Cwyn wrote:French cheese is not the best example because they don't pasteurize milk in the best cheeses. That accounts for a huge difference at the start. Another is what the cows actually eat. Better comparisons are fermenting vegetables, plant material, as tea is a plant and not an animal product.
Storage solutions in the west are all about heat and humidity. Latitude as a separate factor is a non sequitur because heat and humidity can be found at varying latitudes. Tibet gets as cold as Wisconsin or Russia. My ancestors have been fermenting vegetables in crocks as a dietary necessity for centuries, specifically for the creation of vitamin C. Crocks create a stable microclimate for fermentation and are ideal for plant material. In Minnesota, Mandala Tea invested in a climate controlled vault and their tea is doing very well, better than it "should" be.
Shah doesn't need a microclimate or crocks because he lives in a climate that has decent conditions year round. I get heat and humidity in the summer at a much more northern latitude. During the summer I can expose my tea, and in the winter I have to create a microclimate.
Since much of puerh aging is anecdotal, what we know about Asian conditions are like everywhere else: if you ignore your puerh, getting decent tea is really just luck. A collector in Asia or anywhere else with decent tea paid attention to their tea or got lucky under the floorboards.. In Asia, tea can rot or mold or even dry out in many places. The same can happen anywhere else.
For sure, heat and humidity are key factors. Anywhere. But, the combination of heat and humidity in SE Asia seems to be the standard and puerh enthusiasts try to emulate those conditions wherever they are. But, there is another factor involved, and I tried to point that out with the cheese example. Whenever you ferment anything, bacteria become a key component. One of the factors with Roquefort cheese is a certain bacteria found in the region where Roquefort is made. I think originally, they were stored in caves. The regional bacteria will play a factor in the aging process.
I'm not saying you can't get good results elsewhere in the world, but they may not be the same results as we get in SE Asia. It's the same with wine and cheeses. Try to get a good Camembert anywhere outside of Normandy. Nothing has ever tasted the same to me and I've had cheese that has not been pasteurized in other countries that have tried to duplicate some of the French cheeses like Camembert and Roquefort. But, then we move into a subjective territory of likes and dislikes. I think terroir, however, is an important factor, not only in the growing of Puerh, but also the fermenting of it.
