Puerh (Raw / Sheng)

Classic recipes

Factory-recipe sheng puerh identified by a four-digit code encoding blend grade, factory, and production batch. The 7542 is the benchmark young sheng recipe: mixed-grade leaf pressed to a 357 g cake, designed to age well rather than drink immediately. The 8582 uses larger, coarser leaf for deeper body; the 7532 is bud-heavy and more delicate. These recipes exist in versions from multiple factories, so comparing the same code across producers teaches as much as comparing different codes. They are the controlled variable in raw puerh; the famous-mountains family is the single-origin side of the same question.

teabert, the tealytics teapot, keeper of the kettle
These are factory blends behind four-digit codes, built to age rather than to drink young, and one recipe from several factories side by side shows what blending does. The digits encode things like recipe year, leaf grade and factory, so some of the most collected teas in the world are named like entries in a parts catalogue.

Styles in this family

How it's made

The steps overlap in practice; this is a reading order, not a set of separate stages.