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Explore Aged Wuyi Tea PressingsThis 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.
Regular Price $230.00 $188.60 - Wuyi "Si Da Ming Cong" Definitive Oolong Tasting KitThis bundle includes four 25g bags of Wuyi Oolong for 100g total (20 sessions). This kit is a rare opportunity to try all four of the Wuyi tea varietals recognized as the 武夷四大名枞, theWuyi Si Da Ming Cong. These are the four teas recognized by traditional consensus as the most definitive representation of the flavors, textures and aromas that Wuyi oolong has to offer. If you are interested in getting a glimpse at the aesthetic “standard-bearers” of the weighty Wuyi traditional this is the place to start. These four teas in many ways set the modern vision of the ideal, and their deep minerality, textural complexity and layered aromatics are strived for and judged against at every Wuyi tea competition. With the Li Family’s perfectly situated plot of old growth tea within the true Wuyi Ecological Preserve designation, and their commitment to biodiversity in the fields and meticulous hand firing in the workshop, it is no wonder that their Si Da Ming teas earn them gold medals year after year. With such small harvests it is a rare event to have all four Si Da Ming Cong in stock at the same time. If you are interested in a foundational understanding of the quintessential Wuyi flavor, try these together while they are here
- Rare Varietal Wuyi Oolong Kit
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.
Regular Price $66.25 $54.33 - Tasting Wuyishan with the Li Family Collection
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.
Regular Price $59.50 $48.79
- Hua Xiang Zheng Shan Xiao ZhongWhile Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong is usually smoked, the same leaf material and finishing technique can be used without the final smoking step. Hua Xiang means floral fragrance, referring to the natural but subtle floral notes in Xingcun Xiaozhong varietal that are brought out through the Li Family’s expert hand-processing. When smaller leaf material mixed with delicate buds is used, rich vanilla undertones can develop, accenting the savory nutty flavors. The main difference between this tea and a classic Wuyi Gongfu Black is that Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong is not necessarily curled and twisted as thoroughly, giving it a more open structure suitable for incorporating that smaller bud and leaf mixture that wouldn’t work in the tight twists of Wuyi Gongfu Black, but both are very traditional calls back to the very earliest black teas in the world.
- Aged Old Tree Wuyi Gongfu Black
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.
- 2022 Zheng Shan Xiao ZhongThe earliest Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong, (or Lapsang Souchong as it is commonly referred to in the West) was never deep-smoked. The smokiness was a natural and subtle addition that came from drying the leaves in a wok heated by pine wood. The smoke from the pine wood naturally mixed with the tea, creating a deeper and more foresty flavor that accentuated the tea's minerality. The Li Family preserves this old-school aesthetic with careful application of smoke from local resinous pine. The sweet, roasted quality of the smoke processing blends with the rich flavor of the tea to yield a dark fruity flavor, and bring front and center the mineral texture of the soil of Wuyi.
- 2022 Wuyi Gongfu Black
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.
- 2022 Tongmu Reserve Jin Jun Mei
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.
