Now through 9/22, we're celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival
with 10% off all of our pressed round tea cakes and dragon pearls of pu'er, black tea, white tea, and oolong.
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Shou Mei + Mandarin Peel PearlsThis new project from the Wu Family incorporates local mandarin orange citrus peel, grown wild on the hillsides around the village of Wuyangcun, with the family’s sweet, flavorful and spice-forward Shou Mei white tea before pressing both together into convenient 5g Dragon Pearls. The 2018 Shou Mei leaf material already displays depth and sweetness from aging made even more apparent blended with the mandarin peel. - 2016 Reserve Shou Mei White Tea Cake
This reserve-level white the cake from the Wu Family highlights their wild-arbor Shou Mei, carefully air-dried to lock in fresh floral aromatics after picking and then allowed to age in a carefully-controlled environment for nearly seven years before gentle steam-heating and stone-pressing. The results show off the cooling, deep, medicinal side of white tea, and evoke jujube date-filled lotus-wrapped sticky rice with a sweet sparkling aftertaste.
- 2016 Wild Arbor Shou Mei Cake
Mr. Wu selected these wild arbor leaves and buds for a special club pressing to show off the natural terroir of his family’s mountain slopes. The Wu Family has been growing tea for generations, with bushes scattered across the mountainside between groves of bamboo and evergreens. With white tea’s recent surge in popularity, the family is rediscovering groves planted generations ago left for years untended, and picking them without introducing pruning or intervention. The result is this wild arbor tea, full of deep tingling cooling aftersensation and complex rich aromatics.
- 2018 Wuyishan White Tea CakeIn an historic first, Li Xiangxi and her family have begun to cultivate Da Bai varietal in the cool, rocky, and singular terroir of their old growth fields in the Wuyishan Ecological Preserve. Using traditional sun-drying and airing techniques, the Li's have crafted their first finished white tea and pressed it into beautiful 350g cakes for aging. At a glance, it looks like a classic Shou Mei, but a tasting reveals how much the Wuyi terroir impacts the flavor of Da Bai. This tea is packed with deep minerality, balanced complex texture, and cooling foresty notes that you would not find in classic Fuding white tea. The biodiversity, soil, and water of one of the most famous tea microclimates in the world makes this a fantastic new way to experience what white tea has to offer.$58.00
- Tieguanyin Big Red Robe Mini CakeThis experimental tea uses Tieguanyin leaves, normally tightly curled, and finishes them with Wuyi-style strip-oolong processing. The tea is twisted and given a heavier roast to evoke Big Red Robe style, before being carefully steamed and pressed into 7g mini-cakes for convenient brewing, aging and transportation.. The fascinating thing about this tea is that, despite a processing style that points to Wuyi, the flavor is still one hundred percent Tieguanyin. The pull between floral-herbaceous Tieguanyin, and mineral-heavy cozy roast makes for a more dynamic tasting experience.
- 2010 Aged Tieguanyin Mini CakeThis 7g pressing from the Liu Family in Longjuan captures the depth, complexity and nuance of their early experiment aged Tieguanyin pressings in a convenient size for single session brewing. To age Tieguanyin, the Liu Family needs to reroast yearly for up to five years to control for moisture and ensure slow even change. Beyond the traditional notes of "lao tie," this pressed and aged oolong has a medicinal and cooling quality and bright foresty texture all its own.
- 2013 Aged Big Red Robe CakeOver the years, Li Xiangxi and her family have spent time exploring the deep rich complexity that aging can bring to their oolongs. For the first time ever, they are taking this oolong aging to the next level with full cake pressings, tapping into the family reserve for this 2013 Big Red Robe. This tea was aged loose and carefully hand fired over a low charcoal heat each year during the initial aging process to control moisture and bring out deep textural complexity. Finally, the tea was lightly steamed and pressed in 2018 for aging in cake form. Already, the tea is full of cooling sparkling yun and cedar forest aromatics. It will be exciting to see it continue changing over the years.$165.00
- Tieguanyin Xiao Zhong Mini Cake
This fun, experimental black tea is pressed after finishing into single-serving 7g mini-cakes. Like the Liu Family's loose leaf Tieguanyin XIao Zhong, the inspiration for this tea is Wuyi Xiao Zhong, a traditional and full-bodied black tea from Wuyishan (sometimes smoked with special pine wood). You might expect a bracing and full bodied tea, but when you taste this Tieguanyin varietal processed as a pressed black tea, you find something different. The Liu Family has created a tea that is full of juicy fruity notes, rich spice and savory undertones. The mini-cake format of this tea makes for convenient brewing, aging and transportation.
- Hand Fired Black Tea Dragon PearlsWhile the Li Family uses sun drying to bring out rich texture and spice in their sun dried black tea, they have recently started experimenting with a light roasting process, done entirely by hand over a special wood-fired wok. This brings out much sweeter flavors in the black tea. This Dragon Pearl is made with the Li Family's hand fired black tea, closer to a traditional Dian Hong than their Sun Dried Black tea, with savory notes of honey, walnut, fig and a warming hint of cinnamon and tulsi spice.
- 2021 Wild Crassicolumna Black TeaAvailable both loose leaf and in pressed 100g cakes, this new 2019 tea is picked from the early spring leaves and tender buds of the Camellia Crassicolumna tree, a close relative of the tea plant native to Qianjiazhai. Crassicolumna is naturally caffeine-free and high in antioxidants. Since Crassicolumna is native to the Qianjiazhai region, there are many examples of staggeringly old Crassicolumna trees. Mr. Li of the cooperative is actually employed by the local government as an environmental protection officer to make sure these ancient trees are protected from poaching, where outsiders would sneak in in the cover of darkness to cut the tall trees and quickly harvest their precious leaves. Mr. Li has found that the best way to protect the trees is to allow sustainable wild foraging by the people living in the protected region in exchange for their help watching over remote Crassicolumna groves. This extremely rare and labor-intensive to harvest offering is allowed to slowly sun-roast to oxidize and finished as a unique black tea with a rich fruity but wild flavor, all without the caffeine you’d see in camellia sinensis.
- 2021 Crassicolumna Yabao Black Tea
The Li Family and other members of the Dongsa Cooperative sustainably forage from towering crassicolumna trees to harvest the early spring woody buds that make this new black tea. Camellia Crassicolumna (厚轴茶) is a wild near-relative of tea native to Qianjiazhai; because this plant currently a protected species. one of the cooperative's responsibilities is to protect these trees from poaching. The incredibly-sweet. flavor-packed buds are traditionally piled and allowed to oxidize fully in the Mt. Ailao sun without heat treatment, locking in the natural flavor and aroma of the region. Crassicolumna is naturally caffeine-free and rich in antioxidants.
- 2021 Qianjiazhai Sun Dried Black Dragon Pearls
This tea is wild-foraged by the Li Family of the Dongsa Cooperative within the Mt Ailao National Forest Preserve. The silvery buds and twisting golden leaves are picked from ancient tea trees between one hundred and eight hundred years old scattered between other evergreens, and wildflowers on the rocky mountainside. This incredibly labor-intensive tea to harvest is actually allowed to sun-roast and oxidize without applying heat in a wok. Because more moisture is retained in the leaf, this black tea is a fantastic candidate for aging like traditional sheng pu’er. Only a high-elevation remote place like Qianjiazhai can count on enough sunlight in the spring for this old but rare finishing technique. The result is a tea with the sweet malt of a black tea but the staggering complexity and herbaceous undertones of a sheng pu’er. The loose Maocha is lightly steamed and then meticulously rolled and shaped one pearl at a time by Master Zhou without the use of molds or machinery to preserve the delicate complexity of the tea.
- 2022 Wild Crassicolumna Black Tea
This unique black tea is picked from the early spring leaves and tender buds of the Camellia Crassicolumna tree, a close relative of the tea plant native to Qianjiazhai. Crassicolumna is naturally caffeine-free and high in antioxidants. Since Crassicolumna is native to the Qianjiazhai region, there are many examples of staggeringly old Crassicolumna trees. Mr. Li of the cooperative is actually employed by the local government as an environmental protection officer to make sure these ancient trees are protected from poaching, where outsiders would sneak in in the cover of darkness to cut the tall trees and quickly harvest their precious leaves. Mr. Li has found that the best way to protect the trees is to allow sustainable wild foraging by the people living in the protected region in exchange for their help watching over remote Crassicolumna groves. This extremely rare and labor-intensive to harvest offering is allowed to slowly sun-roast to oxidize and finished as a unique black tea with a rich fruity but wild flavor, all without the caffeine you’d see in camellia sinensis.
- 2018 Qianjiazhai Sun Dried Black + Tea Flower Cake
The Li Family’s black tea comes from Camellia sinensis var. assamica tea plants between one hundred and several hundred years of age. Some trees are still shrubs, while others require ladders to scale for picking.
This blend of wild-picked tea is heaped in thicker piles in bamboo baskets and allowed to oxidize under the bright Yunnan sun before being turned out for drying. No roast has been applied to the black tea in this tea cake, giving it a higher natural moisture content and the potential to age like sheng pu’er, even with its oxidized and sweet black tea flavor. The addition of tea flowers brings even more sweet, sunny goodness to an already complex base, making for a darker deeper ginger molasses cookie profile, and a rewarding floral complexity.
- 2022 Wild Crassicolumna Black Tea
This unique black tea is picked from the early spring leaves and tender buds of the Camellia Crassicolumna tree, a close relative of the tea plant native to Qianjiazhai. Crassicolumna is naturally caffeine-free and high in antioxidants. Since Crassicolumna is native to the Qianjiazhai region, there are many examples of staggeringly old Crassicolumna trees. Mr. Li of the cooperative is actually employed by the local government as an environmental protection officer to make sure these ancient trees are protected from poaching, where outsiders would sneak in in the cover of darkness to cut the tall trees and quickly harvest their precious leaves. Mr. Li has found that the best way to protect the trees is to allow sustainable wild foraging by the people living in the protected region in exchange for their help watching over remote Crassicolumna groves. This extremely rare and labor-intensive to harvest offering is allowed to slowly sun-roast to oxidize and finished as a unique black tea with a rich fruity but wild flavor, all without the caffeine you’d see in camellia sinensis.