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Chinese Pu'er Loose Leaf Pu'er Tea

3 reviews
€11,00
€11,00
€0,37 per cup
Sale Sold out
Style

An organically grown and beautifully crafted ripe or shu pu'er - from the forests of Yunnan, China. This high grade tea has been left as a whole leaf, not compressed into cake.

Also known by a myriad of different spellings - puer, pu'erh, puer, puerh, pu-er, and pu-erh are all used.

Tasting Notes

The texture is silky, like well-water and the flavour is deep, earthy, with notes of autumn leaves and a wonderful underlying sweetness.

Origin

Menglian County, Yunnan, China

Cost Per Cup

€0,37 per cup based on 2.5g of tea per 150ml of water and 3 infusions.
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Recommended Infusion Guide

  • Quantity

    Use 2g of tea per 150ml of water.

  • Temperature

    For the optimum infusion use 90°C water.

  • Time

    Infuse for 1 - 2 minutes, tasting regularly. Best enjoyed without milk.

  • Infusions

    You can infuse this tea at least three times. With each careful infusion, different subtleties of flavour are revealed.

1 3

More infusion tips

How to infuse your tea is very personal, and these are just our recommendations based on experience. Please experiment with these variables to your heart's delight. These are our recommendations, not hard and fast rules. The most delicious tea is the one you love.

Our guide uses a standard tea cup size (150ml/5.5 oz) as a measure, please adjust the quantity of leaf accordingly for less or more water. Our whole loose leaves are of such a high quality that you can infuse our teas at least twice, and the second infusion is often better than the first, with different flavours revealed as the leaf softens. If you prefer your tea stronger, add more leaf, don’t leave it for longer (this will just make it bitter).

Pu'er tea is traditionally a very slow fermentation of a partly oxidised "dark" tea that can take decades to reach maturity and cost many thousands of pounds. This ripe pu'er has first been "wet-pilled" where it undergoes an initial wet fermentation for 45 days to begin the process. This allows the tea to reach a smoothness and delicacy of a much older "raw" pu'er. It is also vastly more affordable.

Some very old pu'ers that date back to before Chairman Mao's Revolution are extremely valuable. They can be traded for eye-watering sums due to their rarity and the history they belong to - much like vintage champagnes. An old bottle of champagne may be worth a king's ransom and then disappoint as soon as it is opened. It may be corked or spoilt. Its value is not determined on the quality of the liquid inside but on the age of the bottle. The same is sometimes true of pu'er. Once an old pu'er cake has been unwrapped, broken and the tea infused - it might not be the most delicious tea despite its price - and its value is then lost, so they are often more traded than drunk.

This high grade pu'er comes from La Fu Da Hei Shan, located in the deep forests of the China-Myanmar border, in Yunnan's Menglian County.

This area is part of the largest and best-preserved primary forest ecosystem along the Pu'er border, covering over 58 square kilometers.

Is loose leaf pu'er tea better than a cake or brick (bing cha)?

The quality of the leaf and the craftmanship of the farmer is what really determines to best flavour of any tea. The origin of pressing pu'er into a cake was for efficient transportation and storage from Yunnan. It had nothing to do with flavour.

Whole leaf ages faster and infuses better and more evenly in the pot. For many they are considered superior.

One of the reasons traders have preferred pressed disks of pu'er to loose leaf tea is that age statements can be pressed into the tea. But the papers in and around the tea are not always genuine. And large leaves on the outside of cakes do not always reflect the quality of the leaf inside. We always choose our teas directly from the farm based on the best flavour, whether it is a cake or leaf.

Perhaps the main advantage of buying loose leaf pu'er over a cake, is that you can buy less to see if the flavour profile is your cup of tea. But all forms of pu'er can be equally delicious - just different.

Shipping, delivery & more...

EU Shipping Information

🛑FREE SHIPPING SUSPENDED TO THE EU🛑
Click here for more information.

From the 1st July 2026, the EU are removing the exemption from customs duty for parcels valued at €150 or below. Click here for more information.

Europe Express Tracked Delivery from €24.95/DDK 213
carried by FedEx

Europe Express Courier from €32.95/DKK 205
carried by DHL Express

Availability of rates depends on location and order weight. For a complete overview of our shipping rates please see our delivery page. Prices displayed at the checkout are based on live currency exchange rates and may differ slightly from the listed price.

IOSS for EU Orders

Rare Tea Company uses IOSS (Import One Stop Shop) for EU orders placed on the website.

How IOSS works and how it is applied on the website.

The IOSS scheme allows us to collect VAT on personal orders* during checkout on your behalf, meaning that no VAT is due when your order is assessed by your local authority.

  • If the combined value of the products in your cart are equal to or below €150 (excluding tax), VAT will be included at the point of sale and you should not be charged any import VAT when your order arrives.**
  • Once the €150 threshold is exceeded VAT will be removed from the items in your cart and from this point onwards when your order ships you will be liable for local VAT, duties and import fees.***

To avoid unnecessary import charges, keep your orders under €150 (excluding tax and shipping). Tax is included on all applicable products at Rare Tea - if your order is applicable for IOSS tax will be shown at the checkout.

Valid for IOSS

Not valid for IOSS

Your order confirmation and shipping confirmation emails will also confirm whether your order is valid for IOSS.

As with all complex shipping methods, the IOSS system isn't foolproof, and orders that are valid for IOSS are occasionally incorrectly charged VAT by customs.

If an order shipped via IOSS and that you have paid VAT on does get incorrectly assessed by customs, please don't worry. It's usually just a mistake that can be fixed by contacting customs and explaining that the order shipped via IOSS with VAT already paid.

If this does happen to you then we suggest the following:

  1. Please contact us before speaking to customs.
  2. We will double check that the order was valid for IOSS.
  3. We will provide a VAT receipt and a shipping label as evidence.
  4. Contact your local customs for assistance, using the shipping label as evidence.
  5. If all else fails we will attempt to get our shipping provider to investigate, but this process can take a while.

*IOSS is not valid on orders for businesses and we do not recommend that you use any business address for your order (even if it is a personal order sent to your place of work) - customs authorities are likely to treat your package as a B2B shipment and ignore the IOSS status.
**This does not include any a) any duty charged when the item is cleared or b) special customs administration fees levied by customs for import. Within the EU tea is free from duty, but your region might have a different rules for non-tea items such as tins and teaware. Some governments have also introduced low-value consignment administration fees (either per order or per item) for orders under €150. Any duty or fees charged are payable by you, the customer before delivery via your local customs authority. We cannot refund these fees.
***In special cases where custom fees have been unexpected we have retroactively refunded these in select cases. As of the 15th February 2023 (the start of IOSS) we have discontinued this process.

What is IOSS?

The Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) is the electronic portal businesses can use since 1 July 2021 to comply with their VAT e-commerce obligations on distance sales of imported goods.

Up until the 1st July 2021, no import VAT has to be paid for commercial goods of a value up to €22. New VAT eCommerce rules abolished this provision as of 1st July 2021. Thus, from 1 July 2021, all commercial goods imported into the EU from a third country or third territory is subject to VAT irrespective of their value.

What is IOSS for?

IOSS allows suppliers and electronic interfaces selling imported goods to personal buyers in the EU to collect, declare and pay the VAT to the tax authorities, instead of making the buyer pay the VAT at the moment the goods are imported into the EU as it was previously the case (for products over €22).

What are the advantages of IOSS?

IOSS facilitates the collection, declaration and payment of VAT for sellers making distance sales of imported goods to personal buyers in the EU. The IOSS also makes the process easier for the buyer, who is only charged at the time of purchase, and therefore does not face any surprise VAT when the goods are delivered. If the seller is not registered in the IOSS, the buyer has to pay the VAT and usually a customs clearance fee charged by the transporter.

What countries does IOSS apply to?

IOSS applies to the EU member states of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

It does not apply to the EEA.

Are there any exclusions to IOSS?

IOSS does not apply to business purchases and our checkout cannot distinguish these from personal purchases - even if it is a personal order sent to your place of work. Customs authorities are likely to treat your package as a business shipment and ignore the IOSS status. It is likely you'll be charged both import duty, VAT and a fee for processing. If your order is valid for IOSS and contains a company in the shipping name, we will not be able to challenge any importation fees. If you reject a parcel in this scenario, then you will be refunded for your shipment excluding any postage you have paid.

IOSS is only valid on orders under €150 - please keep the total of your items (i.e. tea/teaware) under this value.

How much tax will I get charged?

Tax will be charged at the base VAT rate of the shipping country.

Returns

The Rare Tea Lady believes that our teas are some of the greatest in the world, and that our range and service are second to none.

In the isolated case that you are not completely satisfied with any product you purchase from our website, please get in contact with our customer services team to discuss returning your order.*

In most instances, we will give you a full refund of the item's cost, excluding postage. We may ask you to return the item to us.** Customers in the UK & European Union have statutory rights not affected by this guarantee, but any bags of tea must remained sealed for this to be in effect.

*We only accept returns/refunds for tea within 30 days of receipt, because it is impossible for us to know if the tea has been stored correctly.

**We will endeavour to ask for pictures where possible - but if you have changed your mind and are outside of any statutory rights time period, return postage is payable by you.

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