Liu Bao can naturally taste earthy, woody, mushroom-like, medicinal, or reminiscent of forest floor, but a clean earthy character is very different from a stale, moldy, sour, or rotten mustiness caused by poor processing or storage.
Liu Bao tea is made through a multi-stage process involving tea-leaf preparation, fixation, rolling, drying, refining, steaming, controlled moisture and fermentation for applicable styles, shaping or compression, and subsequent maturation; the exact process varies considerably between traditional and modern Liu Bao.
The difference between raw and ripe Liu Bao is primarily the degree and method of post-fermentation the tea has undergone before reaching the drinker, but “raw” and “ripe” Liu Bao are not as standardized a binary classification as sheng and shou Pu-erh.
Liu Bao tea is a Guangxi dark tea (heicha) traditionally associated with Wuzhou and Liubao, while Pu-erh is a Yunnan tea category with its own raw-material, geographical, and processing traditions; although aged Liu Bao and ripe Pu-erh can taste remarkably similar, they are not the same tea.
