Green And White Pu-erh Tea - What's The DIfference?

by Matt

Have you any informations about green pu-erh tea chemical composition (catechins, caffeine), or about white pu erh tea chemical composition?

What are the differeces concerning health benefits between green tea and green pu-erh tea? (and between white tea and white pu-erh tea)?

Answer:

I have heard of white pu-erh tea but not green pu-erh tea. Can you explain?

White pu-erh tea is quite misleading because it really is pu-erh tea, and is processed like a pu-erh tea, but is made from white tea plants, using younger tea shoots.

It is not unusual for highly oxidised tea such as oolong, pu-erh or red tea to be made from young tea shoots.

Traditionally, the best of these teas are made from young tea shoots anyway.

Some sellers make such a big deal out of this, but they shouldn't really do.

The difference of this tea with green and white tea is that they tend to be harvested later in the year, and so yes, will have markedly different chemical composition compared to the best of green and white tea.

There are two forces at play here - raw fresh leaves chemical composition and those due the processing.

Non spring harvests tend to have lower theanine content and higher polyphenol/aromatic oil content.

Different raw chemical composition makes them suited for making different kinds of tea.

The effects of oxidation, obviously, is to convert EGCG/catechins to the like of theaflavins etc.

My guess is that green and white pu-erh tea are much more like pu-erh tea than green and white tea.

Compared to other pu-erh tea, they should be higher quality, as the tea shoots are more tender and more potent.

They should also contain less contaminants.

Hope this helps.