A Beauty called Pu'er
There are many excellent books on Pu'er Tea. I want to bring two of them to your attention. The first is titled Pu'er Tea by Deng Shihai 邓时海, a retired professor from the Taiwan Normal University (b. 1941). The book was first published in Kunming in April 2004 and remains one of the most authoritative texts on Pu'er Tea. The second book is titled The Story of Pu'er Tea (2005) by Lei Pingyang 雷平阳 a poet and author (b. 1966), from Zhaotong, bordering Sichuan in northeast Yunnan. Here are two translated and edited excerpts from the book: Deng Shihai wrote about stripping Pu'er tea to its basic aromatic qualities, comparing the fragrance of aged Pu'er to lotus, orchid, camphor and fresh green, describing them as "the highest quality Pu'er," "flavorless flavour," as Deng calls it. The concept of "flavorless flavour" as Deng explains: "is at the heart of Zen Buddhism, a state of mind where the flavour of te...
