This spring harvest pre-Qing Ming white tea is traditionally scented and made with Da Bai varietal white tea. This white tea is not sprayed with artificial oils or aromas. Instead, it is dried together with fresh jasmine blossoms scattered among the buds, allowing the natural aroma of the jasmine to absorb over several days into the tea itself. The process of adding fresh wild Yunnan jasmine blossoms is repeated six times over six days to get a full rich and creamy infusion that holds its intense sweetness and natural potency over many steepings. The creamy dessert-like Yunnan silver needle white tea is the perfect delicate pairing with Lincang's local luscious jasmine.
This spring harvest Yunnan black tea gets its name to honor the soft, rich textural experience of tasting this beautiful small harvest tea. Golden Fleece is hand picked from wild growth (unmanaged) Yunnan Da Bai tea bushes over forty years old. The biodiversity of the growing region and deeper roots mean a more complex flavor and aroma. Only the most perfect large tender buds are hand-harvested, and carefully hand-finished. The down from the buds infuses into every cup, yielding a uniquely thick mouthfeel. This year's harvest is full and complex with cooling cedar, and spiced nutmeg and cinnamon undertones to bolster the luxurious creamy base.
This unique buddy black tea offering from Wang Yanxin is only possible because of her deep connections in both Henan and Laoshan. Her farmer friends produce extremely tiny bud Xinyang Maojian, a fine downy showstopper of a green tea. The second picking of the year is still all delicate downy buds, but tradition dictates only the first harvest is used for Henan's iconic buddy green tea. Wang Yanxin works to rush-ship fresh tea leaves the day they are picked from Henan all the way up to Laoshan Village, where they are allowed to traditionally oxidize in the sun to make a black tea, and then finished using Laoshan's extremely honed-in roasting and finishing techniques to combine the buddy steamed bun texture of Jin Jun Mei with the chocolatey goodness of Laoshan Black. This cross-province collaboration continues to prove that the world of tea is still full of innovators, pushing the boundaries of tradition.
Wang Yanxin is pleased to release this special cake from small producer Jing Yu Workshop after over a decade of aging in her climate-controlled pu’er cellar. This cake is special because it is blended from old wild tree tea for incredible depth and complexity. The workshop carefully stone-pressed the leaves after gentle steaming for a cake that will only continue to get deeper over time. This tea has already built up tingling cooling textural complexity, and incense spice, while staying juicy and sweet at the same time.
This pu'er exemplifies all the reasons we like to set our favorite cakes aside and let them age for years. The 10+ years in Wang Yanxin's climate-controlled aging cellar give this tuocha that iconic foresty, cooling almost sparkling quality that makes pu'er so interesting. The cooling texture is accented by notes of rose, juicy papaya and rich black sesame.
This unique and powerful shu pu'er from Lincang Fenjie Workshop is particularly deep and dark, with spicy ginger, cooling mint, and a big dessert-like undertone. The buddy leaf material gives this cake depth and texture, while nearly a decade of aging adds beautiful complexity.
This aged pu'er cake from Langhe Workshop is an iconic example of one of our favorite shu pu'er flavor profiles - packed with notes of blackberry, red velvet cake and allspice. Such a clean and dessert-like profile takes skillful slow aging and a balance of fine buddy leaf material, growing even deeper and more spiced with age.
CNNP is China's biggest, oldest and most famous big pu'er brand. This clout gives them access to a huge range of pu'er from across Yunnan for blending. This sheng pu'er exemplifies their range, pulling in a balanced and complex flavor profile with floral jasmine notes, juicy citrus, and deep lingering redwood spice.
This organic-certified pu'er cake from Li Ming Chen Workshop carries their Ba Jiao Ting mark, a designation of their finest pressings. The old tree leaf material combined with over a decade of aging makes this a deeply complex, richly-spiced tea, packed with minerality and depth.
This refreshingly crisp Shu Pu'er from the smaller Zhi Chun Feng Workshop was picked in 2015 and pressed in 2019. The beautiful mix of golden downy buds and deep dark tender leaves makes for a perfect balance of deep fruity undertones, foresty sweet spice, and savory biscuit bread qualities. The aftertaste has a slightly cooling quality that is sure to get deeper with age.
Yang Ji Tian Yuan Workshop has selected wild arbor high elevation tea from old-growth trees for this deeply complex and generously-aged offering. Sweet cinnamon, cooling tingling mint and floral aromatic rose and vanilla come together for a classic juicy tingling Shu Pu'er packed with nuance and textural depth
Yongming Workshop makes elegant and supremely drinkable Pu'er. This Bulangshan offering is unusually floral with notes of violet and tropical jasmine balancing out the dark molasses and thick lingering texture. Expect a cooling aftertaste and complex spice profile that will get deeper with age.
Yiwu is famous for its cooling foresty Pu'er, and this cake is no exception. Notes of fresh mint and cardamom show the best of classic Yiwu with extra nuance and complexity of tulsi, juicy muscat grape and a deep rye flavor. This depth comes from the "yuanshengtai" designation which means that the tea was harvested in a balanced ecosystem with forest cover and wild plants left intact.
Banzhang region is famous for its sweet, numbing spiced sheng pu'er with its iconic ringing aftertaste. Yet, it is rare to get to try a Banzhang tea so freshly-pressed. Old-school Banzhang was often too smoky to taste young, but Xingyi workshop relies on careful low-temperature finishing for a sweet, dessert-like sheng pu'er that is ready to drink less than a year after picking. A tea this good at this age is destined for even more complexity and nuance over the years to come.
This younger sheng from Xingyi workshop is packed with beautiful herbaceous spice and floral notes. With basil, mint, chervil and rose, the first sips are like a Mediterranean garden. As the tea opens up, it reveals a deep juicy cooling mouthwatering quality that hints at incredible complexity that will continue to develop for years to come.
This certified organic pu'er tea is unique in the collection for holding a specific certification from a China-based program working to incentivize more producers to transition to full organic production. Of course, in Banzhang chemical-free farming has long been embraced since the region's produces some of the more sought after (and costly) Pu'er tea out there, but the official certification is a good step in building that recognition. Expect classic Banzhang numbing licorice spice but with a big fruity Longan or dried lychee quality.
This small production pressing features tender young leaf material for a stunningly sweet brew packed with juicy apricot notes, nutmeg spice and a touch of floral aromatics. The nearly ten years of age give this cake a rich almost 'oaky' quality, thanks to Wang Yanxin's careful constant humidity cool temperature cellaring.
This iconic big leaf sheng Pu'er has over 15 years of age for a deep, rich, incredibly complex flavor and texture. Big leaf Pu'er is going through a renaissance in Yunnan right now as more farmers recognize the crisp, sweet textural quality that big leaves can bring to a Pu'er cake. The large leaves were mostly shunned in the early 2000's in favor of "prettier" buds, so this cake is a rare find- part of Wang Yanxin's cellar collection. We first tried this cake in 2008, and the transformation is incredible. The tea is deeply spiced and cooling, with a tingling textural quality.
This special sampler includes four 25g samples from larger cakes normally unavailable in smaller sizes for 100g total (20 brewing sessions). Get to know both classic and obscure sheng and shu pu'er from workshops all across Yunnan. Exploring the world of pu'er can be difficult if you need to invest in full 357g pressed cakes before getting to try them. This sampler is a chance to try both single origin and blended workshop cakes and get to know what you like most. From cooling, tingling foresty sheng pu'er to cozy rich caramel-spice shu, you'll get to see how much variety there is in pu'er. The cakes sampled are all 'best of their class' examples, some with substantial aging, generally from smaller workshops dedicated to direct farmer partnerships. If you've been looking for a way to get a real deep dive in pu'er, this is it!
Liu Bao Hei Cha is a unique relative to pu’er from Guangxi that gets a deep oxidation before classic fermentation technique is applied. The slow oxidation and clean relatively-dry shu pu’er style fermentation yields a deliciously rich, clean and smooth tea with sticky rice aromatics, and cooling woody foresty aftertaste.
This special Fu Shou Xiang series from Tiandiren Workshop highlights the unique single-origin flavor profile of Bulangshan. While Bulangshan is always texturally nuanced, this standout has a unique orange and clove profile that is reminiscent of simmering cider, along with brown sugar cake and deep vanilla florals.
While Menghai workshop usually focuses on blended pu’ers, this unique pressing highlights the single-origin flavor of Yiwu. Yiwu is famous for its intense cooling foresty profile and this cake devivers with intense rich aromatics and pine forest cooling aftertaste. The silvery buds and long downy leaves already have nearly a decade of slow aging under cooler drier conditions to bring out the sweet florals and build deep nuance.
Nearly a decade ago Wang Yanxin worked with a tiny cooperative in Banzhang to press an incredible sheng pu’er that we have been asking her to bring back ever since. This year she opened her pu’er reserve and pulled out this gem for the first time - a 2007 cake with nearly 15 years of age, and the same nutty licorice-like numbing sweetness that we loved in the first Banzhang collaboration Wang Yanxin brought us. We’re so excited to get to taste and share this limited standout from Fuhai Workshop.
Yongming Workshop loves highlighting single origin pressings like this standout Yiwu Shu pu’er. In single-origin pressings Yongming gets to show off the work of their farmer-partners without having to blend flavor profiles. This Yiwu standout is packed with Yiwu’s signature cooling forest flavors, along with aromatic fruit and dark buckwheat honey notes.
Some of Wang Yanxin’s favorite cakes in her collection are the ones that evoke sweet aromatic sticky rice, and she often holds onto these standouts for decades at a time so we were surprised when she decided to release this limited 2007 pressing from Fu Hai. This tea is packed with aromatic sticky rice flavor, vanilla, ginger, and goji berry; a beautiful flavor that has nearly 15 years of slow aging in drier cooler conditions to build complex nuanced aftertastes.
Gong Ting shu pu’er is pressed from delicate downy buds for a uniquely sweet profile. This Menghai pressing is unique among gong ting style for its incredibly clean light and floral qualities. Often buddy material means a certain heaviness on the palate, but not here. This is a beautiful fruity cake with spice and vanilla aftertaste that stays light on its feet.
Tiandiren Workshop blends beautiful shu pu’er. They are known for their deep fruity spiced profile and the sweet clean balanced aftertaste they bring to every cake. This offering is as smooth as any of Tiandiren’s best work, but goes off in an incredible unique direction with notes of basil, ginger and rose along with classic cooling qualities and sweet vanilla.
Zhang Xiang literally means camphor fragrance, and is used to describe those special pu’ers with deep cooling notes that transport us to pine forests after a long rain. This cake is all about its cooling sensation. Surprisingly, while zhang xiang cakes are usually incense and spice forward, this cake brings out nuanced tropical fruit and jasmine florals to accent the first notes.