The Magic of “Puer” Tea – Part 3/3

November 16, 2010

The fermentation of “Puer” tea demands a perfect mix of water, moisture and air. This provides the conditions for the development of microbes and the necessary fermentation.

The fermentation of broad leaf “Puer” tea produces a substance called theaflavin often called the soft-gold of tea.

Clinical experiments show that theaflavin reduces blood fat and cardiovascular disease among other benefits.

In animal experiments, the mice fed theaflavin had their blood fat reduced by 30% compared to the control group’s 10% blood fat reduction.

Due to the process of producing “Puer”, the tea may be stored as long as a century without losing its flavor or health enhancing benefits.

The 110 days of fermentation for “Puer” is important to achieve the best flavor and enhanced, health benefits—the time must not be shortened. The temperature and humidity must also be stable and many warehouses are built partially underground to achieve this.

I’ll bet you didn’t know much about the process the tea you may be drinking went through before filling your cup. The process to produce Puer tea represents almost two thousand years of China’s tea culture.

“Puer” got its name because it used to be sold in a town by the same name.

Return to The Magic of “Puer” Tea – Part 2 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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The Magic of “Puer” Tea – Part 2/3

November 15, 2010

“Puer” tea is mellowed by aging, the period by which it is transported and stored.

The largest, tallest tea trees in the world grow in the mountains of Yunnan. This region also produces black, green, Oolong and other kinds of tea.

The leaves for “Puer” tea are divided into three sizes and the largest contain more of the health benefits attributed to “Puer” tea.

For centuries, the process of making tea from picking, to washing, to boiling, mixing, pressing, clustering, baking, and packing has been improved to enhance the flavor of the tea.


Puer tea is made from the thickest broad leaves.

Dao Linyin, the governor of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous region in China says, “Puer tea contains many vitamins. Very few Puer drinkers get high blood pressure.”

Standards for selecting the thickest broad leaves for “Puer” tea means only about 30% of the tea leaves that are picked pass inspection to be processed into the final product. This selection process is important because the wrong leaves will have a negative impact on the fermentation process.

The fermentation step in the process of producing “Puer” tea takes 110 days.

Continued with The Magic of Puer Tea – Part 3 or return to The Magic of “Puer” Tea – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen.

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The Magic of “Puer” Tea – Part 1/3

November 15, 2010

There are several varieties of tea — white, black, scented and green to name a few.

The mountainous region of southwest China in Yunnan Province produces a special tea called “Puer”.

The custom with “Puer” is to pick new tea and drink old tea. This refers to a practice unique for “Puer” tea of aging the tea in storage to obtain the unique flavor.

In addition, modern science has recognized “Puer” for its health benefits beyond black tea.

In 225 A.D., when China was divided into the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu, and Wu, the prime minister of Shu led a military expedition to Yunnan.

Historical records say that many of the Shu troops came down with eye diseases.  After they drank the boiled tea, it is believed that the troops were cured.

The leaves came from a tea tree in Yunnan. Over time, tea drinking for health benefits became a tradition in other areas of China including Tibet.

There is an old saying in Tibet. “Better three days without food than a day without tea.” Historical records show that Tibetans started drinking tea during the Tang Dynasty (618-906 AD) in 641.

Tibet does not grow tea trees, so the famous Tea Horse Road from Tibet to Yunnan was opened. Over the centuries, tens of thousands of horses were traded with China for tea.

In the early 19th century, Emperor Daoguang named “Puer” tea as a “Divine Tribute to the Kingdom of Heaven”.

Continued with The Magic of Puer Tea – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Power of the Peasant

November 14, 2010

Corruption is a fact-of-life in Asia and China may be one of the few country in Asia doing something about it.  Country rankings in Asia are dismal compared to Western democracies and Singapore.

The Corruption Perception Index of 2010 says most of Asia is “very” corrupt—the smaller number is better and 178 is the worst global rank.

Of 178 countries ranked for corruption, Myanmar (Burma) scores 176 and is tied with Afghanistan as two of the most corrupt countries on the planet.

Iraq is 175. Laos and Cambodia are 154. Vietnam is 116, and Indonesia is 110.

Even India, the world’s largest democracy, is ranked 87. Singapore, for comparison, is tied for first place as one of the least corrupt countries.

In fact, two of the least corrupt countries in Asia are Thailand and China tied at 78.

The power of the Chinese peasant demonstrated in this video may have something to do with China’s improved score as one of the least corrupt nations in Asia.

It may come as a surprise to many Western critics but in rural China, democracy’s ballot box has been active at the village level since the mid 1980s.

In 1997, The Independent reported that China’s rural peasants were discovering the power of the ballot box.

“Under Communist Party rule, village elections are the only example of one-person, one-vote democracy in China. Launched in the mid-eighties, they were originally introduced to replace the village communes that were dissolved after the Cultural Revolution.”

Few outside China paid much attention to this move toward China’s rural democracy. Nearly one million villages hold elections and each time there is an election, the peasants learn more about democracy in action.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Exemptions in China’s ‘one-child policy’

November 5, 2010

We often hear criticism in the West about China’s one child policy but seldom hear about the exceptions to that law.

There is an exception to the ‘one-child policy’ for China’s ethnic minorities. However, population control must be explained to everyone anyway.

For example, to slow population growth, China asks the Islamic Imams of the ten million Hui Muslims in China to talk to the people who worship in their temples.

Many Hui live in one of the autonomous regions in Ningxia, between southern Gansu and Inner Mongolia.

We often hear of the Uighur Muslims since they have a separatist movement and sometimes protest, but the Uighur are not the only Muslims in China.

The Hui are unique among the fifty-six officially recognized minorities of China in that Islam is their only unifying identity. They do not have a unique language and often intermarry with Han Chinese.

In fact, many live outside the Hui autonomous area.

After the Imam reads from the Quran, he explains the need for population control.  The single-child policy is actually a one, two or three child policy for the Hui depending on where they live.

Even though the Hui may have more than one child, many stop after having only one.

Since minorities in China are a small segment of the population, China’s government has exercised flexibility with the birth rate in order to keep the minorities an important part of China’s culture—sort of like affirmative action in the US.

In addition, in the countryside, having more children provides more hands in the fields with the hard agricultural work.

Learn more about China’s One Child policy.  How would you like to be responsible to feed more than 1.3 billion people?

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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