked Pu-erh Cake, which offers an authentic, earthy-flavoured Yunnan tea that can be left to mature further in the caddy. Alternatively, for another Raw Pu-Erh which provides maximum convenience, our individually wrapped Tuocha Pu-erh Mini Cakes are a great option.

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


Aged Chinese Fermented Tea

Tasting notes


This tea offers an wet wood and musky aroma and light orange infusion. A robust cup with earthy. Sour fruity notes and astringent 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

Raw Pu-Erh Cake has a rating of 4.6 stars based on 15 reviews.