Details on Arbor Pu'er tea

Upfront- disclaimer, copied verbatim from printed text.
An interesting read, but requires an attentive mind. (with an interest in Pu'er)
Original Chinese text and link included (fortunately a cut and paste)

Analysis on the Quality & Characteristics of Arbor Pu’er Tea.
By: Cao Fanrong, department of Tea Sciences of South China Agriculture University.

Currently we often see “arbor” and “hundred year-old arbor” Pu-er Tea on the market, but what is arbor Pu-er Tea? What is its advantage of its qualitative characteristics? Aiming at these issues, we hereby make a brief analysis in the following.
According to the branch habit of tea trees we usually divide them into three types, namely arbor, semi-arbor (subarbor) and shrub.
The arbor te tree is usually high plant with straight posture, monopodial branches, clear trunk, main and side branches, as well as long distance from branch to the ground: The big wild tea trees discovered in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan are usually over 10m in height with the diameter of the main trunk wich can be closed up by two people.
In recent decades, may ancient big wild tea trees were continuously discovered in southwest China. In 1961, a big wild tea tree with a height of 32.12m and a tree round of 2.9m in the dense forests on Dahei Mountain in Yunnan Province (at 1,500m above sea level), which exists individually and ages at around 1,700 years old. In 1996, a wild tea tree with a height of 25.5m, bottom diameter of 1.20m and an age of around 2,700 years was discovered in virgin forests of Qianjiazhai, Jiujia Village, Zhenyuan County, Simao Region, Tunnan Province, which is the oldest wild tee tree in the world. Also there are the thousand-year-old wild tea tree in Lancan County, Yunnan Province, the two wild tea trees on Kunlu Mountain and Banshan Mountain in Pu-er County, wild tea trees with diameters above 30cm dotted everywhere in forests, more than 10 tea trees with diameters above 1m in Yunnan, and some wild tea tree groups in certain areas.
According to the incomplete statistics, wild tea tree have been found in 198 places across 10 provinces. In the world, China is the country where wild trees were first found, whose tree bodies are the biggest, quantity is the largest, distribution is the widest.
According to the evolutive rules of tea trees, the arbor tee tree with high crown belongs to original type. Subarbor tea tree has medium plant with clear main caulis and short distance from branch to the ground: shrub tea tree has short plant without no clear main trunk and with branches from the position near to the ground and from the root.
According to the evolutive law of the trees, shrub tea trees with small crowns belong to relatively evolved type. Therefore, in northern tea production area, most tea trees belong to subarbor and shrub types, which are most cultivated at present.
Poly-phenol substances are closely related to the color, taste and scent of tea, its strong stimulation and convergence play a decisive role to the thickness and intensity of the tea taste, amino acid is the main substance ensbling refreshing and smooth taste of tea; Sugar is the important substance enabling the sweet taste of tea: Theine tastes bitter and water soluble pectin is of viscosity.
The key process creating the unique qualitative characteristics of Pu’er tea is pile-fermentation, which substantially fulfills a series of reactions, in the actions of enzyme, heat and humidity, namely oxidation and contraction of tea polyphenol, decomposition and degradation of protein and amino acid, decomposition of carbonhydrate, as well as aggregation and contraction of all productions, then generate more complicated biochemical reaction process of compounds benefical to the tea quality, stimulating the transformation of olive, fresh, scented and strong-tasted dried green tea into brown, scented and mellow Pu’er tea.
However, in the process of pile-fermentation, the oxidation of polyphenol, decomposition and degradation of protein and amino acid are profound, polyphenol forms secondary substances as thearubigins, thearubigins and some theaflavins after ageing and oxidation, which are substances creating mellow taste, but ploythenol is lost by large, which reduces its thickness and fragrance.
Therefore, the more the polythenol in the dried green tea before ageing and oxidation, the more mellow taste and dense scent the Pu’er tea maintains, the better the quality. Otherwise, the Pu’er tea may be of light taste, less scent and inferior quality for the decrease of inclusive substances.
Arbor tea trees usually have olive, big, smooth and shining leaves with gradually extended leaf apexes, the palisade tissues of leave flesh consists of one layer of cells. Therefore arbor tea trees often have delicate treetops and strong trunks with long nodes, big buds and abundant substances, as well as more polythenol key to the intensity of the tea taste, higher content of theine, especially higher content of simple catecholase. Therefore, it has lower content of polythenol if being processed into dried green tea, and has lighter taste, less scent and inferior quality if being into Pu’er tea after ageing and oxidation.