Pu-erh tea substitutes

Other post-fermented teas made by the same kind of process. These are the only true like-for-like substitutes for pu-erh.

Best for

drinking, tea eggs and soy braises, cutting through fatty pork or duck, long simmering and repeated infusions

Very close. Liu bao is slightly sweeter and more betel-and-wood, and pu-erh is more damp-earth and mushroom. Both brew the same deep mahogany and both share pu-erh's ability to be boiled without turning bitter. If you buy a compressed brick or cake, break off pieces with a knife rather than snapping the whole thing, and rinse the leaves briefly with hot water before brewing.

Assam, Keemun or any robust black tea, given the earthy dimension it lacks by simmering it with a mushroom or with chenpi, dried tangerine peel, which is a traditional pu-erh partner anyway.

Best for

tea eggs and tea-braised pork or beef, marinades and brines, poaching and stewing liquids, dark colour in a cake or a syrup

The best practical answer in a normal kitchen. Plain black tea alone is maltier and much more tannic, so a braise made with it tastes brisker and slightly drying; the shiitake supplies the savoury earthy depth and the tangerine peel supplies pu-erh's faint bitter citrus edge. Pull the tea out after ten minutes if the dish simmers longer, since black tea keeps getting more bitter and pu-erh does not.

Heavily fired oolong, which carries mineral, roasted and woody notes that overlap with ripe pu-erh's mellow end.

Best for

drinking after a rich meal, braises and glazes, smoked or roasted meat dishes, desserts, where pu-erh is usually too earthy

Roasted, nutty and mineral instead of damp-earthy, so a cup tastes cleaner and more toasted, with none of pu-erh's forest-floor character, which some people will consider an improvement. It brews a lighter amber, so a dish relying on pu-erh for deep colour, such as tea eggs, will come out noticeably paler.

White tea that has been stored for years, which turns date-like, honeyed and woody and can be simmered the way pu-erh can.

Best for

drinking, especially in place of a gentle aged pu-erh, hot spiced drinks, poaching dried fruit

Sweet, dried-fruit and herbal-medicinal rather than earthy, and much lighter in colour and body. It shares the important practical trait of tolerating a long boil without bitterness, so it works in a slow-cooked syrup or a hot pot of spiced tea, but it will not give a braise the dark savoury backbone that pu-erh does.

Japanese green tea roasted brown, low in caffeine and completely without astringency.

Best for

an easy-drinking substitute for evening pu-erh, lower caffeine, desserts and lattes

Toasty and caramel-like rather than earthy and fermented, much lighter in body, and far less caffeinated, so it makes a pleasant cup that tastes nothing like pu-erh but occupies the same warm, comforting, no-bitterness space. Good where you wanted the ritual and the roastiness rather than the funk.

A strong Chinese green such as a Yunnan sun-dried green or a gunpowder, which is close to what young raw pu-erh actually is before age changes it.

Best for

recipes or a cup calling for young sheng pu-erh, bitter, bracing tea drinking, cutting through oily food

Young sheng is astringent, floral, smoky and a bit bitter, much closer to green tea than to the dark shou pu-erh most people picture, so a green tea is the sensible swap here and a shou pu-erh would be quite wrong. Expect slightly less of the apricot-and-camphor character that makes sheng distinctive.