The puerh that got destroyed

[skilfautdire]

All,

Here and there it can be read that puerh cakes were destroyed during Mao's time in China. And that lead to the making of recipes for artificially aging puerh, eg ripe puerh. Stories along these lines can be found but, why were these cakes destroyed in the first place ? Were they taken as symbols of the bourgeoisie ? Or were they somehow deemed unfit for consumption ?

[hop_goblin]

I believe this is misinformation. If anything, during the WengGe, China was trying to maximize their harverst and quality. Unfortuantely, many things suffered during the Cultural Revolution in terms of craftmanship; not just tea. Puerh was never systematically destroyed during any generation, yet, puerh was considered a normal and extremely cheap commodity. Thusly, puerh was not has highly priced as it is today; it was just common so many examples during the late 60s and early 70's were not stored nor cherished.