After setting up the Cloud's Tea Diary, Cloud often receives e-mails and private messages with questions related to Puerh tea. Those questions are good questions. Beginners may also have similar doubts when they start their Puerh tea journeys. Thus, Cloud decides to gather these Q&As to the Cloud's Tea Diary so that the later comers may make reference to my answers.
－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
The Puerh tea lover, M, raised a question, "What are Dry Storage and Wet Storage?"
Cloud replied, "Puerh warehouse refers to the place where the Puerh tea was stored for years for aging. However, Dry Storage does not mean a warehouse with low humidity. Also, Wet Storage does not refer to a high humid warehouse. Drily stored and wetly stored Puerh teas can be stored (to be accurate: transformed) from the same warehouse."
"Therefore, the precise understanding of storage should be referring to the status of the tea cake itself. That is to say, whether it is a Dry Storage or Wet Storage depends on the degree of dampness of the tea cake itself. The damper the tea cake exposes to, the higher the degree of Wet Storage."
Why do we need to know about Dry Storage & Wet Storage?
What Puerh tea emphasizes is aging. In short, after many years of storage, the raw tea cake will become mellower and have better taste. It is the result of long-term storage. This indicates that different storage environment and conditions will definitely affect the true tastes of Fine Aged Puerh Tea.
Owing to the huge taste differences between Dry Storage and Wet Storage, tea lovers need to know about the conditions of Puerh tea storage when they buy their flavors. Even though two tea cakes are from the same batch of produce, they can give totally distinct tastes if they were stored drily or wetly for a decade respectively.
Some tea lovers like the taste of drily stored Puerh, but some would like to have wet flavor. However, in deed, no matter whether it is drily stored or wetly stored, they are all called Puerh. This may confuse Puerh tea novices. Unfortunately, it will be more complicated if the concepts of raw tea and ripe tea are also introduced to the storage conditions, as follows:
| Dry Storage | Wet Storage | |
| Raw Tea | Drily Stored Raw Tea | Wetly Stored Raw Tea |
| Ripe Tea | Drily Stored Ripe Tea | Wetly Stored Ripe Tea |
For the characteristics and differences between drily stored Puerh tea and wetly stored Puerh tea, please refer to the next Cloud's Tea Diary.
2 January 2009 wrote in Chinese
6 December 2010 translated into English
Cloud (Hong Kong)
Back to: By Category reading mode
Cloud's Tea Diary
http://www.cloudsteacollection.com/html/weblog/weblog_e.html
Cloud's Tea Collection - Private Tea Album
http://www.cloudsteacollection.com