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| Puer Tea |
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Puer tea, nicknamed the "old men's tea" in the past, has
become popular in the tea market of the Pearl River Delta region
and is even favored by collectors, according to the Guangzhou Daily.
The total sales volume of the tea in the Delta region surpassed
10,000 tons in the past 12 months, up 40 percent from a year earlier.
Teahouses in the region all put Puer tea in prominent places to
attract customers. The price of the tea has at least doubled,
while the Puer teabags produced by the Guangdong provincial tea
company in 1991 now sell at 4,000 yuan (US$484) per kilogram.
At a tea auction earlier this year, 500g of superb "royal
Puer tea" were sold for 170,000 yuan.
Always after new trends, people in the Delta region had turned
their interest from the traditional red tea to green tea and oolong
tea. Puer tea is the latest discovery.
A good cure for hypertension and arteriosclerosis, Puer tea also
helps to lose weight and facilitates digestion, according to tea
experts.
Unlike other kinds of tea, Puer can be stored over a long period
and still retain its flavor and quality, which explains its popularity
with collectors. Besides tea manufacturers who take the chance
to rake in gold, teahouses are also offering a new service to
store Puer tea for customers. As the tea has to be exposed to
air for storage, it is difficult to keep it from exposure to other
smells that may spoil the fragrance of the tea.
Although the tea is more precious with a longer history, experts
say the storage period should not be too long. Experts found that
a Puer tea stored in the Forbidden City since the 1870s had lost
its flavor completely. |
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