PU'ER ENCYCLOPEDIA
A working reference for sheng, shu and the long arc of Yunnan tea
New to pu-er, evaluating a specific cake, or wondering if the one already in your cabinet is ready to drink — puerh.app is the field-note layer for that decision, a deep catalog of cakes, factories and mountains across processing, aging and brewing.
WHERE TO START
Three ways in — pick yours
New to pu-erh?
Five questions, two minutes — get a starting category and a real, safe first SKU to try.
Open → — 02Evaluating a specific cake?
Run the sheng-or-shu quick classifier on what's actually in front of you — leaf, liquor, cup.
Open → — 03Already have pu-erh at home?
Enter the pressing year, category and storage — get a drink-now-or-wait read, plus a storage-risk check.
Open →REAL SKUS
Five cakes and formats, actually for sale
Real weight, real pricing and real brewing parameters pulled from the teamotea retail catalog — not placeholder copy. Each links through to shop.puerh.app.
Shu · imperial grade
Gōngtíng pǔ'ěr
The finest bud grade in the thirteen-tier shu classification — smooth, with no earthy notes.
Shu · tea nuggets
Lǎo chá tóu
Dense pectin-rich clumps from the wò duī pile — thick, sweet, and famously forgiving of a heavy hand.
Shu · golden bud
Dà jīn yá shú pǔ'ěr
Large, downy buds with a reddish-gold sheen — graded for size and visual impact.
Shu · green tangerine
Chénpí sī xiǎo qīnggān
Ripe pu-erh packed into a whole aged mandarin — a citrus-and-wood profile from Xinhui.
Pu-erh paste
Chágāo shú pǔ'ěr
A concentrated tea extract that dissolves on contact — no leaves, no strainer.
Featured this week
Recent additions to the library
History & culture
2007 — the year the pu'er market crashed
Pǔ'ěr pàomò · 普洱泡沫
For eighteen months Yunnan ran hot — speculation, cake-flipping, factories printing tickets. Then in spring 2007 the floor dropped, and an entire category had to relearn what tea was for.
Ānchá
Ānchá · 安茶
Ancha is one of the most enigmatic and distinctive teas of China, standing apart even within the six-category classification system. This traditional post-fermented compressed tea from Qimen County (Keemun) in Anhui Province has a history spanning approximately three hundred years.
Ānchá
Ānchá · 安茶
Ancha is one of the most enigmatic and distinctive teas of China, standing apart even within the six-category classification system. This traditional post-fermented compressed tea from Qimen County (Keemun) in Anhui Province has a history spanning approximately three hundred years.
By topic
8 topics
Where pu-erh sleeps shapes what it becomes
cāng · 仓
Brewing pu'er — method follows the leaf
pào chá · 泡茶
Six centuries of pu'er — caravans, courts, and crashes
Pǔ'ěr chá · 普洱茶
From fresh leaf to bǐng — the craft behind pu'er
Máo Chá · 毛茶
Six mountains, six flavours — terroir in pu-erh
Yún Nán · 云南
The raw leaf, and the long wait it asks for
Shēng Pǔ'ěr · 生普洱
The cooked half of the pu'er story
Shú Pǔ'ěr · 熟普洱
