Pu-erh, Pu'er tea, Puer tea or Bolay tea,United Kingdom price supplier

Pu-erh ,  Pu'er Tea ,  Puer Tea  or  Bolay tea  is a type of tea made from a " large leaf " variety of the tea plant  Camellia sinensis  and named after Pu'er countynear Simao, Yunnan, China.

Puerh  tea can be purchased as either  raw/green  (sheng) or  ripened/cooked  (shou), depending on processing method or aging. Sheng Puerh can be roughly classified on the tea oxidation scale as a green tea, and the shou or aged-green variants as post-fermented tea. The fact that Puerh fits in more than one tea type poses some problems for classification. For this reason, the "green tea" aspect of  Puerh  is sometimes ignored, and the tea is regarded solely as a post-fermented product. Unlike other teas that should ideally be consumed shortly after production,  Puerh  can be drunk immediately or aged for many years;  Puerh  teas are often now classified by year and region of production much like wine vintages.

Puerh tea  is traditionally made with leaves from old wild tea trees of a variety known as "broad leaf tea" or  Camellia sinensis var. assamica , which is found insouthwest China as well as the bordering tropical regions in Burma, Vietnam, Laos, and the very eastern parts of India. The shoots and young leaves from this varietal are often covered with fine hairs, with the pekoe (two leaves and a bud) larger than other tea varietals. The leaves are also slightly different in chemical composition, which alter the taste and aroma of the brewed tea, as well as its desirability for aging. Due to the scarcity of old wild tea trees,  Puerh  made using such trees blended from different tea mountains of Yunnan are highly valued, while more and more connoisseurs are seeking  Puerh  with leaves taken from a single tea mountain's wild forests.

Puerh  is well known for the fact that it is a compressed tea and also that it typically ages well to produce a pleasant drink. Through storage, the tea typically takes on a darker colour and mellower flavour characteristics. Often  Puerh  leaves are compressed into tea cakes or bricks, and are wrapped in various materials, which when stored away from excessive moisture, heat, and sunlight help to mature the tea. Pressing of  Puerh  into cakes and aging the tea cakes possibly originated from the natural aging process that happened in the storerooms of tea drinkers and merchants, as well as on horseback caravans on the Ancient tea route (pinyin: chama gudao) that was used in ancient Yunnan to trade tea to Tibet and more northern parts of China. ^[2]  Compression of the tea into dense bulky objects likely eased horseback transport and reduced damage to the tea.

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