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Pu-erh Tea in Dubai: Shu and Sheng from Yunnan
Organic dark tea whose fermentation is encouraged and accelerated (post-fermentation). Produced exclusively in the Yunnan region of China.
The infusion is dark red, with an enveloping woody taste and a soft caramel aftertaste.
Thick infusion with enveloping woody-creamy taste and soft nutty aftertaste.
Young sheng puer is made from the large leaves of tea trees in the Menghai region.
Ingredients: black tea, shu pu-erh, buckwheat tea, pine cones, barberry, blackberry, oregano, flavoring.
Pu-erh is the one tea that is supposed to change after you buy it. It comes from Yunnan in southwest China, made from the broad leaf of Camellia sinensis var. assamica, and unlike every other category on this site it is defined by fermentation carried out by microbes rather than by the leaf’s own enzymes. Stored properly, it keeps developing for decades.
Cantata stocks both styles, ripe and raw, in loose leaf and pressed form, from AED 20 for an entry-level organic shu to aged and single-mountain material at the top of the range. Pu-erh belongs to the wider Chinese tea collection.
Shu and sheng: what actually separates them
This is the only distinction you need before buying.
Sheng pu-erh (raw, 生普洱) is the original form. Leaf is fixed, rolled, dried in the sun, and usually pressed. Nothing else is done to it. It then ages slowly, over years and decades, through natural microbial activity. Young sheng is green-gold, bracing, floral and often sharply bitter, with a sweetness that returns after you swallow. Well-aged sheng turns amber, soft, and takes on notes of camphor, dried fruit and old wood.
Shu pu-erh (ripe, 熟普洱) is a modern process. Piles of damp leaf are held under controlled heat and humidity for several weeks in a technique called wo dui, or wet piling, developed at the Kunming Tea Factory in 1973 to imitate decades of ageing in about two months. The result is dark, red-brown, smooth, and almost entirely without bitterness, with earth, wood, bark and caramel in the cup.
If you have never had pu-erh, start with shu. It is easier to like, cheaper, and impossible to brew badly.
Ripe pu-erh in the rangeRipe pu-erh in the range
Puerh BIO
Puerh BIO is the organic entry point,
a clean and mild ripe pu-erh with no rough
edges, and the sensible first purchase
in the category.
Puerh Bulangshan Tetyao
Puerh Bulangshan Tetyao comes from
Bulang Mountain material, which is
known for strength.
The infusion is thick, creamy
and woody with a nutty close.
Shu Puerh Shan Tou (2004)
Shu Puerh Shan Tou (2004) is an aged
ripe pu-erh with two decades behind it.
Time smooths out the storage character
that fresh shu can carry and deepens the
sweetness.
Blends built on pu-erh
White Wing
White Wing combines shu pu-erh with
roasted oolong and Adam’s
rhododendron, a Siberian herb usually
sold as sagan-dailya. Woody, herbal,
with a resinous edge.
Baikal
Baikal layers shu pu-erh into a black tea
base with buckwheat, pine cone, barberry,
blackberry and oregano.
Both use ripe pu-erh as structure rather than as the main event, which suits people who find straight pu-erh too earthy. More blends of this kind are in flavoured tea.
How to brew pu-erh
Pu-erh takes hotter water and more of it than any other tea, and it rewards short, repeated steeps rather than one long one.
Rinse first. Cover the leaf with boiling water, count to five, and pour it away. This is not about cleaning the tea. Compressed leaf needs to open before it will give anything up, and the rinse does that. The first proper infusion after a rinse is dramatically better.
Ripe (shu): 95 to 100 °C. After the rinse, steep 10 seconds, then add roughly 5 seconds per infusion. 5 g per 100 ml in a gaiwan or a Yixing pot from the teapots and carafes range. Seven to ten infusions is normal.
Raw (sheng): 90 to 95 °C, slightly cooler to keep the bitterness in check. Rinse, then 8 to 10 seconds, building up gradually. Young sheng punishes long steeps.
Western style: if you are using a mug, 3 g per 250 ml, 95 °C, two to three minutes, and re-steep the leaf at least twice.
For pressed cakes and tuo cha, use a pu-erh pick from tea accessories or a blunt knife and prise the leaf apart along its layers rather than sawing through it. Broken leaf brews harsh.
Storing and ageing pu-erh in the Gulf
Pu-erh is the only tea you should not seal airtight. It needs slow air exchange to keep developing. It also needs humidity, and this is where the Gulf gets interesting: indoor air conditioning here runs dry, often well below the 60 to 70 percent relative humidity pu-erh storage prefers, while unconditioned air in summer runs far above it.
Practical approach:
- Keep cakes and loose leaf in unglazed clay, a cardboard box, or the original wrapper. Not in a sealed tin and not in a plastic bag.
- Store in a cupboard in an air-conditioned room, not in a pantry that gets warm, and not in a kitchen.
- Keep it away from spices, coffee and anything perfumed. Pu-erh absorbs odours and will not let go of them.
- If your room is very dry, a small sealed container with a two-way humidity pack set to 65 percent, holding the tea loosely inside, gets you closer to a stable storage environment.
- Never refrigerate it.
Ripe pu-erh is stable and will keep for years without special care. Raw pu-erh is the one where storage decisions actually change the tea.
Caffeine and drinking pu-erh
Pu-erh contains caffeine at broadly similar levels to other teas made from the same plant, typically 30 to 70 mg per cup depending on how you brew it. Aged pu-erh is often described as gentler, and the short-steep gongfu method spreads the caffeine across many small cups rather than delivering it in one.
Pu-erh has a long association with digestion after heavy meals in Chinese custom, and a body of research exists on its effects on lipid metabolism, most of it small-scale or in animals. It is a reason to enjoy the tea, not a reason to expect it to do anything medical.
Buying pu-erh from Cantata
Cantata sources Chinese classic grades through Changsha Tea Good Company and has been in the tea trade for over 25 years. Pu-erh is sold in 50 g, 100 g and 250 g loose, with pressed cakes and tuo cha available in the range.
- Free UAE delivery over AED 200
- Same-day Dubai delivery on orders before 2 PM
- Cantata Boutique in Al Barsha 1, Dubai, where anything in the range can be brewed before you buy
- Gaiwans and pots in teapots and carafes, picks and strainers in tea accessories
Related collections
- Chinese tea for the wider Chinese range that pu-erh belongs to
- Oolong tea for roasted Wuyi and Taiwanese leaf
- Black tea for fully oxidised alternatives
- Flavoured tea for blends built on a pu-erh base
- Teapots and carafes for gaiwans and Yixing pots
- Tea accessories for picks, trays and strainers