Pu Er tea can be a little overwhelming when you’re new to it. When I started drinking it, I had a ton of questions:

Why is Pu Er pressed into cakes?
How do you break apart a Pu Er tea cake?
How do you store and age Pu Er cakes?
Where should you buy them?

If you have similar questions, don’t worry. We’re going to cover all that and more in today’s article.

What is a Pu Er Tea Cake?

A Pu Er tea cake is a compressed disc of Pu Er tea from Yunnan China. These teas were traditionally compressed to make storing, transporting, and trading easier. Pu Er teas are also pressed into other shapes (such as bricks, mushrooms, nests) or can just be unpressed and left as loose leaf tea.

Beginner’s Guide to Pu Er

Whether you’re brand new to Chinese tea or you’re a seasoned drinker you’ll eventually come across Pu Er tea. It’s a style of tea from Yunnan that offers connoisseurs a lot of nuance and complexity to explore.

This article is mostly going to focus on Pu Er cakes, but if you want a more wholistic article that goes into what Pu Er actually is then you can read our Beginner’s Guide to Pu Er Tea.

In a nutshell

But essentially, what’s important to know is that Pu Er tea is a super unique tea from China’s Yunnan province. It has a long tradition of being made, stored, transported, traded, and aged. One of the unique things about Pu Er… is that it’s often pressed into cakes.

Why?

For historic, travel, trading, storage, and aging reasons.

Knowing what Pu Er tea cakes are,
The history of how they came into being,
How to purchase, store, and break them apart...

Will all help you elevate your tea drinking experience and will provide you with the skills needed to dive deeper into the world of Pu Er tea.

Why is Pu Er Compressed?

Historically, Pu Er was traded along what is now called the Ancient Tea Horse road which is a long trade route connecting Sichuan, Yunnan, and Tibet. To make travel, storage, and trade easier, Pu Er tea was compressed into standard weights. Some of this history lives on today as Pu Er teas are still compressed to make storage, transportation, and aging easier.

How is Pu Er Tea Compressed?

Pu Er tea has long been compressed into what’s called a bing (cake).

Pu Er is sometimes pressed into other shapes, such as:

Brick.
Bowl.
Mushroom.
And others.

And in some cases, the Pu Er is not pressed and is instead left as loose leaf tea. This is more common today when transporting tea long distances is not as demanding as it was before we had trains, planes, and automobiles.

After processing, the loose-leaf Pu Er leaves are:

Steamed, placed in a cloth bag, and pressed into a disc (or other) shape.
Pressing is done manually by hand (stone press), or mechanically by machine (hydraulic press).
The tea cake is then allowed to dry and is then wrapped.

Standard Pu Er Cake Weight

The standard weight of a Pu Er Teacake is 357 grams. Why? This weight has its origins in trade. Pu Er tea cakes are usually stacked in groups of 7 and then wrapped in bamboo for storage and transportation. This stack is called a tong.

Tongs

Each tong stack is roughly 2.5 kilograms which makes it easier to calculate how much tea was traded, stored, and sold. Nowadays a lot of smaller producers will also press smaller, 200-gram cakes.

A normal session of raw Pu Er (Sheng Pu) is usually about 7 grams…

So that’s roughly 51 sessions with one 357-gram tea cake.
And roughly 28 sessions with a 200-gram tea cake.

The History of Pu Er Tea Cakes

Historically, Pu Er teas were pressed into the cake before making a long journey on the Ancient Tea Horse road. This road was a trading route connecting Sichuan, Yunnan, and Tibet. Compressing the tea made the tea easier to store and ship. Loose tea was difficult to travel with and quantify weight-wise. So the tea was compressed into standard weight cakes or bricks. Nowadays, many producers continue to press Pu Er for the same reasons.

How to Store Pu Er Tea Cakes?

Properly storing your Pu Er is important. The last thing you want to do is ruin a tea you really love… Luckily, it’s pretty easy to store your Pu Er tea cakes correctly. Pu Er doesn’t technically “go bad” in a traditional sense as it doesn’t go stale the way other teas do. This is because in Sheng Pu Er (just like White tea) some of the enzymes are not denatured.

But improper storage can result in a tea that doesn’t taste as good as it could or should, so storing Pu Er properly will ensure the tea ages properly. Pu Er cakes need some airflow while avoiding absorbing unwanted flavors from the air around them.

3 Reasons to Store Pu Er Correctly:

Storing your Pu Er tea properly is important because:

You want to maintain and develop the flavor profiles in the teas as they age.
You want to protect your cakes – they’re an investment.
You want to be able to enjoy the tea as it ages and experiences the subtle shifts in flavor and texture over time.

Pu Er Storage Do’s

Make sure your tea has some airflow.
Store your tea away from strong odors that the tea will absorb.
Store your tea in a low-light area.
Store your tea in a place that isn’t overly dry or humid.

Pu Er Storage Don’ts

Store your tea in air-tight bags (keep the bags open.)
Store your tea in a kitchen area, or a place with strong odors.
Store your tea in direct sunlight.
Store your tea in a place that’s very dry or very wet.

It’s not advised to store Sheng Pu and Shou Pu together

Notes: Pu Er is an exception to the rule here. Most teas such as Green tea, Red tea (Black tea in the West) or Wu Long need to be kept away from air to avoid oxidation. But Pu Er needs air to be aged.

Using a Pumidor for Pu Er Tea

Storing Pu Er tea, in some ways, is a lot like storing cigars which makes sense since both tobacco and tea are leaves. Both can age, and both rely on proper storage to maintain flavor. So some people choose to store their Pu Er tea cakes in similar ways to how people store their cigars in storage container called a humidor is used.

It monitors and helps maintain the relative humidity of the air in the container. Some people make their own Pumidors or humidors for Pu Er. Essentially, you monitor the amount of humidity and add or decrease the amount of humidity the tea has access to.

This sounds super confusing and difficult to do… But I promise it’s not. Check out this easy-to-follow post to make your own Pumidor.

How to Age (Or Ripen) a Pu Er Tea Cake

Storing and tasting Pu Er as it ages is one of the coolest parts of having a collection. As a cake of Pu Er ages, its flavor and aroma profile begin to change. Pu Er doesn’t necessarily get better as it ages, or in other words, age doesn’t equal better flavor.

According to online tea purveyor, white2tea,

“Aged tea has a different character than young Puerh tea, which tends to be stronger and brasher, with potential for strong characteristics of astringency and bitterness.” Because Pu Er will change and offer more unique flavors, it’s often a goal of many Pu Er drinkers to:

Age their teas
And taste them along the way

Some Pu Er drinkers even view their tea as an investment. Properly stored tea sometimes increases in value, depending on the market and demand. One aged Pu Er from the 1920s sold for over $1000 a gram. Translation: about $7000 for one standard Pu Er Chinese brewing session (known as gongfu brewing.)

So...there’s no sense in aging Pu Er if you’re not storing it in a way that facilitates proper aging. Like when storing and aging expensive wines you wouldn’t want to leave them out in the sunlight. With that being said, aging is basically just storing Pu Er properly for long periods of time and that’s pretty simple to do. Again, it’s important to be mindful of:

Humidity
Airflow
Light
And the kinds of teas you’re storing near each other

How to Keep Pu Er Tea Properly:

For best storage and aging, keep these things in mind:

Humidity: Between 50-70% relative humidity (Use a humidity gauge, or just be mindful if you live in a climate that’s very dry or humid)
Temperature: Between ~65-85°F (~18-30°C)
Sunlight: Keep in a dark space
Airflow: Don’t seal in a plastic bag, storing in wood or even cardboard allows for more airflow.
Store the cakes away from any strong odors the tea could absorb (don’t store in the kitchen or around fragrances)

How to Break Apart a Tea Cake?

Breaking apart a Pu Er tea cake is actually quite simple but it can be a little intimidating if you’ve never done it before. You’ll want to get a Pu Er pick or find a small knife or letter opener. This will help you pry leaves from the cake.

Place the tea cake on a flat surface

2. Flip the cake so the indent in the middle is facing up
3. Gently ease the pick into the edge of the cake

4. Gently pry the leaves loose by moving the pick up and down

5. Try to pry off the tea in layers

Where to Buy Pu Er Tea Cakes

Within the world of Pu Er, there are a lot of misconceptions, confusion, and deceit. Some vendors make broad claims about their Pu Er.

Like “it comes from trees that are thousands of years old”
“It can cure your illnesses.”
“It can magically make you lose weight.”

This deceit, intentional or not, combined with a lack of overall consumer tea education, often leads to:

Confusion over what Pu Er actually is
Who to trust informationally
And where to buy it

Extra tip: Cakes of mass-produced Pu Er from famous brands are sometimes illegally faked (Either poor quality tea with fake labels or tea grown outside of Yunnan). White2tea offers some good suggestions for avoiding common Pu Er scams you can check out.

Unlike French wines which have official certification, Tea does not. This means deception in tea isn’t just possible - it’s probable. Buying from reputable seller is the most important factor to consider. Forget tasting notes, health claims, or marketing. Buy from experts who can provide accurate sourcing information.

8 Websites You Can Buy Pu Er From

With that being said, a majority of the popular Western-facing online sellers of Pu Er are quite reliable. The best thing to do is try samples. You’ll quickly taste the differences in quality, style, age, etc. All this before you commit to purchasing a tea cake you’ll probably have around for years.

Some of my favorite Pu Er tea vendors with reliable teas include:

White2Tea - Really interesting blends with a large range of quality and price
ChaWangShop - Great selection of popular mass-produced teas, as well as their own pressings
Tea Drunk - High-end, single-origin Pu Er teas from top Terroirs
TheTea - Good selections of semi-aged Pu Er teas
Essence of Tea
Crimson Lotus Tea
Tea Urchin
Bitterleaf Teas

Grab a cake

So, now that you know:

The basics of Pu Er tea cakes
Reliable vendors that sell them
How to store and age them…

You’ll be able to confidently move forward with your Pu Er journey! All you have to do is start brewing. If you are not sure how to go about brewing your tea do check out our Guide on How To Brew Pu Er Tea. It will answer all your questions.