A Visit to a Pu'Er Tea centre in Kunming, Yunnan - 22 July 2009

When in Kunming, you have to pay a visit to a Pu’er tea shop. So the Yunnan Luyu Tea Culture Exchange Centre was where we all ended up in the afternoon of 22 July 2009. Our guide told us that the research centre is run by the Yunnan Agricultural University. Of course, trust the business-minded Chinese to also sell Pu’er teas to the visitors to make some tourist money and commission for the guides. From the look of the place, I think the various Pu’er tea there are the real stuff.

The centre is like a tea museum depicting the history of Pu’er tea in Yunnan. On display were the large leaves which are processed into Pu’er tea leaves,

the old tea horse route which was used to transport the tea leaves to various parts of China,

the various types of tea packagings,

the various grades of Pu’er tea , the types of tools and weights to package the tea leaves,

the types of transportation used by the locals to supply Pu’er teas to various parts of China etc.

We were given a presentation by the centre on the history and health benefits of Pu’er tea which inevitably led to us making many purchases. Good marketing by the folks there. My boss was so impressed that he wanted to employ one of the presenters (hahahhaha).

I must say that my knowledge of Pu’er tea increased substantially from that visit. Of course, substantially lah if you know nothing much in the first place ;-).

Drinking Pu’er tea on a daily basis can maintain and improve one’s health and it is said that it can prevent some types of cancers especially the aged tea leaves (shown below is supposedly a 20 year old 2 kg aged Pu-er tea leaves (this packaging is called a "brick")

The 20 year old Pu-er tea brick is expensive and thus to "add value", it is packed into a small nice wooden box.

I know quite a few of us in that group who visited the centre are now drinking aged Pu’er tea on a regular basis. Cheers!