Why is it called Pu'er?

Pu'er 普洱 was a tea-trading city in Yunnan
This city was renamed to Ning'er Town (宁洱镇).
The Pu'er County was renamed to Simao County in the 50s after Communists took power.
Then, Simao county became large enough to become a prefecture, which was renamed Pu'er prefecture.
Sometimes these things just come back around. ↻

Okay, but I see both Pu'er & Pu-erh. What's right?

Pu'er is the Pinyin for 普洱 in Mandarin.
In the older Wade-Giles romanization system, it's written as p‘u-êrh. This is then simplified as Pu-erh.
This is like writing Peking instead of Beijing though, it's still the same pronunciation.
In Hong Kong, people sometimes read 普洱 as Bo-Lei.

What's Hei-Cha vs Pu'er?

History

Antique era - more blended, including older maocha. Pre-revolution. 50s-60s. Often iron-pressed to last longer. Ex: famous red mark from Chaguan still has flavor despite age.

Factory teas - post revolution, 70s-2000s.

2008 big crash in Chinese puerh - teas were worse after then. Puerh got super popular.
Only in the past 15 years or so have people started drinking younger sheng.

Sheng Tai 生态 can be considered “organic”. more literally it can mean ecological. Beto calls it a clean environment. It’s always yellow. Can age very well.

Mangjing is a common source for Puerh.