There is a school of thought that says that to make a good aged Puer tea, the young tea needs to be bitter, astringent, even rough. This seems to be based mostly on the experience of those who bought or later acquired tea from the 1980-90’s or earlier which for the most part had, according to those who drank it at the time, all of the aforementioned characteristics. At that time, after earlier extensive replanting programmes, distinctions were not made between bush tea and old or ancient tea trees, and in many cases bush tea was seen as preferable: tea leaves were all picked and processed together, which goes some way to explain the qualities of tea from that period. Some of those teas have, with time, matured into teas that are very drinkable and this seems to have given rise to the logic that Puer tea, in order to mature into the kind of tea that some tea drinkers now appreciate, must start out as bullish, aggressively bitter and astringent. There’s an element of truth in this. A tea that has little or no bitterness or astringency will probably not age well, but whether that is purely because those two qualities are lacking or whether other things are also lacking is a moot point. Bitterness and astringency are indicators of particular content in tea leaves – particularly caffeine, polyphenols, etc. It is the abundance of constituents in the tea leaf that are going to influence its ageing potential. Conversely, a lot of low grade and summer tea has pronounced bitterness and astingrency, nut it’s often lacking in may other things which make it rather flavourless and a poor candidate for ageing.

More or less all Puer tea will have some degree of ‘‘ku-se‘ or bitterness and astringency (unless it’s been completely knocked out of it during processing), but the quality of this ‘ku-se in old tea tree tea is quite different from that in young or bush tea. The reality is that bitterness will not per-force abate significantly over time and, when selecting tea it is important to consider other things that are indicators of a good level of constituents in the leaf, apart from bitterness and astringency, which will also make a tea a potentially good candidate for ageing. Teas that are thin, lacking in depth and flavour when young are not likely to turn into something great after X years of storage, but one of the things that makes Yiwu tea sought after is it’s tendency to thicken up with ageing, to develop depth. That’s why Six Famous Tea Mountains teas are more sought after for ageing than Menghai teas. So Menghai teas, which quite typically will have more pronounced ku-se than SFTM teas, are generally not thought to have the same ageing potential. Of course, there are caveats: not all Yiwu tea is better for ageing than Menghai tea, and not all Menghai tea is unsuitable. The whole thing is far more nuanced than that.

In the last few of years, 2019-20, much Puer tea has had a more pronounced ku-se due to the extreme dry weather. The teas have also often been a little less well balanced than in previous years. It will remain to be seen if the heavier ku-se allows them to age well.

As with red wine, even grands crus, it is not every year that will age equally well, largely determined by climactic factors.

As tea ages, the initial fragrance which can often be floral, fruity, honey-like, will certainly diminish and the tea may go through a kind of awkward ‘adolescent’ period where it has lost some of it’s youthful qualities, but has not yet acquired any discernible ‘aged’ characteristics. As the ageing process continues these aged aromas will appear and what can become more apparent are aspects that are a little less easy to define – yun (韵 – appeal, charm, allure), maybe thickness, body, etc. What we are talking about are characteristics of the tea which cannot be easily apprehended by the 5 senses (wu guan/五官), but are none-the-less perceptible.

An appropriate analogy might be with music where the aromas, the volatile compounds, are equivalent to the high frequencies which will attenuate with time (distance). What will penetrate more are the lower frequencies, which may have been initially less obvious, but which serve to support and give sense to the higher frequencies and which will endure for a much longer period, create some movement, give some driving force, some impetus.

The bitterness and astringency are perhaps analogous to the timbre of music, and to some extent the loudness, and the density or richness more akin to the ‘thickness’. The tempo of the music, the cadence, the polyrythms, etc. might be likened to other more complex, yet still obvious, qualities in the tea associated with the flavour and maybe the qi/气, but the emotion, the way a piece of music makes you feel, moves you, whether physically or emotionally, lures you in, while it may also be qi, it is more yun.

So in looking for a tea that will likely age well, we are looking for tea with yun, with body, appeal, guts, something that penetrates much deeper, psychologically and somatically, that will persist and hopefully mature over time. This is not antithetic to a tea that is drinkable when it is young, the two can co-exist.

Puer tea that has been oven dried is not a good candidate for ageing as the compounds in the tea which assist in the ageing process will likely have been killed off, or at least adversely affected by the temperatures reached in the drying process. So it is important that the tea is made from sun-dried maocha.

Apart from that, there are also other factors in the tea processing which can affect a teas suitability for ageing. See here for a discussion on this.

Many factors can affect the ageing of Puer tea that it is not helpful to be too prescriptive about it. The climate: temperature, humidity, seasonal variations, the place where the tea is kept, the amount of tea, how tightly the tea was pressed (assuming it is in compressed form), how frequently the tea is accessed, will all affect the ageing process. However, we can make some broad generalisations which may be helpful;

1) The tea should ideally be kept in a moderately high humidity of say 60-75 Rh, but more importantly it should be stable. Higher humidity is also risky, especially where there is insufficient airflow – so the bathroom is not a good choice. Some people go so far as to use humidors to create a stable humid environment, but it may be as well to accept the limitations of the environment you live in and come to terms with the fact that the tea will age more or less slowly because of the ambient conditions.

2) It should be stored at a moderately high temperature – upper 20’s to low 30’s would be ideal. With both temperature and humidity, be aware of the likely effects of air conditioning and de-humidifying; de-humidifying in the summer and heating in the winter may risk drying tea out. Air conditioning, if the tea is remote from the air-conditioner should not have a substantial effect if it is used judiciously. Both cooling and heating that create large temperature fluctuations are not good.

3) It should be stored where there is a circulation of air. i.e. not in a sealed box which will slow the ageing process, but also not in a draught which will risk drying the tea out. So not by an open window. If the tea is kept in a container, albeit a box, cupboard or jar, airflow needs to be maintained.

4) It should be kept away from strong smells – including cooked Puer tea. So the kitchen is not the place to keep it, nor the bedroom or bathroom if one is inclined to use strong smelling soaps and perfumes.

5) It should be kept out of the sun.

6) One should consider the amount of tea one has and what plans one has for it. The more tea there is together, the better it will age, and the size of the receptacle it is in should be appropriate to the amount of tea. So if you only have one cake of tea, best not keep it in an empty room on it’s own. If one has a small amount of tea, consider an un-glazed earthenware jar, or perhaps a wooden box or cupboard – be aware that the tea will pick up any aromas from the wood or cardboard if it has any. In both of the above cases, the box or cupboard needs to have some airflow.

If the ambient conditions where you store the tea are quite humid one should be careful not to use low very porous earthenware (mostly due to low temperature firing) as it will be likely to absorb moisture.

If you intend to drink a cake of tea in the near future, it may be worth breaking it up into smallish, ‘pot size’ pieces and storing in a ceramic or earthenware container. If you have several cakes that you intend to keep to age, then again an earthenware storage jars are worth the investment, but depending on your ambient conditions one needs to be careful about porosity – low temperature fired earthenware jar is more porous so will absorb more moisture. Complete tongs in their bamboo wrappers, should not be opened until you wish to start drinking the tea, and then, it is good to re-wrap the remaining cakes in the bamboo skin as best as possible.

7) If the amount of tea stored is considerable, and if it is tightly packed, it may be worth considering rotating the tea so that the tea nearer any source of air is moved away from it and tea that was further away from the source is brought nearer. i.e. tea at the bottom of a jar is brought upward and tea from the top moved down.The more porous the container is, the less important this factor will be. The way the tea is stacked may also have some small effect on the uniformity of the ageing process, so, although some people suggest storing cakes upside down etc, this is a less important issue.

This, as suggested above, will depend on the conditions in which the Puer tea has been kept – a warmer, more humid environment will cause the tea to age more quickly, a cooler, dryer climate more slowly. The variation can be considerable. There is no clear distinction to determine when a tea is aged. To some extent it is also a matter of personal taste and attempts to stipulate a number of years are arbitrary.

All Puer teas will, like wines, have different qualities which will determine the time at which they ‘peak’. One tea might reach its best in 7 years, another in 20. The only way to tell is to monitor the tea, check its appearance, smell, and above all, taste it. If one is afforded the luxury, keeping some cakes in storage whilst keeping another, or perhaps part of a cake, in the same environment so that one can brew a sample from time to time will provide an indicator for how the tea is ageing. Cakes that are stored singly will age more quickly than say, 7 cakes kept in their bamboo skin ‘tong’ wrapper as more of the tea is in contact with atmosphere; the fragrances will dissipate more quickly, but in this way a sample of tea can act as a barometer for the stored cakes.

What we can say with some certainty about ageing Puer tea is that it is an ongoing experiment. Storing and ageing Puer tea will require some research and experimentation. It will also require some perseverance, but, if done conscientiously, the outcome should prove rewarding.