JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser.
* BLACK FRIDAY **EARLY SAVINGS*save 20% ontea sets + tasting kits
Ends 11/27 >>
*SHOP SMALL*20% off + Tea Cash Gifts
Holiday Gift Guide >>
*CYBER MONDAY*is Pu'er Monday!
TODAY ONLY >>
Free Shipping
for USA orders $45+
This bundle includes fsix 25g bags of oolong tea for 150g total (30 sessions). Zhang Rongde has devoted his life to creating a sustainable biodiverse future for Daping Village, travelling the world to study with master of every tea region and returning to Daping with a vision to bring Tieguanyin and other local varietals to a new level. His tea fields benefit from sweet mountain spring water, ample natural forest cover, rich wildlife and perpetual high mountain mist protecting delicate leaves from the sun.
This collection has been put together as the ultimate introduction to Master Zhang’s craft and the natural beauty of tea from the Daping microclimate. You’ll be able to taste Master Zhang’s award-winning and standard-setting Tieguanyin, as well as unusual cultivars and experimental new finishing styles like Original Wulong Revival, researched from ancient techniques. While Master Zhang brings out different aromatics in every tiny hand-finished batch, this collection will give you a full sense of the regions deep sweet minerality, thick intense backbone, and lingering sweetness.
This bundle includes five 25g bags of aged oolong tea for 125g total (25 sessions). Master Zhang Rongde has been making oolongs for over fifty years. Over the course of his career he has championed sustainable farming, taught finishing techniques to all of Daping Village, and researched ancient and nearly lost fishing techniques. He has also set aside some of his favorite harvests over the years for long term aging- taking out these precious Tieguanyin reserves and re-roasting them yearly to meticulously control for moisture.
This tasting kit is a chance to truly taste Zhang Rongde’s life work- Tieguanyin aged from the mid 80's all the way through the early 2000’s. His oldest teas have picked up deep complex cooling herbaceous complexity and deep sweet aftertaste. Taste them back to back to see how extra years transform Tieguanyin- and to see how Master Zhang has preserved their deep aromatic floral core through over 30 years. Thanks to a long friendship and partnership with Master Zhang Rongde, he continues to open his precious reserves to us so that he can share true Tieguanyin with the world.
Expect deep, complex, evocative oolongs that are profoundly settling, with long aftertastes and powerful aromas.
This bundle includes five 25g bags of Anxi oolong tea for 125g total (25 sessions). With one of the highest elevation, most pristine perfectly-situated plots for Tieguanyin in the world, it would make perfect sense for Master Zhang to devote every inch of land to this famous and in-demand varietal. Yet, Master Zhang does the opposite. Over the last decade, he has reclaimed the majority of his Daping mountainside for bamboo, evergreens and wildflowers. The precious rocky terraces he has left, carved into steep hills, he devotes not just to the famous Tieguanyin, but to dozens of rare, unknown varietals.
Master Zhang fosters these tiny groves of rare tea to preserve biodiversity and have a local “seed bank” of sorts, allowing hearty individual tea bushes to grow and thrive in Daping so that other farmers and colleagues could grow new plants from cuttings, and study the way their famous terroir changes with each varietal.
The benefit for all of us is getting to dive deep and experience rare out there flavors, textures and aromas- all unique expressions of Master Zhang’s craft and terroir. Every tea in this kit expresses the "core" sweet minerality of Daping, but from unique and incredible perspectives not often tasted in a region so dedicated to Tieguanyin.
This bundle includes five 25g bags of oolong tea for 125g total (25 sessions). This special tea sampler highlights Master Zhang’s work to bring back an ancient oolong finishing technique- the Revival Style. This technique comes from years of research, travel and cultural exchange with other oolong communities, and extensive interviews tapping into the oral tradition to uncover the way that oolong was finished long before the modern rolled style that Tieguanyin is famous for. In this kit, you’ll get to explore light roast, dark roast, aged, and varietal comparisons to see how the Revival Style bring oolong to life with deeper aromatics and more powerful texture and aftertaste, all while connecting with a rich tradition of craft that nearly died out over the last few hundred years. The Revival Style takes more than twice as long to make as classic Tieguanyin thanks to the extended yaoqing process of turning and fluffing the leaves and the fact that so much has to be done entirely by hand, but the results are stunning- a half-twisted half-rolled style that Master Zhang describes as a Dragonfly shape.
Master Zhang takes his Special Grade designation seriously. In order for a batch to be set aside as Special Grade, it has to meet an incredibly high standard of sweetness, a long lingering aftertaste, and thick balanced texture and evocative aroma. It takes the perfect combination of high elevation rocky soil, cool stand-out weather during the growing season and on the picking and finishing days. In the autumn it is even rarer to get these perfect windows, so we are excited to be sharing this harvest for teh first time. This extremely limited special grade Tieguanyin was hand-picked and hand finished over an exhaustive day and a half fluffing and turning process to bring out deep intense florals and creamy texture. The true flavor of the Tieguanyin varietal is preserved with Master Zhang’s expert green finish.
Master Zhang’s reserve designation is an almost impossible standard, requiring the perfect combination of high elevation rocky soil, cool stand-out weather during the growing season and on the picking and finishing days. Some years Master Zhang doesn’t designate a reserve or special grade for certain teas. It all depends on the final tea, which needs to satisfy a certain level of sweetness, a long lingering aftertaste, and thick balanced texture and evocative aroma. This reserve designation Rou Gui was hand finished using a very old, traditional technique that Master Zhang has been researching that involves three times the usual turning and fluffing and a difficult half-rolled half-twisted shape. The result is a textural sensation with a deep intensity.
This is Master Zhang's absolute highest designation competition-level Tieguanyin, a rare allocation that we are pleased to offer for the first time ever. Most years Master Zhang is unable to set aside a traditional-finish Special Grade, as it requires a perfect alignment of weather, deep-rooted old-growth tea bushes, and perfect craft. Any special Grade designation from Master Zhang must meet his serious standards in terms of having the longest aftertaste, tingling, electrical after-sensation, juicy, mouth-watering sweetness and enveloping aromatics. When a picking is a candidate for meeting these standards it is set aside for full traditional hand-finishing, and even when completed, is only called Special Grade if the result warrants this rare label.
"Ming Hua Xiang" literally describes tea flower aroma – the scent of camellia sinensis in bloom! The tea flowers blossoming around Daping village are an incredible and potent aroma, perfuming the fields in early autumn. Tieguanyin varietal has a unique marigold and honey aroma, and a dark floral quality. Master Zhang’s careful processing brings out a soothing savory sweetness, accented with rich lingering spice and warm florals.
Master Zhang has worked for over four decades continuing his family's craft growing true Tieguanyin varietal tea high above Daping village in Anxi. He is working to bring back the original habitat of the region by clearing mountainsides and planting trees, bringing back wildlife and biodiversity, for better tea and a better future. He has won awards across China and has been recognized as one of the leading teachers and craftsman in Anxi for his unique approach to grading teas and processing for flavor. Instead of grading solely by elevation or tree age, Master Zhang holds the "Reserve" designation for the few teas that meet his strict criteria of lingering intensive aftertaste, pervasive sweetness, and thick creamy body. This means that only the leaves whose weather, position in the field and processing come together perfectly can be offered as Master Zhang's reserve. This reserve grade Tieguanyin was hand-picked and hand finished with an exhaustive fluffing and turning process to bring out deep intense aromatics and creamy texture.
Daping is the birthplace of the Maoxie (Hairy Crab) varietal, and the village is proud of its heritage. Master Zhang is one of Daping's foremost craftsman of traditional Anxi oolong processing, and as it is his favorite way to finish his oolong teas, it only makes sense to show off the subtle and more savory finish of traditional roasting on this varietal. The darker traditional finish brings out unique sweetness that are hidden in a greener finish.
Ruan Zhi or "Soft Stem" is sometimes better known as "Qing Xin" varietal, used in Taiwan to produce Dong Ding and Baozhong and in Thailand for Doi Mai Salong. The traditional processing truly emphasizes the connection between Anxi and Taiwan tea craft. Any Taiwanese tea afficionado will be impressed by the intense bready sweet notes and deep florals this Anxi Ruan Zhi offers.
Complex and sweet with notes of sumac, cinnamon, and almond nougat - the new autumn harvest is here!
Master Zhang cultivates this almost unheard-of varietal as part of his commitment to achieving the rich biodiversity in his tea fields, all while maintaining zero-impact agriculture for his Original Ecological Preserve designation. Liao Mian Ji is a unique cultivar, full of deep dessert-like caramel undertones and rich nutmeg and spice. Master Zhang’s slow, full roast brings out even more sweetness in the aftertaste.
Mao Xie, or Hairy Crab, is the native cultivar to Daping. The village is extremely proud to be a birthplace of Maoxie varietal, and Master Zhang is excited to share this tea. Grown without pesticides and nourished with natural canola flowers for fertilizer, this tea is uniquely savory and creamy in a way that Tieguanyin cannot be. By growing Mao Xie alongside Tieguanyin, Qilan, Rou Gui and other varietals, Master Zhang can achieve a more biodiverse tea garden yielding healthier plants and better flavor quality.
This beautiful experimental tea from Master Zhang brings together the deep complexity and lingering aftertaste of his full day turning and fluffing process required for Revival style, and the luscious sweet floral aromatics of autumn Ben Shan varietal. Master Zhang’s Ben Shan bushes were planted by his grandparents on some of the highest slopes of the family’s mountain plot above Daping Village. Their deep roots take in water from a sweet mountain spring running under the rocky soil, bringing big texture and lingering sweetness to compliment the intensive finishing. The “dragonfly” shape unfolds beautifully in a gaiwan over many steepings.
Master Zhang is a true innovator. He doesn’t make tea to follow trends. He experiments and takes risks to make tea better for the generations to come. This Original Wulong Revival uses the older Ben Shan varietal leaf and undergoes three times more careful hand turning and fluffing than modern Anxi oolong. For finishing, it is loosely rolled in the oldest style of oolong making that is half strip style and half ball, with many of the leaves more strip-style than rolled. Master Zhang describes the shape as a dragonfly. This hand processing and shaping yields a different tea - a genre of its own outside of Wuyi style, Guangdong style or Anxi style. The light roast is rewarding and brings out a unique savory sweet complexity we don’t see in other teas from Master Zhang.
Master Zhang brings a new perspective to this beloved varietal with his meticulous and delicate multi-day dark roast process. Ruan Zhi or “Soft Stem” is sometimes better known as "Qing Xin" varietal, used in Taiwan to produce Dong Ding and Baozhong and in Thailand for Doi Mai Salong. While Taiwanese Ruan Zhi tends towards creamy or nutty, Master Zhang’s Daping Village Ruan Zhi is taut and almost crystalline with deep cooling yun sensation, smoldering spice in the aftertaste and beautiful Anxi florals. The dark roast keeps every element in perfect balance.
Mao Xie, or Hairy Crab, is a native varietal to Daping. The village is extremely proud to be a birthplace of Maoxie varietal, and Master Zhang is excited to share this tea. Grown without pesticides and nourished with natural canola flowers for fertilizer, this tea is uniquely savory and creamy in a way that Tieguanyin cannot be. By growing Mao Xie alongside Tieguanyin, Qilan, Rou Gui and other varietals, Master Zhang can achieve a more biodiverse tea garden yielding healthier plants and more complex flavor. Master Zhang finishes this Mao Xie with a meticulous fifteen hour turning and fluffing process which brings out the buttery flavors of the varietal with very light, "modern" green finish.
Rou Gui is better known as a roasted oolong from Wuyi, famous in Wuyi for its intense and aromatic cinnamon flavor. Master Zhang's Rou Gui varietal bushes grow among Tieguanyin fields and wildflowers, and benefit from sweet mountain spring water. Master Zhang's dark roast on this autumn harvest rolled Anxi Rou Gui brings out not just rich cinnamon spice, but also dessert-like complexity and a beautifully floral lingering aftertaste.
Rou Gui is better known as a roasted oolong from Wuyi, famous in Wuyi for its intense and aromatic cinnamon flavor. Master Zhang's Rou Gui varietal bushes grow among Tieguanyin fields and wildflowers, and benefit from sweet mountain spring water. Master Zhang's careful finish on this unique rolled Anxi Rou Gui brings out not just rich cinnamon spice, but also dessert-like complexity and aftertaste.
Save 15% on aged oolong from Master Zhang Rongdenow through 4-15 with code WELLAGED
save thru 04-15WELLAGED
Original Wulong Revival is the result of years of research by Master Zhang on ancient oolong finishing techniques, a style between rolled Tieguanyin and fluffier Wuyi oolong. The unique finish gives this 2003 harvest aged tea a striking deep foresty flavor and sweet sparkling texture. While this tea was roasted every year for many years to control moisture and dial in the aging process, the tea is not deeply toasty. instead it expresses natural complexity in the same way an aged pu'er does.
This 1995 aged Tieguanyin varietal harvest already has nearly thirty years of aging. Master Zhang’s terraced fields are overgrown with wildflowers, and fed by naturally sweet and clear mountain spring water. The natural complexity of his tea makes it a perfect candidate for careful aging, which involves yearly re-roasting and sealed storage. The result is a classic rich dark profile that brings out the rich fruity creamy notes in Tieguanyin.
Many of Master Zhang's oldest tea plants are 'se zhong' varietals, teas other than Tieguanyin that flourish in Anxi. Master Zhang's grandparents and forebears planted Ben Shan, Mao Xie, and other sezhong varietals on their high mountain peak above Daping decades ago. Master Zhang picked these leaves in 1985, carefully re-roasting this mixed se zhong harvest every year for almost ten years. The tea was allowed the tea to rest for another twenty years before this beautiful cache was released The deep, dark mineral notes and fruity sweetness of se zhong oolong become alluringly foresty, a great example of "yun" - the physical sensation of the tea in the throat and the lingering cooling electric aftertaste and texture that fine teas create. The longer this tea steeps, the more intense woody and cooling qualities it reveals.