What Tea to Drink After Start of Autumn? 3 Yunnan Teas for the Season

Start of Autumn has passed.

They call it "autumn," but the dog days of summer aren't over yet — the "autumn tiger" is still lurking. But there's something interesting about solar terms: the body is more honest than the calendar. When that cool breeze hits in the morning and evening, you instinctively feel it's time to switch to a warm cup of tea.

In summer, we drink white tea and raw pu'er to cool down and beat the heat. Once autumn arrives, the body's needs shift — from "clearing heat" to "warming drinking." It doesn't mean drinking scalding hot tea; it means choosing teas with a gentler nature, so as not to add coldness to a spleen and stomach already worn out from summer.

After more than 20 years in the tea business, I adjust my tea-drinking rhythm around the Start of Autumn every year. This year I've picked three Yunnan teas that I think are best suited for the seasonal transition, and I'd like to talk about why these three.

Ripe Pu'er: Warming and Nourishing — The First Cup of the Season

First up: ripe pu'er.

Ripe pu'er is pu'er tea that has undergone wet-pile fermentation, giving it a warm nature. Wet-piling sounds simple — pile the tea leaves up, let microorganisms ferment them under specific temperature and humidity conditions, keeping the pile temperature between 50–55°C for 25–45 days. But it's also complex: if the temperature is too low, fermentation is incomplete; above 65°C, the leaves suffer "core burn" and are ruined.

It's precisely because of this fermentation that ripe pu'er's nature shifts from the cooling quality of raw tea to something gentle and warm. Drinking ripe pu'er in autumn, the most immediate sensation is warmth in the stomach.

In terms of taste, good ripe pu'er brews up a deep red, translucent liquor like red wine. It goes down smoothly, with a pronounced glutinous texture and natural sweetness, almost no bitterness or astringency. Ripe pu'er that's been aged long enough develops aged aromas and date-like notes, with a steady, full-bodied weight.

For brewing, ripe pu'er is quite forgiving. Use 100°C boiling water straight away; 6–8 grams of tea in a 110ml gaiwan. Quick-rinse the first infusion and discard it; the second infusion, steep for about 10 seconds, then extend each subsequent steep. Ripe pu'er is durable — over ten infusions is no problem. Brewing in a Yixing clay teapot yields an even more mellow cup; the clay's porosity softens the liquor.

Ripe pu'er is my daily drinker on autumn mornings. I won't touch raw tea on an empty stomach, but ripe pu'er is fine — a warm cup goes down, and the stomach feels great.

Aged White Tea: Gentle and Sweet — A Flavor Earned Through Storage

Second: aged white tea.

White tea has the simplest processing — withering and drying, no fixation (shaqing), no rolling. New white tea is cooling in nature, great for clearing heat in summer. But white tea has a distinctive trait: the longer it's stored, the gentler it becomes. As the folk saying goes, "One year a tea, three years a medicine, seven years a treasure." White tea stored for three to five years or more loses much of its cold nature, and the flavor shifts from fresh and delicate to mellow, thick, and sweet.

That's why, during the seasonal transition, I recommend aged white tea rather than new white tea.

Aged white tea's liquor shifts from the pale yellow of new tea to orange-yellow or even amber. On the palate, there are pronounced date and medicinal aromas; it enters sweet and round, with a thick, silky mouthfeel. White tea aged three-plus years is better boiled than steeped — take 5–8 grams, put it in a pot with cold water, bring to a boil, then simmer on low for another 3–5 minutes. The whole room fills with date aroma.

Steeping works too, with water around 90°C, in a gaiwan or teapot. Aged white tea is much more steeping-durable than new tea; once the flavor fades from steeping, you can still toss it in a pot to boil — waste not, want not.

Our white tea from Jinggu is made from the Jinggu Dabai cultivar, a large-leaf variety. Large-leaf varieties have higher water-extractable content, producing a bolder flavor than Fujian's small-leaf white teas, and the aged tea has a thicker mouthfeel. At Songdehao, our older-vintage Jinggu white teas from 2018, 2019, and 2021 together total over 300 kilograms in stock. If you're looking to put away some aged white tea for autumn boiling, these vintages are all worth considering.

Ancient Tree Sun-Dried Black Tea: Sweet and Warming — Tenderness Borne of Sunlight

Third: ancient tree sun-dried black tea (shai hong).

Sun-dried black tea is a Yunnan-specific black tea process. Regular black tea's final step is high-temperature oven-drying; shai hong is different — it's dried in sunlight. Don't underestimate this distinction. Oven-dried black tea has a high-pitched aroma but tends toward dryness; shai hong, because of its lower drying temperature, retains more active compounds, has a softer mouthfeel, and can be stored long-term, growing more mellow with age.

Our ancient tree sun-dried black tea comes from Lincang, made from ancient tree raw material. Ancient trees have deep roots that absorb more minerals, producing tea rich in internal compounds with layered flavor.

The liquor is a bright orange-red, clear and translucent. The first impression is sweetness — not added sugar, but the tea's own natural returning sweetness (huigan). Then come floral and fruity notes, not intense but subtle, like the air on an autumn evening. The tea goes down smoothly with almost no astringency, leaving a sweet finish in the mouth and a sweet aftertaste in the throat.

For brewing shai hong, water temperature of 90–95°C is ideal; too hot and astringency emerges. Use about 5 grams in a gaiwan; first infusion, 5 seconds, then extend by 5 seconds each steep. Shai hong is also steeping-durable — sweetness lingers even after seven or eight infusions.

On an autumn afternoon, brewing a pot of shai hong with a couple of pastries is, to me, the most pleasant way to ease into the season.

A Few Things to Remember When Drinking Tea Across Seasons

A few reminders for seasonal tea drinking.

First, don't rush. Start of Autumn or not, the summer heat is still here — no need to jump straight from cooling teas to scalding ones. Start with a gentle aged white tea as a transition, then add ripe pu'er once the weather truly cools.

Second, consider your constitution. If you run cold, drink more ripe pu'er and shai hong; if you tend to run hot, aged white tea is more suitable. No single tea suits everyone — what matters most is that you feel good drinking it.

Third, don't brew too strong. The spleen and stomach are sensitive during seasonal transitions; lighter tea, in small amounts and more often, is more comfortable than slowly nursing a pot of strong tea.

Autumn is a wonderful season for tea. Not as sweltering as summer, not as cold as winter — the temperature is just right, unhurried and calm. Brew a good pot, drink it slowly, and wait for autumn to truly arrive.

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