Puerh (Ripe / Shou)

Flavored

Flavored ripe puerh in two directions. Sticky Rice (Nuomi Xiang) shou is scented with the nuo mi xiang herb native to Yunnan or blended with dried glutinous rice herbs during production, adding a distinctive sweet-rice aroma that softens the earthy base and makes it one of the most accessible entry points in the type. Xiao Qing Gan stuffs ripe puerh into dried Xinhui mandarin peels from Guangdong, pairing the earthy shou base with bright dried-citrus character. Both are genuinely popular outside collector circles and worth tracking for what flavored additions do to the base tea's character.

teabert, the tealytics teapot, keeper of the kettle

This is the cosiest corner of ripe puerh, sticky-rice shou and citrusy Xiao Qing Gan, both softening the earthy base, and a good first stop for newcomers. For anyone who finds plain shou a bit too much like a forest floor, they add rice or citrus, the way you might put flowers on the table to distract from the wallpaper.

Styles in this family

Sticky Rice (Nuomi) Ripe Pu-erh

Sticky Rice (Nuomi) ripe puerh is shou scented with nuomi xiang, the sticky rice herb, a fragrant Yunnan plant whose dried leaf smells uncannily of warm…

Xiao Qing Gan / Chenpi (Citrus)

Xiao Qing Gan is a whole small green mandarin from Xinhui in Guangdong, hollowed out, stuffed with ripe puerh, and dried so the citrus peel and the tea age and…

How it's made

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