This bundle includes three 90g mini cakes and one 100g mini cake of Wuyi tea for 370g total (72+ sessions). The Li Family makes some of the most sought-after oolongs in China, grown within the pristine Wuyishan Ecological Preserve, hand-picked and hand-finished by the Li Family and meticulously had-fired multiple times over several months for deep complexity. The biodiversity and rocky geography of their plot contributes to deep forest-evoking teas with a strong mineral texture.
Take all this exquisite circumstance and add aging into the process and you get some stunningly nuanced powerful teas unlike anything else out there. This tasting kit is a chance to build your own Wuyi tea aging program, and see why pu’er isn’t the only tea that gets better with age. This collection spans twelve years and four unique varietals.
Most years, Li Xiangxi doesn’t do any pressing at all, only selecting harvests that she has had the chance to taste over several months when she determines whether they’d be suitable for aging. When she makes her selection, the family gives these teas even deeper hand-firing before finally pressing these mini-cakes. See for yourself what makes aged Wuyi tea so special.
This bundle includes 25g each of five different Wuyi oolong teas for 125g total (25 sessions). Wuyishan is perhaps the most famous tea growing region in the world, and our partner Li Xiangxi and her family cultivate their award-winning oolongs in a perfectly-situated gorge along the Longchuan river within the Wuyishan Ecological Preserve, a pristine environmentally-protected region where biodiversity is key, and tea grows alongside wild bamboo, evergreens, and flowers.
Part of that biodiversity is about encouraging not just the widely known varietals like Rou Gui or Qilan to grow, but also making space for rare and difficult to find varietals not often seen or known outside of Wuyishan. Li Xiangxi believes that each varietal bring its own unique style to the pure expression of Wuyi minerality, and this sampler is a testament to those unique perspectives. Taste through five Wuyi oolong teas - including famous cultivars and less-well-known varietals.
This bundle includes five 25g bags of Wuyi tea for 125g total (25 sessions). Wuyishan is one of the most famous tea growing regions in the world, and true hand-crafted tea from within the Wuyi Ecological Preserve is incredibly elusive with a proliferation of imitations out there. That is why we are so lucky to be working with the dynamic award-winning Li Family, who have been visionaries in restoring biodiversity and forest cover within the preserve and leaders in oolong craft.
Li Xiangxi, founder of the Yangxian Institute of Tea Culture, works with her brother and cousin to finish deep aromatic and wildly complex oolongs, as well as traditional old-school black teas from their ancestral home in Tongmu.
This collection represents a classic tasting curriculum, spanning the most important flavors, textures and aromas to be familiar with in beginning to understand what makes Wuyishan so special. This kit has been put together to provide a foundation to explore the wider Li Family collection with a deep tasting vocabulary, and of course, to come out with a true sense of the Wuyi microclimate.
Under careful airtight conditions, Wuyi teas that are particularly rich and packed with minerality can age into deeper, more complex teas. Li Xiangxi’s personal favorite is to use her old tree Wuyi Gongfu Black, picked from trees approaching one hundred years of age. The Old Tree Wuyi Black gains more foresty notes and deep cooling qualities on the palette that make it thrilling to sip. This is not a yearly release- this is a special must-try one-off from Li Xiangxi. Li Xiangxi has been aging this Old Tree Wuyi Black tea since 2015, and she kindly shared more than half of what is left of her personal reserve.
Li Xiangxi works with her brother and cousins in the Wuyi Ecological Preserve to harvest this propagated-from-seed Xiaozhong varietal leaf and process it using traditional heap oxidization techniques and curling to bring out the tea’s natural complexity. Grown on a hillside in a ravine that collects a pocket of natural mist all morning, the tea buds slowly, yielding an incredibly sweet brew. The tea picks up mineral texture from the rocky volcanic soil and the natural spring water running through the Li Family’s plot. Deeper complexity comes from the natural genetic variation of allowing their Xiaozhong tea to grow from seed instead of cuttings, creating a rich multi-layered taste experience.
Li Xiangxi works with her brother and cousins in the Wuyi Ecological Preserve to harvest this propagated-from-seed Xiaozhong varietal leaf and process it using traditional heap oxidization techniques and curling to bring out the tea’s natural complexity. Grown on a hillside in a ravine that collects a pocket of natural mist all morning, the tea buds slowly, yielding an incredibly sweet brew. The tea picks up mineral texture from the rocky volcanic soil and the natural spring water running through the Li Family’s plot. Deeper complexity comes from the natural genetic variation of allowing their Xiaozhong tea to grow from seed instead of cuttings, creating a rich multi-layered taste experience.
It takes thousands of buds to make an ounce of this tea, hand-picked near Li Xiangxi’s old family home in Tongmu, in a protected ravine with wild bamboo, orange trees and native flowers growing around old growth wild tea bushes. Once a year in the early spring, Li Xiangxi and her family pick the tiny golden buds off the cultivated tea bushes growing below her family home. The beautiful golden color and flavor of this carefully cultivated Jin Jun Mei (Golden Eyebrows) makes it one of the most prized teas in China.
Only a dozen kilos of this unusual tea were picked this year. The entire batch was hand picked and processed solely by Li Xiangxi's brother. We are excited to have the opportunity to share a large part of the harvest with you, and to try it for ourselves! The name Purple Buds refers to the color of the buds after picking but before processing. They are actually a light purple green on the tea bush and have a uniquely tropical flavor that sets them apart as a rare and intriguing black tea.
Mei Zhan varietal is famous for its rich and focused fruit-forward oolong made from long skinny spring leaves. Recently, Mr. Li has been experimenting with a stand of his family’s iconic Mei Zhan in early spring when the plant puts out huge buds that are too delicate to withstand oolong processing. He personally leads the hand-picking of the Li Family Mei Zhan buds and brings them to the family home and workshop in Tongmu for Jin Jun Mei meticulous black tea hand-finishing. The slow oxidation in bamboo baskets brings out big savory notes and sweet rich honey and cream.
Feng Huang Black comes from transplanted Fenghuang Dancong from Guangdong established in the mountainous rocky slopes of Wuyi. As in Guangdong, these plants are cultivated as single bush trees instead of hedges. The result is an elegant expression of the bright, fruity, complex and sweet flavor of Fenghuang Dancong with the deep mineral notes of Wuyi. Black Tea Xiao Zhong style processing tempers the naturally tropical fruit of Dancong and supports it with elegant wood. Because this tea is grown as single bushes and picked only once a year, the annual yield for the Li Family is very small. We are excited to share this small batch from the Li Family's tea gardens.
This bundle includes 25g each of five different Wuyi oolong teas for 125g total (25 sessions). Wuyishan is perhaps the most famous tea growing region in the world, and our partner Li Xiangxi and her family cultivate their award-winning oolongs in a perfectly-situated gorge along the Longchuan river within the Wuyishan Ecological Preserve, a pristine environmentally-protected region where biodiversity is key, and tea grows alongside wild bamboo, evergreens, and flowers.
Part of that biodiversity is about encouraging not just the widely known varietals like Rou Gui or Qilan to grow, but also making space for rare and difficult to find varietals not often seen or known outside of Wuyishan. Li Xiangxi believes that each varietal bring its own unique style to the pure expression of Wuyi minerality, and this sampler is a testament to those unique perspectives. Taste through five Wuyi oolong teas - including famous cultivars and less-well-known varietals.