Sheng puerh

  Green puerh (sheng 生), often called “raw” or “uncooked”, is produced without any fermentation (fa xiao) during the production or compression of the cakes. The fermentation of these cakes occurs slowly through an aging process that takes many years to reach maturity. These sheng cakes are by far the more valuable of the two varieties of puerh and represent the traditional method of puerh production. Sheng puerh is said to be fully mature at around seventy years.