Verdant Tea

"Praised by emperors
and immortalized in poetry across the ages,
the Wuyishan Ecological Preserve is the cultural epicenter of tea.

My family has been tending to wild bushes and farming old tea trees within the preserve for generations.

Living in a place of such natural beauty, we have come to seek balance in our agriculture and balance in our tea. We preserve the natural forest cover, we use beyond-organic methods, and we finish our teas by hand in small batches - all to honor the gift of the place we call home.

I invite you to take the time to taste in our tea the deep complexity, rich texture, and intense aromatics that define the true heritage of the Wuyishan Ecological Preserve."

 

- Li Xiangxi 李享熹

Our Most Popular Teas

Tasting Wuyishan with the Li Family Collection

This bundle includes six 25g bags of Wuyi tea for 150g total (30 sessions). Wuyishan is one of the most famous tea growing regions in the world, and true hand-crafted tea from within the Wuyi Ecological Preserve[...]

$51.00 $46.08

Wuyi Oolong Tasting Kit

This bundle includes 25g each of five different Wuyi teas for 125g total (25 sessions). Wuyishan is perhaps the most famous tea growing region in the world, and our partner Li Xiangxi and her family cultivate their award-winning oolongs[...]

$40.00 $36.00

Wuyi "Si Da Ming Cong" Definitive Oolong Tasting Kit

This bundle includes 25g each of four different Wuyi oolong teas for 100g total (20 sessions). This kit is a rare opportunity to try all four of the Wuyi tea varietals recognized as the 武夷四大名枞, the Wuyi Si Da Ming Cong[...]

$49.50 $44.55

Our Home: Tongmu, Wuyishan

tea plants grow on the slopes above our family home in Tongmu
our bamboo aqueducts bring spring water to tea plants and our family home

 

  • ● the most famous tea region in the world

  • wildly propagated tea bushes grow out of volcanic rock

  • biodiversity strictly preserved by National Park designation

  • established old-tree tea rootstock

  • rocky soil and sweet mountain springs for intensely textural teas

  • wild foraged and hand picked tea accessible only by family and local Tongmu natives

Our Family

 

Li Xiangxi, her brother, and her cousin work together as a team to manage the family’s wild-preserve teas in Tongmu & old growth varietal oolongs along the Longchuan river.

Li Xiangxi is an ordained Taoist priest, and founded the Yangxian Academy to teach Taoist tea ceremony as well as a philosophy of tasting and growing tea that is in harmony with nature.

While many investor-backed farmers ignored environmental laws in the early 2000’s, tearing out native trees to plant more tea, Li Xiangxi worked with her brother and cousin to reduce the family’s footprint when she inherited the land, encouraging rich wildlife and biodiversity. This effort has made her family pioneers in sustainable farming and local champions as the whole region becomes more mindful of its future and responsibility as the most famous growing region in the world.

Li Xiangxi and her family’s harvests amy be smaller, but their care in agriculture and their meticulous hand-finishing process have won them awards and inspired change throughout the region.

Li Xiangxi and her cousin work with wild foraged leaves at the family home in Tongmu
Mr. Li in the family's Old Tree Shui Xian grove

Our Teas and Craft

traditionally firing Wuyi oolong tea
tiny buds growing untended in Tongmu

We believe that tea should be part of daily ritual.

We finish each leaf with the care that it takes to create tea with lingering aromatics, intense aftertaste, rich engaging texture, and the elusive yun, or after-sensation.

We delicately tease out the aromatics through an 18 hour fluffing and turning processso demanding that our family can’t take the time to sleep when tea is being finished. We devote ourselves fully to the process and see it all the way through.

When our teas' aromatics are just right we lock them in with another 16 hour hand firing, a nearly lost art that we are working to maintain to bring out texture and yunin every leaf. After the initial firing, we rest our teas at least a month and often re-fire up to five time for the perfect balance.

Our dedication wins us gold medals annually at Wuyi tasting competitions, but more importantly, it honors the gift of tea that this incredible region gives us.

Hear our vision for tea

We aren’t in this business for money. We share tea as a connection to nature and as a cultural bridge. We work with importer Verdant Teabecause of years of friendship and deep shared values. We invite you to explore just a handful of videosfrom our time together.

If you are buying tea from one of the most famous regions in the world, video sharing the voices of the growers should be one of the most basic minimums from any importer.

Learn even more!

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