Talk:Puerh

Terminology: Ripe or ripened vs. cooked vs. black vs. shu vs. shou

there is no "ripening" involved in producing shu pu'er anymore than there is "cooking". It's a composting process. However, composting produces heat, so my vote is for "cooked". "Ripe" also implies "ready after proper aging" which is also untrue of shu pu'er. In any case where we use Chinese, we should use shu, which is standard Putonghua, rather than shou, the Taiwanese-accented variant.

I've erased the line:

 The term may come about due to inaccurate transliteration due to the dual meaning of "shú" (熟) as both "fully cooked" and "fully ripened" .

Because it's speculative and inaccurate. Shu implies changing the raw nature of one thing into something changed by a process, either by cooking or ripening or some other process. Just like we speak of the lime/lemon juice in ceviche "cooking" raw seafood, there is no cooking process done but the term is used nonetheless.

--Bearsbearsbears 22:44, 5 February 2008 (EST)