# Shu pu-erh (熟普洱, shú pǔ'ěr)

Shu pu-erh (熟普洱) is "ripe" pu-erh: Yunnan tea that has undergone accelerated wo dui fermentation. A dark, thick liquor tasting of earth, nut, and dry wood — smooth and warming.

Shu — "ripe," "cooked" — is a young technology by the standards of tea history: the wet-piling method of wo dui was perfected at Yunnan factories in the first half of the 1970s, in order to obtain within weeks the taste for which sheng pu-erh rests for decades. The mao cha is moistened, gathered into heaps, and microorganisms are allowed to carry out a deep fermentation under a master's control.

The result is an entirely different tea: a nearly black liquor, a dense body, flavors of damp earth, prunes, nutshell, and a woodpile. Bitterness and astringency are almost absent, the caffeine edge is smoothed, which is why shu is often recommended as an evening and "stomach-friendly" tea. In the wuxing system it is pure water: dark, deep, directed downward and inward. Aged shu and its byproduct lao cha tou only grow smoother with the years.

Practical notes: good shu should never smell of dampness or fish — that is a sign of crude wo dui or poor storage; a slight "wet" note in young shu airs out within a year or two. The first infusion is customarily discarded, rinsing the tightly pressed leaf. The mistake is regarding shu as a "cheap fake of sheng": it is a genre of its own with its own summits, and comparing them is like comparing an aged port with a young Riesling.

Source: https://www.dao-cha.info/en/glossary/shu-puer