Verdant Tea

Qianjiazhai Gong Ting Shu + Tea Flower Cake

Qianjiazhai Gong Ting Shu + Tea Flower Cake

$17.50
(100g cake)
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Fine wild pu’er pressed
and aged with tea flowers
Beautiful aromatic tea flowers give the Dongsa Cooperative’s singular Gong Ting Shu even more depth and complexity. Notes of rosewood, rye, nutmeg and elderberry.
Spring 2014/Aug 2020 ♦ Mt. Ailao, Yunnan
Fine wild pu’er pressed
and aged with tea flowers
Beautiful aromatic tea flowers give the Dongsa Cooperative’s singular Gong Ting Shu even more depth and complexity. Notes of rosewood, rye, nutmeg and elderberry.
Spring 2014/Aug 2020 ♦ Mt. Ailao, Yunnan
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Crafted by the Dongsa Cooperative

True zero-intervention wild tea, foraged from ancient tea forests in one of the most remote tea growing regions in the world.
 
The Dongsa Cooperative was founded to promote responsible stewardship of these tea forests and pass on old-school pu’er hand-crafting techniques that yield incredibly complex tea.
    • DATE OF PICKINGspring 2014 / August 2022
    • QianjiazhaiMt. Ailao, Yunnan
    • ELEVATION2140 m
    • Qianjiazhai AssamicaTea Varietal

    Qianjiazhai Gong Ting Shu Pu'er is still a very new practice, made only by one of Master Zhou's students in the cooperative. Using the giant buds of QIanjiazhai's wild trees between 100 and three hundred years of age, this tea is carefully and slowly pile fermented to bring out a deep rich sweetness.

    This new blend of 2014 gong ting shu pu'er and Autumn 2022 tea flowers was pressed in the cooperative's small 100g cake stone mold. This is the first time Master Zhou has pressed tea flowers with Gong Ting Shu in a cake, and the result is a beautiful visual contrast. The floral boost to the textural complexity and nuance of this budset shu pu’er is a welcome addition. The clean natural fermentation preserves the herbaceousness of the tea, and the florals bring it out even further.

  • true
    40
    Lotus, honey, Rosewood
    true
    80
    Buckwheat, rye
    true
    60
    Cedar, minerality, nutmeg
    true
    50
    elderberry

    Tasting Profile

    • floral - Lotus, honey, Rosewood
    • savory - Buckwheat, rye
    • savory - Cedar, minerality, nutmeg
    • spice - elderberry


the Dongsa Cooperative also recommends:

  1. 2014 Shu Pu'er Nuggets
    2014 Shu Pu'er Nuggets
    This tea is a new experiment from one of Master Zhou's former students, another member of the cooperative. Qianjiazhai one hundred to three hundred year wild-picked leaves and buds are pile-fermented until they clump together in tight balls in the heat. The balls ferment and age differently than loose tea and yield a rich vanilla-heavy flavor that is impossible to steep out.
  2. 2020 Single Tree Sheng
    2020 Single Tree Sheng

    Qianjiazhai is home to some of the oldest tea trees in the world. Once again, we are extremely lucky in 2020 that we will be able to offer a single-tree harvest from the oldest tree on the Li Family’s high elevation plot, estimated to 1300 years based on its trunk diameter. Located at 24°16'13.6"N and 101°12'19.6"E, this single tree needs to be carefully climbed to sustainably harvest about ten kilograms of leaf per year. Growing out of a rocky mountainside, and surrounded by a biodiverse wild growth of evergreens, tulsi plants and flowers, this tree benefits from cool misty air, and mineral-rich soil. It takes three people with linked arms to circle the trunk! The deep roots and thousand plus years of fighting for survival give this tea an incredible complexity full of yun cooling sensation and aloeswood incense undertones. The Li Family works with Master Zhou to dry this tea in bamboo baskets in the sun, and hand finish the maocha for traditional stone pressing. Even within a microclimate like Qianjiazhai, each mountaintop and valley has its own unique qualities, and the cooperative selected this tree as worthwhile to finish separate from their blended cakes to show off the stunning terroir and the complexity that is possible with ancient tree stock. Set aside a few cakes for aging and the yun cooling and tingling qualities continue to develop over the years. We’ve been following this tree for six years now and have been blown away with the development we see in cellaring. available in 2020 year in 100g tea cakes and 250g pressings

  3. 2021 Wild Crassicolumna Sheng
    2021 Wild Crassicolumna Sheng

    This tea is sustainably wild-foraged from ancient Camellia Crassicolumna (厚轴茶) tree, a close relative of tea native to Qianjiazhai. This year's tea is available both loose and in 100g cake pressings. Crassicolumna is naturally caffeine-free and rich in antioxidants. The giant leaves and buds picked from this wild-growing tree stock are allowed to gently sun dry without any heat processing to keep the most natural flavor. Wild crassicolumna trees can be anywhere between several hundred and over a thousand years old, and are incredibly tall and difficult to climb to harvest these precious leaves, but the rich nuanced flavor and lingering aftertaste is worth the effort. Master Zhou pressed the leaf material from part of this years harvest into 100g cakes and 205g Xiao Jin Gua perfect for aging and long term storage.

  • 'Mr. Deng got in touch with old classmates and raised enough money to build his own workshop, inviting friends and neighbors from his home town to pick tea when they weren’t picking walnuts. He passes on his knowledge and offers a generous price to anyone who can help him pick tea, remembering his own hardship as he got started as a wild forager. He officially joined the Dongsa Farmer’s Cooperative five years ago, and his craftsmanship has been getting better every year under Mr. Zhou’s watchful eye'

  • 4
    6-8
    208
    20 seconds
    10
    5
    6
    208
    6 seconds
    3
    4
    12
    room temp
    8 hours

    Steeping Instructions

    Western

    4 g.6-8
    oz.
    use 208° watersteep 20 secondsresteep many times
    add 10 sec. each infusion

    Gongfu

    5 g.6 ozuse 208° watersteep 6 seconds
    add 3 sec. per steeping
    enjoy many steepings

    Iced/Cold

    4 g.12
    oz.
    use room temp. waterrefrigerate overnight
    8 hours
    add ice & enjoy

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