I wanted to give my take on Yiwu energetics for some time but I would like this to be understood as a personal opinion instead of something set on stone.

Tea has been described by the Chinese as being cold and bitter in nature. This is a generic description that fits most ‘green’ teas including Raw Puer. Bitter foods tend to be cold and most fresh raw Puer tends to have pronounced bitterness. Therefore, it is normal to equate Puer bitterness with ‘Coldness’ which is the reason why it is often said to be better to age Puer than to drink it fresh, because the cold ‘energy’ may cause some stomach discomfort. But why does ageing make the tea less ‘cold’? I would argue that it is likely because the tea won’t be as bitter and will become sweeter. Therefore sweetness is being equated with warmth. It is important to mention that there are cold herbs and foods that are also considered to be sweet, more often bitterness is the flavour associated with coldness.

What about Puer tea from Yiwu, which is famous for being sweet and barely having any bitterness (with few exceptions)?

To discuss tea energetics and their effects on the body, we firstly need to understand that tea is cold but there is a spectrum within coldness. Bitter teas like Laomane Kucha being on the colder side of this spectrum and Yiwu teas on the opposite, more like cool rather than cold. This also explains why fresh Yiwu teas tend to be more comfortable on the body than other teas.

How do Yiwu teas make one feel?

The Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor, a medical book written about 2000 years ago, described the effects of each flavour and said that the Sweet flavour pacifies the Fire, Calms the Liver and benefits the Stomach.

It also mentions that:

‘The nature of sweet [flavour] is to harmonious and relaxed.’

‘When the mind is angry the qi will be tense…[Hence] one consumes sweet [flavour] to relax these [tensions].’

‘When the liver suffers from tensions, quickly consumes sweet [flavour] to relax [these tensions].’¹ (Unschuld, 2003)

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.wdl/wdl.3044

All of this is hinting at the relaxing feeling that sweetness provides. Give a crying child a chocolate, you will see this easily exemplified.

This brings us again to Yiwu teas. In terms of Cha Qi (tea energy), they tend to have a strong sweet energy leading to a grounding, a relaxing and happy feeling. This tends to be a constant characteristic of Yiwu teas which could be explained by its sweetness as mentioned previously.

Chawangshu is certainly the most famous tea in Yiwu. It is famous for the warm feeling that the drinker experiences in the stomach whilst drinking it. It is a really sweet and special tea that exemplifies what a sweet energy gives us.

Lastly, there will always be a relationship between the tea and the drinker which can’t be ignored. Although in my opinion the energetics of Yiwu tea are as described above, some tea drinkers feel wonderful with bitter Laoman’e teas. That is totally normal. It reflects that experiencing tea is always a conversation between two parts. There is no right or best tea for everyone. Each one of us will experience nature’s energy in a different way and according with who we are.

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1 Paul U Unschuld, Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen, University of California Press (2003)