Ripe Puer tea is a post-fermented tea from Yunnan China and it's the king of rich, smooth-bodied teas. A crowd favorite with coffee lovers exploring tea due its dark, heavy body, ripe Puer is one of our favorite teas to start the day. At white2tea we’ve been making small batch shou Puer tea for over a decade and drinking ripe Puer for over two decades. Ripe Puer is an integral part of our daily tea practice and we’d recommend it to any tea lover.
Ripe Puer tea, despite common misconception, is a very diverse category of teas. For many years, large factories were making industrial scale productions of ripe Puer tea out of the dregs of Puer, causing many people to misunderstand the possibilities of the genre.
I'm Brand New to Ripe Puerh Tea, Where Do I Begin?
The most beginner-friendly ripe Puer teas span the flavor spectrum into sweet molasses, yeasty baked breads and dark over-ripened fruits and dates. While the flavor profiles of ripe Puer, which can include earthy, woody and petrichor flavors may be challenging for some, the more you drink it, the more it grows on you. If those flavor profiles have you running in the other direction, don’t run just yet, white2tea has recommendations for every tea drinker.
You’ll be best off starting with teas that are a bit aged and within your budget. Entry level ripe teas like 2020 Old Reliable or 2024 Caledonia are great choices, with balanced all-around daily drinker profiles. If you have a flexible budget, small batch teas like 2022 Lisboa or 2022 Loon-Call in the Dark are very friendly for beginners. If you’re seeking bitterness, The Great Divide is a fine choice. For wood lovers, Camphornaught or Lumber Slut are the way.
If you’re new to ripe Puer, our biggest recommendation is to try teas that are at least 2-3 years off of the press. Fresh ripe Puer (which white2tea intentionally avoids selling) can have funky flavors that are offputting, often called dui wei [pile flavors] left over from the processing. These flavors dissipate with time. Pressing ripe Puer tea into cakes also imparts a bit of residual moisture which also takes time to dissipate. Age is the friend of Puer tea, and starting with ripe Puer that has been pressed and stored for a few years will behoove you.
Does white2tea Have a Ripe Puerh "House Flavor" or "House Style"?
It would be difficult to peg white2tea as having any singular style, as the character of our materials and blends varies significantly from production to production.
white2tea carries a very wide range of ripe Puer teas, stretching from bitter teas like Cacao 80 and Lich Tears, to camphor-forward teas like Lumber Slut or Camphonaught, fruity teas like En Passant, thick dessert-like sweetness of Loon-Call in The Dark and even bright and fruity lighter ferment teas like Fleet and Valley, which are uncommon presence in the broader ripe Puer market.
We frequently pile ferment our own small batch ripe Puer teas. We purchase from hundreds of different farmers across Yunnan and work with dozens of different people to pile ferment our teas using different methods (on-ground vs. off-ground vs. bamboo cages vs. stainless steel or wood). From this step, we take our different materials and blend them, and after over ten years of production we have quite a range of styles at our disposal.
Which white2tea Shou Puerhs are the Most Popular?
Our more budget friendly ripe puerh offerings are the most widely known. Our earlier productions like Lumber Slut are known for their heavy woody character, whereas Red Loon has become a staple more recently for sweet dark fruity tea lovers. For a very budget friendly option, Prosbloom is a staple. Our 2024 Caledonia offers foresty-sweet complexity, while Loon-Call in the Dark is a higher-end option that has die hard fans because of its thick-bodied layered complexity.
Which white2tea Ripe Puerhs Are the Most Unusual?
Our higher-end productions, hybrid teas, and unique style teas are what set white2tea apart from producers who are making industrial scale teas.
Any of our teas tagged small batch shou Puer are already above and beyond what is available in the broader market. Whereas most corporate brands and large factories are producing 20-, 40- and 80-ton productions, we are producing teas in the hundreds of kilograms. In all things agricultural, the scale of production matters. It’s the difference between making 1000 tons of industrial tomatoes and getting a fresh tomato from grandma’s garden.
We have sent ripe Puer teas from Yunnan (across the country) to Fujian province for artisanal hand charcoal roasting with hybrid roasted teas like Predawn Dark, Tale Chaser and Theolophilus. We have also sent teas to Tongmuguan for traditional pine smoking with smoked teas like Stubb, Smokeshou and Pine Darts. We saw them through from raw Puer material to ripe Puer and beyond. These types of experiments are a one-of-a-kind experience worth exploring.
white2tea also offers high-quality decaf ripe Puers like Night Joe and Siesta, made with the same care as our other teas and decaffeinated using a CO2 process to meet the EU decaf standard. They're a go-to after-dinner tea for anyone who wants the stomach-soothing effects of shou Puer without the stimulation at night.
What Causes Price Differences Among Ripe Puerh Teas?
As with all teas, you get what you pay for from base material. Industrial scale productions of factory ripe Puer teas have often used the dregs of the Puer industry to make ripe Puer in the past. This means that there is no shortage of very cheap ripe material out there. However, you can also use very high quality material to make ripe Puer tea. In the last ten years, white2tea has pushed further and further into making high quality productions of ripe using highly sought after spring season and old arbor materials that would be unthinkable for corporate brands to make at scale. A good example is a tea like Lich Tears, which was made at a small scale using high-end material.
Why Is Some Ripe Puerh Tea More Expensive than Raw Puerh?
Contrary to popular beliefs, ripe Puer is actually more expensive than raw Puer tea, from a base cost perspective. That is to say, that if you had exactly $1000 to make tea, given identical base material, you would be able to make less ripe Puer tea than raw Puer tea. First, this is due to the extra steps of processing ripe Puer, as you can imagine, moving around a gigantic pile of tea several times takes significant effort and labor from the workers. Second, there is sun hao [wastage], the lost material from the pile process. It is not unusual for a raw Puer tea to lose over 15% of its weight during the ripe Puer pile fermentation process. So, even without considering other expenses, a ripe Puer tea will cost 15% more to make than the equivalent raw Puer tea.
