Puer Tea Processing Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
By the Tang dynasty, Pu'er tea was already sold far to the interior and Tibet. In the Song dynasty it held an important place in the "tea-horse trade" policy. In the Ming dynasty Pu'er tea spread even wider, with the saying "whatever scholars and commoners own, it is all Pu'er tea." In the Qing dynasty Pu'er tea was listed as a tribute; the court added an official tea bureau to manage related tea affairs.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Yunnan Pu'er tea's traditional craft has a long history, traceable back to the Shang and Zhou periods. Yunnan Pu'er tea is mainly produced in Ning'er Hani and Yi Autonomous County and Menghai County, where a unique craft formed over long production. The Pu'er tea craft of Ning'er County is also called the "tribute tea craft," gradually formed as local tea workers accumulated experience over a thousand years. This craft is closely bound with local folk customs. Before plucking begins, a sacrificial rite must first be held—an offering ceremony to the tea god. After the rite, making begins; the tea maker strictly chooses the plucking site and season by set standards, and by specific technical requirements hand-plucks the raw material. Once the material is ready, it enters the kill-green, roll, and sun-dry stage, processing the fresh leaf into sun-dried green tea by specific technique. Then comes steaming and pressing into shape: through steaming, rolling, pressing, shaping, drying, and packing, the sun-dried tea is made into various finished teas. The unique traditional tribute-tea craft, its profound historical and cultural connotations, and the related folk culture are important components of Chinese tea culture; its rational production flow has become the basis for modern Pu'er tea craft R&D.
Archive of process records
Then comes steaming and pressing into shape: through steaming, rolling, pressing, shaping, drying, and packing, the sun-dried tea is made into various finished teas.
The tea god rite before picking
A rite to the tea god precedes picking; only afterwards are the gardens, season and hand-picking standard fixed.
Kill-green and sun-rolling into maocha
Hand-picked leaf is fixed and sun-rolled the same day into sun-dried maocha, the base for further transformation.
Steaming, rolling, pressing, shaping, drying, packing
Sun-dried maocha is steamed, rolled, pressed, shaped, dried and packed into a form that can travel.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The craft center of Pu'er tribute tea is Ning'er Hani and Yi Autonomous County. Ning'er lies between the Wuliang Mountains and the Lancang River, with mountains and valleys alternating and ancient tea trees interlaced with cultivated gardens; it was the first place in the Pu'er tea region where the court set up an official tea bureau. The craft spread outward from here; nearby southern Yunnan highlands such as Simao, Mojiang, and Jingdong follow the same method: offer rites to the tea god before plucking, then fix the plucking site, season, and method by standard, hand-pluck the fresh leaf, kill-green, roll, and sun-dry into maocha, and finally steam and press into shape. This craft is linked to the caravan routes: only when tea is pressed into cakes and tightened into bricks can it endure long-distance packing, which gave rise to the later coexistence of compressed and loose tea.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Puer Tea Processing Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Pu'er tribute tea has high research value in historical culture, ethnology, folklore, and the history of science and technology; given modern people's pursuit of returning to natural ecology and health, it also has much potential for development and utilization.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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