The picture highlights the steps and apparatus involved in manufacturing pu’erh tea.
Overall, this process comprises various stages, from pan frying tea leaves, followed by a series of processing procedures, to final products after a process of storage and fermentation.
The process commences when freshly picked tea leaves are fried on pans in order to deactivate enzymes and prevent further oxidation. The leaves are later rolled to release moisture and shape them. Following this, they are dried under the sun, producing loose raw tea leaves.
From this stage, the process splits. For raw pu’erh tea, the dried leaves are compressed into cakes and then stored for long-term aging, eventually becoming vintage raw pu’erh tea. Alternatively, to produce ripe pu’erh tea, the loose ripe tea undergoes fermentation by mold, a process that acelerates aging. After fermentation, the tea becomes loose ripe tea and is subsequently compressed to form pu’erh ripe tea cakes.