A mild winter and cool spring has made for a beautiful early harvest of shade-grown Reserve Laoshan Green. These sweet and delicates buds and leaves are picked while still under greenhouse protection in the He Family’s ocean-facing plot at the foot of the Laoshan mountains. The early April picking is still intensely sweet and packed with deep minerality.

The green tea loose leaf classic from Laoshan, hand-picked in the He Family’s organic mist-shaded fields and packed with creamy green bean flavor. This harvest is picked in the cool autumn air after resting the plant through summer. The result is crisp, fresh flavor with more savory green bean and cream that Laoshan for which Laoshan is famous. The He family's signature green tea is fed by mountain spring water, picked by hand, and cultivated sustainably using traditional chemical-free farming techniques including growing rows of soybean between rows of tea to restore nitrates to the soil. The extreme northern climate means cold winters and short growing seasons, but the He Family perseveres, protecting their tea in greenhouses over the winter. The result is a deeply sweet and delicate green tea unlike any other in the world.

This tea is the earliest curled Laoshan Black from the He Family of 2024 - carefully crafted with hand-picked buds underneath the protection of the greenhouses, then oxidized slowly to bring out sweet, chocolatey flavor. The He Family is offering this early Laoshan Black harvest to show off the wonderful flavor that their craft in roasting and oxidizing brings to tiny budset Laoshan tea. The stored sugar and nutrients of the earliest Da Tian pickings has more sweetness and lingering aftertaste than later harvests.