The word "pu'er"(sometimes spelled "pu-er" or pu-erh") is the name of a town in Xishuangbanna, a region in the southern part of Yunnan Province. In ancient times tea produced in this region was traded at Pu'er, and eventually the tea itself acquired this name. In order to preserve the tea and to facilitate its trade with merchants travelling the Silk Road, a method was developed which led to the steaming of pu'er tea and then compressing it into various shapes - usually a type of bowl shape or a "brick". This type of tea is known as "tuocha". Tuocha teas can also be known by different names such as "bing cha" (or "beeng cha" or "ping cha"), and "fang cha". These names simply refer to the type of shape into which the tuocha is pressed - eg bing cha is "biscuit shaped" and fang cha is "square shaped".

Pu'er & Health
For centuries the Chinese have maintained that pu'er tea is beneficial to the digestion. More recent studies lend support to that contention, and there is even evidence to suggest that regular consumption of pu'er tea can assist in lowering blood pressure and cholesterol!

A centuries-old folklore, and in modern times decades of scientific speculation, have added to the mystery that surrounds pu'er drinking. As medical research on the effects of tea in our diets has mounted (over 700 scientific research papers last year alone), pu'er teas seemed not to have attracted much attention from outside China. This neglect maybe because pu'er tea has long been regarded as purely a Chinese peculiarity, and has a certain Chinese herbal mystique associated with it. Chinese tea researchers and seasoned pu'er drinkers have expounded the benefits of the beverage on the body's circulation for some time. The new study from Taiwan suggests that they could be right and that certain active ingredients found in pu'er lowers blood cholesterol and prevents cholesterol deposits forming in blood capillaries. The research of Dr Sun's group is however yet another animal study, where laboratory animals (mice) are fed on specially controlled diets (in this case pu'er tea based) and their blood cholesterol levels monitored over the course of time. The results conclude that for mice fed on pu'er there is a significant reduction in a class of blood cholesterol that deposits in capillaries. Sun believes the results indicate what could well be happening in people who regularly drink pu'er. It is still not clear what active principles are at work in pu'er tea, other than the now well documented antioxidant catechins such as EGCG found in abundance in green tea. Recent clinical research in Japan has confirmed that there is a positive cholesterol-lowering effect associated with regularly drinking strong green tea, and that that is due to the various kinds of antioxidants in tea.

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Yunnan Pu'er this year contact Gray & Seddon.
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