What Does Puerh Taste Like?普洱是什么味道
Puerh is not one drink, and the two things under that name are not two styles of it. Sheng (raw) is leaf pressed and then left to age. Shou (ripe) is leaf that went through a fermentation step sheng never gets. Two processes, two drinks. Most of the confusion about puerh starts by treating them as one.普洱不是一种饮料，而它名下这两样东西也不是同一种饮料的两种风格。生普是压好型、然后放着自然陈化。熟普是走了一道生普根本没有的发酵工序。两套工艺，两种饮料。关于普洱的绝大部分混乱，都从「把它们当成一种」开始。
I do not have a tasting CV. We sell teaware, not tea, so I will not describe a cup I did not drink. What I can give you is the two processes, reference points in flavours you already know, and — where a line is borrowed — the seller it came from, named as a seller.我没有品鉴资历。我们卖器物，不卖茶，所以我不会去描述一杯我没喝过的茶。我能给你的是两套工艺、一批你本来就熟悉的味道当参照物，以及——凡是借来的描述，说明它是从哪个卖家那里借的，并且标明那只是一个卖家的话。
You will see it spelled puerh, pu erh and pu-er: same word, three attempts at carrying pǔʼěr into English, nobody settled it. Spelling says nothing about the bag.你会看到它被写成 puerh、pu erh、pu-er：同一个词，三次把「普洱」搬进英文的尝试，谁也没定下来。拼法不会告诉你袋子里装的是什么。
Sheng and shou are two processes, not two styles生普与熟普是两套工艺，不是两种风格
Sheng, raw. Picked, withered, fixed in a hot pan or dried in the sun, rolled, sun-dried: that loose product is maocha. Then it is steamed and pressed into a cake or a brick, or left loose. That is the whole process. After that it ages on its own, wherever it is kept.生普，「生」。采、萎凋、锅炒杀青或日晒、揉捻、晒干——这道散料叫毛茶。之后蒸软压成饼、压成砖，或者就散着放。工艺就是这些。再往后它自己陈化，陈在哪儿就按哪儿的环境变。
Shou, ripe. Same leaf, one extra step: the maocha is piled, wetted, kept warm and turned for 45 to 60 days — a controlled microbial fermentation called wo dui, wet-piling. It was developed at the Kunming tea factory in 1973 and in mass production by 1975, for a commercial reason: to get, in two months, something in the neighbourhood of what decades of storage did to sheng.熟普，「熟」。同一种叶子，多一道工序：毛茶堆起来、洒水、保温、翻堆，45 到 60 天——这叫渥堆，是受控的微生物发酵。它 1973 年由昆明茶厂做出来，1975 年进入量产，动机是生意上的：用两个月，做出「几十年存放」给生普做出来的那种东西的近似物。
Shou is not old sheng. It is a shortcut built to land near old sheng, and the two do not taste alike — you can like one and find the other undrinkable without being inconsistent.熟普不是「老生普」。熟普是为落到「老生普附近」而造的一条近路，而这两样喝起来并不像——你可以喜欢其中一种、觉得另一种根本喝不下去，而一点不矛盾。
What sheng tastes like生普喝起来什么样
Young sheng is bitter and drying, and that is not a flaw to explain away. Wikipedia's article on pu'er puts it plainly: young raw pu'erh is known and expected to be strong and aromatic, yet very bitter and somewhat astringent when brewed. Expected is the word. Meet young sheng expecting shou's smoothness and you will think it is broken.新的生普苦、干，而这不是需要替它圆的缺点。维基百科「普洱」条目说得直白：新生普本就是「强烈而香、但冲泡后很苦、略带涩」。关键词是「本就」。你带着熟普那种顺去喝新生普，只会觉得它坏了。
If bitterness is what stops you, the problem is usually not the tea — see getting used to tea without sugar.如果拦住你的是「苦」，那通常不是茶的问题——看不加糖怎么喝得惯茶。
Underneath, one tea seller describes new sheng as vegetal and fruity, with notes of wet hay or alfalfa. A seller's description, quoted as one: it gives a direction — hay, green vegetable, apricot — not a verdict.苦底下，有一个卖家把新生普描述为「有蔬菜和果味，常带湿干草或苜蓿的气息」。这是卖家的话，我就按卖家的话引：它给的是一个方向——干草、青菜、杏子——不是结论。
Then gān, or huígān: the sweetness that arrives after you swallow, not in the sip. You swallow, you wait, and sweetness turns up at the back of your mouth. That delay is what no bottled tea imitates, and most of why people keep drinking sheng.然后是「回甘」：甜是在你咽下去之后才来的，不在喝进去那一下。你咽下去，等一会儿，甜才在口腔后部出现。这个延迟是瓶装茶模仿不出来的东西，也是人愿意继续喝生普的大半原因。
Aged sheng, in Wikipedia's words again: strongly earthy but clean and smooth, reminiscent of the smell of rich garden soil or an autumn leaf pile. Clean is the operative word. Camphor turns up in some aged sheng and not others — one vendor calls it old Chinese medicine cabinets, cooling herbs, pine resin. And the mouth-watering effect is literal: it makes your mouth water.陈的生普，还是引维基：土味重，但干净、顺，让人想起肥沃的园土或秋天的落叶堆。关键词是「干净」。樟香只出现在一部分陈生普里，不是都有——有个卖家把它形容为旧中药柜、清凉的草本、松脂。至于「生津」，它就是字面意思：它让你嘴里出水。
What shou tastes like熟普喝起来什么样
Shou is dark and stays dark, with no bitterness to speak of. One vendor's flavour map, close to what most people report, comes down to three things: cocoa, dried dates and wet wood, arriving together. Think of a bar of dark chocolate snapped open, or a handful of soil turned over after rain. Notice what is missing — nothing sharp.熟普是深的，而且一直是深的，谈不上苦。有个卖家的风味谱，和多数人的说法接近，说到底就三样：可可、干枣、湿木头，而且是一起来的。可以想成刚掰开的一块黑巧克力，或者雨后翻起来的一把土。注意缺了什么——没有一处是尖的。
The usual word is earthy, and in English that can be heard as dirty. The same sellers split the two. Clean earthy notes suggest, in one's phrasing: forest floor after rain, dry soil, old wood, mushroom in a gentle savoury sense, dark mineral warmth. Another puts the rule flat: earthy is a tasting description, not a requirement that the tea taste dirty.通行的词是「土味」，而英文里的 earthy（土味的）有可能被听成「脏」。同一个卖家把这两件事分开了。干净的土味，按他的说法是：雨后的林地表土、干土、旧木、一点点鲜咸方向而非腥臭的蘑菇、深色的矿物暖意。另一位把这规矩直接说明：土味是一个品鉴描述，不代表茶要喝起来像脏东西。
Fresh shou carries the pile smell, wò duī wèi: a mushroom farm, or a room where bread dough is rising. Fermentation, not rot, and it fades over a year or two. Not compost — compost is what that word means to a reader, and it is not what is in the cup. Storage smell, cāng wèi, is the other one: a basement or attic smell picked up where the cake was kept.新熟普身上多一层味，就是「堆味」：一间蘑菇房，或者一间正在发面的屋子。那是发酵，不是腐烂，而且一两年内会退。别用 compost（堆肥）这个词——在读者脑子里那就是垃圾和肥料，而杯子里不是那个东西。另一种是「仓味」：茶饼在存放的地方吸上的地下室或阁楼的味道。
Two words I am dropping. Chá qì, tea energy, goes entirely: in English it reads as pseudoscience and slides into health claims I am not making. Hóu yùn is usually rendered throat feel, which sounds like a sore throat; it is a cool sweetness at the back of your throat that stays a few dozen seconds after you swallow.有两个词我直接不用。「茶气」整段删掉：在英文里它读起来像伪科学，而且一步就滑进我不打算做的健康声明。「喉韵」常被译成 throat feel（喉咙的触感），那听起来像喉咙不舒服；它指的是咽下去之后，喉咙后部留着的一股凉甜，会停几十秒。
And chén is not stale. Stale is old crackers. Chén is a used bookshop, a cedar chest, dried dates — Medjool, not jujube. Where a Chinese note says lotus, English tasters say mint, because lotus carries no flavour here.还有，「陈」不是 stale（放陈了的）。stale 是放软了的饼干。「陈」是二手书店、一只雪松木箱、干枣——是 Medjool（一种软枣）那种枣，不是 jujube（中式红枣）。中文写「荷香」的地方，英文读者会用 mint（薄荷），因为 lotus（荷花）在英文里不带任何味觉联想。
Why so many people say puerh tastes like coffee为什么那么多人说普洱像咖啡
People ask whether puerh tastes like coffee more often than you would expect. The answer needs the word like taken apart.问「普洱是不是喝起来像咖啡」的人，比你以为的多。要回答，得先把「像」这个字拆开。
Three things are genuinely alike, and only three. The first is colour: hold the cup up to a light and a shou is nearly as dark as coffee — but it is deep red-brown, not black, and the edge of the liquid shows a ring of red where the light gets through. The second is texture: shou is smooth and full-bodied, the same phrase coffee people use. The third is habit: a hot, dark, thick drink people take seriously enough to argue about gear. Notice that all three are things you can see or feel before you taste anything.有三处是真的像，也只有三处。第一是颜色：把杯子对着光，熟普接近咖啡那么深——但那是深红褐，不是咖啡那种黑，而且液体的边沿会透出一圈红。第二是口感：熟普顺、有厚度，正是喝咖啡的人会用的说法。第三是习惯：一种热的、深的、厚的东西，郑重到人们会为器具争论。注意这三样都是你在尝之前就能看到或摸到的。
Taste is not one of them. Coffee's bitterness comes from roasting, and roasting brings acidity and a burnt edge. Tea is not roasted; shou turns dark in the wet-pile stage, through microbial and enzymatic activity, not through roasting. No coffee acidity, no roast-bitter. I have found no reliable source saying puerh tastes like coffee — only sellers saying it, usually while selling it.味道不在其中。咖啡的苦来自烘焙，而烘焙还带来酸和一层焦的边。茶不烘焙；熟普是在渥堆那一步变深的——靠微生物和酶，不是靠火。所以杯里没有咖啡那种酸，也没有烘焙的焦苦。我没有找到任何一个可靠来源说普洱味道像咖啡——只有卖家这么说，而且通常是在卖的时候说。
So: colour like, weight like, taste not. It is not a coffee substitute and not a caffeine workaround. If you want coffee, drink coffee.所以：颜色像，体感像，味道不像。它不是咖啡的替代品，也不是绕开咖啡因的办法。想喝咖啡就去喝咖啡。
There is a plainer reason Americans meet puerh at all: it travels. Green and white tea are fragile over a long shipment; a pressed, fermented tea survives it. Our piece on does tea cut the grease starts from the same fact.还有一个更实在的原因，解释美国人为什么会碰上普洱：它耐运。绿茶白茶跨长途运输太娇气；压紧的、发酵过的茶扛得住。我们在茶真的能解腻吗那篇里，是从同一个事实出发的。
How to brew it, and where the water has to go怎么泡，以及那些水往哪儿倒
Puerh is forgiving about temperature and unforgiving about time. Water at or near a full boil, 100°C / 212°F, so you never think about the kettle. But it must not sit: shou goes muddy, young sheng goes harsh, both fast.普洱在水温上宽容，在时间上不宽容。水要接近全沸，100°C / 212°F，所以水壶这一档你压根不用想。但它绝不能泡着不动：熟普会发浑，新生普会刮口，两种都很快。
The first pour is not drunk. Hot water over the leaf, all of it away — the rinse. It warms the leaf, opens it, rinses off packing dust. Then the first steep you drink is short: fifteen to twenty seconds, about 6 grams in a gaiwan filled half way, ten to fifteen seconds more each round, four to six steeps in total. A mug cannot pour off, so mug numbers run two to three minutes. Both tables are in our brewing guide; the pour-off motion is in how to use a gongfu tea set.第一道水不喝。热水淋过叶子，全部倒掉——洗茶。它温润叶子、把叶子打开、冲掉包装上的灰。然后你真正喝的第一泡很短：十五到二十秒，盖碗里约 6 克叶子、注到半满，之后每一泡加十到十五秒，全程四到六泡。杯子没法把水倒干，所以杯泡是两到三分钟。两组数字都在泡法指南里；「倒干」这个动作在怎么用一套功夫茶具。
Now the part that surprises people. A rinse means a whole vessel of water that is not going into a cup. Across a session — rinse, pour off between steeps, warm the cups — you have a real volume of liquid that needs somewhere to go that is not your table. That is the practical reason a tea tray exists. Not decoration, not ceremony: a place for the water you are deliberately throwing away.接下来是让人意外的一点。洗茶意味着一整器水不进杯子。一次坐下来泡几轮——洗茶、每泡之间倒干、温杯——你手上就有真正的分量需要有个去处，而且不能是你的桌面。这就是茶盘存在的实际理由。不是装饰，不是仪式：是给「你故意要倒掉的水」准备的地方。
Which is why puerh is the tea that makes people buy one. Types and drainage: the tea tray guide.所以普洱是最容易让人真去买一块茶盘的那种茶。类型和排水：茶盘指南。
Three things beginners get wrong新手最容易误判的三件事
One: mould is not age. The test is not a sniff, it is a second sniff later. Leave it a minute, rinse once, smell again: did it get cleaner, or more closed-in? A pile or storage smell that recedes is doing what it should. Damp, mouldy, stale, dirty, persistent, artificially pungent — that is the other vocabulary, and it does not recede. Where that leaves the pale frost some people point to on an aged cake, I genuinely cannot tell you: some call it normal, some call it the start of a problem, and I am not going to pick a side from here. What follows is narrower, and it is not a verdict on ageing — if you can see fuzz on the leaf or the cake, white, grey or green, I do not drink it and I do not scrape it off.第一件：霉味不是陈味。判法不是闻一下，是过一会儿再闻一下。放一分钟、冲一道，再闻：它是变干净了，还是更闷了？会退的堆味、仓味，是在做它该做的事。潮、霉、闷、脏、挥之不去、刺鼻——那是另一套词，而那套词不会退。至于有人指着陈饼上那层薄白霜——这个我是真的不知道：有人说正常，有人说是问题的开始，我不打算在这里站边。下面这句范围更窄，而且它不是对「陈化」下的判断——如果你在叶子或饼面上看得见绒毛，白的、灰的、绿的，我不喝，也不刮掉接着喝。
Two: fishy. The trade genuinely disagrees and I will not referee it. One vendor writes that a fishy smell is the first sign of bad storing conditions. Another writes that it is normal for very young, fresh shu puerh, and fades in time. Both describe real cakes. Workable line: if it fades, you met a young shou that has not settled; if it does not, or comes with sourness, stop.第二件：腥味。这一行内部是真的有分歧，我不做裁判。一位卖家写「腥味是存放条件变坏的第一个信号」。另一位写「对很新的熟普来说这是正常的，会随时间散去」。两边说的都是真实的茶。能用的分界线是：会退，你遇到的是还没定下来的年轻熟普；不退，或者带着酸，就停。
Three: sour is not a style. A fermentation batch that goes wrong has to be thrown away. When a cup is sour you are tasting one that was not.第三件：酸不是风格。发酵出了问题的批次是要整批扔掉的。一杯酸，就是那个没被扔掉的批次。
And if a shou smells of glutinous rice, that is usually not the tea: it is Strobilanthes tonkinensis, a herb added on purpose. A flavoured tea. Nothing wrong with liking it — just know you are tasting an addition, not a rare cake.还有一种值得知道，因为很多人以它为傲：熟普要是闻起来像糯米香，那多半不是茶本身的味道，而是加了糯米香草（Strobilanthes tonkinensis），是有意加的。那是调味茶。喜欢它没问题——只是要知道你尝到的是一样添加物，不是一块奇种。
What this will not do这篇不做什么
Nothing here about what a cup does inside your body. Not digestion, not grease, nothing a doctor would sign. Research in that area, and its limits, is in our piece on tea and grease. The reason to drink puerh is that you like it.这篇不说一杯茶在你身体里做了什么。不说消化，不说解腻，不说任何医生会签字的东西。那个方向的研究和它的边界，在茶与解腻那一篇里。喝普洱的理由是你喜欢它。
Nothing about value either. Wikipedia's own article carries the warning worth repeating: the common misconception is that all types of pu'er tea will improve in taste — and therefore gain in value — as they get older. Whether one cake improves is a storage question; whether it is worth more is a market question. Neither is a taste question.也不说价值。维基自己就挂着那句值得重复的警告：一个常见的误解是，所有普洱都会随年份变好喝、并因此更值钱。某一饼会不会变好，是存放问题；它值不值更多钱，是市场问题。两个都不是味道问题。
And no aroma timetable. Third steep orchid, fifth steep camphor: I cannot verify that from here, so I am not writing it. Cheapest version of all of this — buy the smallest amount you can, brew it once with a clock, write one sentence. We sell teaware, not tea. Nothing here is a flavour endorsement of any particular tea.也没有香气时间表。「第三泡出兰香、第五泡出樟香」——这个我在这里没法验证，所以我不写。这一整套的最便宜版本：买你能得到的最小份量，带着计时泡一次，写一句话。我们卖器物，不卖茶。这里没有任何一句是替某款茶的风味背书。
Because both puerhs come down to the same thing. Sheng and shou taste nothing alike, but neither is a leave-it-and-come-back tea: fifteen seconds and ninety seconds are different drinks, and the difference is not the leaf, the water or the cake. So the variable you actually need to control is how long the leaf stays in the water — and that needs a vessel that can take the leaf out of the water.因为两种普洱最后都落到同一件事上。生普和熟普喝起来毫不相像，但两者都不是「扔在那儿回头再说」的茶：十五秒和九十秒是两种不同的饮料，而差别不在叶子、不在水、也不在那块饼。所以你真正需要控制的，是叶子在水里待了多久——而这需要一件能把叶子从水里拿出来的器。
The cake, the tray, the pot — all of it in service of that one move.饼、茶盘、壶——别的一切都只服务于这一个动作。
Questions I get asked常被问到的五个问题
Does pu erh tea taste like coffee?普洱喝起来像咖啡吗？
Ripe puerh shares coffee's colour and weight, and some of its cocoa, but it is not roasted, so there is no roast-bitterness in the cup, and it is not a substitute for coffee. Shou turns dark in the wet-pile stage, through microbial and enzymatic activity. If you want coffee, drink coffee.熟普和咖啡像的只有颜色、体感，以及一点可可味；但它不烘焙，所以杯里没有烘焙那种焦苦，它也不是咖啡的替代品。熟普是在渥堆那一步变深的——靠微生物和酶，不是靠火。想喝咖啡就去喝咖啡。
Is musty puerh mouldy or just aged?有霉味的普洱，是发霉了还是只是陈了？
A musty smell can be age or mould, and the difference shows in the leaf itself and in whether the smell fades after a few minutes in open air — not in one sniff. Leave it a minute, rinse once, smell again: if it gets cleaner, the pile or storage smell is receding. Damp, mouldy, stale, dirty, persistent, artificially pungent — that vocabulary does not recede.霉味可能是陈，也可能是霉，区别要看叶子本身、以及这味道在空气里放几分钟之后会不会散——不在闻那一下。放一分钟、冲一道、再闻：变干净了，就是堆味或仓味在退。潮、霉、闷、脏、挥之不去、刺鼻——那套词不会退。
Why is my shou puerh fishy?我的熟普为什么有腥味？
The trade genuinely disagrees on this and I will not referee it. One vendor calls a fishy smell the first sign of bad storing conditions; another says it is normal in very young shu puerh and fades in time. Workable line: if it fades, you met a young shou that has not settled; if it does not, or comes with sourness, stop.这一行内部真的有分歧，我不做裁判。一位卖家说腥味是储存条件变坏的第一个信号；另一位说很新的熟普本来就有，会随时间散去。能用的分界线：会退，你遇到的是还没定下来的年轻熟普；不退，或者带着酸，就停。
Why does my shou puerh smell of glutinous rice?我的熟普为什么有糯米香？
A glutinous-rice aroma in shou usually means something was added: Strobilanthes tonkinensis, a herb. That makes it a flavoured tea, not a rare cake — nothing wrong with liking it, just know what you are tasting.熟普里的糯米香，通常意味着加了东西：糯米香草（Strobilanthes tonkinensis）。那它就是一款调味茶，不是一块奇种——喜欢它没问题，只是要知道自己喝到的是什么。
Is sheng puerh supposed to be bitter?生普本来就该是苦的吗？
Young raw puerh is known and expected to be bitter and somewhat astringent when brewed, and the sweetness arrives after you swallow, not in the sip. That delay is most of why people keep drinking it.新生普本就是苦的、略带涩的，而甜是在你咽下去之后才来的，不在喝进去那一下。大多数人继续喝生普，大半是因为这个延迟。
Curated by Moyan — I chose every piece in this shop, and the opinions here are mine. The site and the shop are the same household: when you buy a set, that is what keeps this writing going. Questions? Write to me — if I don't know something, I'll say so.墨言—店里的每一件都是我选的，这里写的看法也都是我的。站和店是一家的：你买一套茶具，就是这个站能继续写下去的原因。有问题？写信给我——不知道的，我会直说。