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Tea leaf from Dali, Yunnan, China

Ripe pu-erh, industrial wet-pile (Xiaguan Tuocha protocol, 2020)熟普洱

In industrial ripe pu-erh, tonnes of sun-dried green tea are wetted and piled about a metre high, where moulds and bacteria heat the pile; a 2022 pile at another factory held 51.5–62.9 °C for most of a month. Every week or so the pile is broken up, wetted again and rebuilt, eight times in all.

Fully documentedTea leaf7 days – 10 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceTwo independent batches (F1 and F2) at Xiaguan Tuocha (Group) Co., Dali, between July and September 2020, with 15 tons of maocha in total (Guan et al. 2026). The temperatures, pH and moisture curve come from a second, 30-day pile at a Xishuangbanna factory in 2022 (Hu et al. 2025).
Sun-dried green tea (maocha)15 t in total for the study's two batchesInitial moisture 8.3 %[guan2026]
Spring waterTo about 40 % leaf moistureAdded again at each turning[guan2026]
Starterspontaneous (no inoculum; wetting wakes the microbes already on the leaf)

Total time across the recorded steps: 7 days – 10 days

Start
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What changes: Sun-dried tea is wetted with spring water to about 40 % moisture

Step 1 of 4
Wet the maocha
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Aspergillus
Bacillus
Moulds
Kocuria

Output: wet tea.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

In industrial ripe pu-erh, tonnes of sun-dried green tea are wetted and piled about a metre high, where moulds and bacteria heat the pile; a 2022 pile at another factory held 51.5–62.9 °C for most of a month. Every week or so the pile is broken up, wetted again and rebuilt, eight times in all. Made in 4 steps over 7 days – 10 days. The longest step, turn and re-wet (8 cycles), takes 7–10 days (Guan Y 2026) and runs at 51.5–62.9 °C (Hu M 2025). Aspergillus, Thermomyces, Rasamsonia and Blastobotrys and Bacillus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step7–10 daysReported[guan2026]Turn and re-wet (8 cycles)
Temperature51.5–62.9 °CMeasured[hu2025]Turn and re-wet (8 cycles)
AciditypH 6–7Measured[hu2025]Turn and re-wet (8 cycles)

What makes this one different

This entry is one documented factory protocol of ripe pu-erh. The pile (15 t in total across the study's two batches) is turned and re-wetted every 7–10 days, eight times, and the heat comes from moulds and bacteria, not from an added starter.

Related ferments

Safety

Pile fermentation runs hot and moist for weeks, and the late bacteria include Staphylococcus (Hu 2025). In a separate study of 16 ripe pu-erh samples, not from this factory, patulin was found in 2 (mean 915 µg/kg of dry leaf) and no ochratoxin A (Zhang et al. 2016).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Ripe pu-erh was developed in the 1970s to shorten the ageing that raw pu-erh needs; it is made like raw pu-erh with an added pile-fermentation step started by adding water (Zhang et al. 2016). Wikipedia says the wòduī process was developed in 1973 by the Kunming Tea Factory.

  1. [zhang2016] Zhang Y., Skaar I., Sulyok M., Liu X., Rao M. and Taylor J.W. 2016, The microbiome and metabolites in fermented pu-erh tea as revealed by high-throughput sequencing and quantitative multiplex metabolite analysis, PLoS ONE 11(6), e0157847paper
  2. [guan2026] Guan Y., Chen Q., Bo N. et al. 2026, Dynamic evolution of aroma characteristics in ripened Pu-erh tea during industrial fermentation, Foods 15(6):1014, doi:10.3390/foods15061014 (Xiaguan Tuocha batches, 2020)paper
  3. [hu2025] Hu M., Zhang H., Han L. et al. 2025, Integrated microbiome–metabolome analysis and functional strain validation reveal key biochemical transformations during Pu-erh tea pile fermentation, Microorganisms 13(8):1857 (30-day pile at Yunnan Shujian Tea Co., Xishuangbanna, 19 Aug–18 Sep 2022)paper
  4. [wp-pu] Wikipedia, Pu'er teawiki