What is the original appearance of Pu-erh tea?
According to the historical stages of Pu’er tea divided by “Tea Evolution”. The first stage is called the “primary period” – the period when “Pu’er tea” was still outside the Han culture.
Why is the primary period emphasized? Because some people who study the history of Pu’er tea like to regard the incident of land reform in 1729 as the starting point of the history of Pu’er tea. This point of view belongs to Han cultural centrism, which is not conducive to the study of the history of material civilization.
To give an example, such as place names: Zhujia Village, Juhua Village, Tofu Camp and other place names, you can tell what they mean when you hear them. why? Because they are all coded in Chinese.
But what does “Pu’er” mean? I can’t understand it because it’s transliterated. The term “Pu’er” is borrowed.
Since the language is borrowed, it proves that the original signified behind the language was not born in this culture. Therefore, it is invalid to explore the word “Pu’er” and use Chinese as a tool to find the source.
How did the pronunciation of “puer” come about? What exactly does that mean?
Linguistic exploration in this area has actually been seriously studied. Teacher Yang Haichao from the Tea Horse Road Research Institute of Yunnan University passed a series of searches and reasoning in the “Pu’er” Pronunciation and Meaning Test. It was discovered that the pronunciation of “Puer” originated from the ancient Dai-Thai culture.
Today, the main production areas of Pu’er tea are basically covered by Dai-Thai culture. Pu’er tea was born in this place, which is also reasonable from a geographical point of view, and it is in line with linguistic inference.
In addition, “Semantic Evolution, Language Contact, and Lexical Spread——Origin and Spread of *la” tea” by Peking University professors Wang Feng and Wei Jiuqiao discussed another issue. Professor Wang Feng believes that the word “tea” in Chinese comes from *la in Yi-Burmese.
In the local languages of the Pu’er tea producing areas in Yunnan, such as Banna Dai language and Bulang language, tea is called “La”.
The place names of these places, where there is “La”, all refer to tea. For example, Mengla is the place where tea is produced, and the literal translation is the land of tea. For example, Manla, “Man” is a small village on a hillside, and Manla is a small tea village on a hillside.
There is a view that after the Dai people came to Yunnan, they learned a lot of living habits and borrowed a lot of vocabulary from the surrounding peoples.
Up to this point, both “Pu’er” and “tea” have been mentioned, and together they are Pu’er tea. From the perspective of linguistics plus geographical evidence of property. Probably, this place can be considered as the birthplace of “Pu’er Tea”.
The word “Pu’er tea” was directly borrowed only after the Han culture came into contact with Pu’er tea. That is to say, before the Han culture came into contact with this area, there was already Pu’er tea.
What should the Pu’er tea be like at this time?
The appearance of a property is influenced by market aesthetics. When Pu-erh tea is not in contact with Han culture, it will not be influenced by Han culture. It will retain the original style of the local culture.
Today we go to the minority areas on the edge of China, can we find tea drinking methods outside the influence of Han culture? Can, such as bamboo tube tea, sour tea.
These are drinking habits that are hard to see in Handi. These things may be closer to the original appearance of Pu’er tea.
Today we say Pu’er tea in Chinese. The Pu-erh tea mentioned by the local ethnic minorities in ancient times is actually not the same thing. We are discussing only some of these surviving relationships.
Having said that, it is very interesting to look at the common problems at the front end of the market. For example, arguing about what is “ancient method of tea making”.
You must know that the development of human smelting technology has been uneven in history.
Due to the small amount of copper on the surface, bronze wares were mainly used as ritual vessels in ancient times. The widespread use of metal objects among the people had to wait until the Iron Age. Iron can only be smelted if the temperature can be raised to above 1300 degrees and charcoal reduction technology is available.
In Zhou Yaowen and Luo Meizhen’s “Research on Dai Dialects”. It is believed that “iron” in Dai language is a Chinese loanword. Because iron did not appear in life before. Pronunciation is also close to Chinese pronunciation.
Only with an iron pan can you cook vegetables, and only then can the food culture of eating stir-fried vegetables be formed.
This kind of smelting technology did not occur earlier in most ethnic minority areas in southwestern Yunnan. Therefore, before coming into contact with Han culture, there was no custom of eating fried vegetables.
If you go to Xishuangbanna today, you will find that the locals are still keen on barbecue. The more remote the place you go, the more traditional Dai food you eat, the more this is the case. If there are dishes that are close to stir-frying, they will also be represented by Bao Shao.
Here comes the question, without a frying pan, how to fry tea? If you blindly emphasize ancient methods, in fact, when it comes to “stir-fry”, it is no longer ancient enough.
