Pu'er tea is compressed into all sorts of shapes, and its appearance is different from all other kinds of Chinese loose tea. This is actually because in the age when roads were crude, passing from Yunnan to Tibet required traveling uphill for two or three months. Therefore, they compressed the tea to reduce its volume and facilitate transport.
而普洱茶之所以要緊壓製成各種形狀，和中國其他茶種的「散茶」形態不同，正是因為在交通不發達的年代，從雲南到康藏，往往要走上二、三個月，壓緊後的茶葉體積縮小，利於運輸。