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Sample Pu'er Cakes from Workshops Across YunnanThis special sampler includes six 25g samples from larger 357g cakes normally unavailable in smaller sizes for 150g total (30 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!
Regular Price $29.45 $24.15 - Exploring Pu’er from China’s Oldest Tea Forest
This bundle includes five 25g bags of Qianjiazhai tea and a full 100g cake for 225g total (40 sessions). The Zhenyuan Dongsa Cooperative of Qianjiazhai is a loose-knit coalition of families across the remote mountaintops of China’s oldest tea forests dedicated to sustainable stewardship of the wild tea plants, and careful foraging from trees that can be over a thousand years old.
Master Zhou founded the cooperative to refine the finishing craft and picking techniques across Qianjiazhai and bring more well-deserved respect to one of China’s most important but also most unknown tea regions. This tasting kit is an introduction to the incredible diversity of flavor, texture, aroma and aftertaste that wild-foraging in an ancient tea forest can bring.
In this kit you’ll taste the careful heat-free sun dry craft of Qianjiazhai’s sheng pu’er and the fermentation of their shu pu’er, while also tasting the rare near-tea relative camellia crassicolumna, naturally caffeine-free and incredibly intense and aromatic. This kit is an invitation into a little-seen side of tea and its ancient wild origins.
Regular Price $47.25 $38.75
- 2014 Qianjiazhai Yi Ji Shu Pu'erMaster Zhou works with his students in the Qianjiazhai Dongsa Cooperative to start introducing shu pu’er fermentation and crafting techniques more widely across the mountain. This stunningly clean, rich and foresty example is crafted from pre-Qingming harvest maocha picked from one hundred to five hundred year trees. Even with only three years of aging, it displays the clean rich complexity normally only seen on shu pu’er a decade old or older.
- Qianjiazhai Gong Ting Shu + Tea Flower Cake
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 2020 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.
$17.50 - 2014 Shu Pu'er NuggetsThis 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.
- 2014 Gong Ting Shu CakeMaster Zhou and his students in the Qianjiazhai Dongsa Cooperative hand-carved a 100g cake stone mold for their collaboration with Verdant and selected a beautiful 2014 looseleaf Gong Ting harvest to hand-press. This Gong Ting cake is made from only small buds picked from trees around one hundred years of age in the early spring before Qingming festival. This tea was allowed to age loose for two years, giving it a sweet and extremely clean profile. The bud material yields a thick rich mouthfeel.
- Qianjiazhai 2014 Shu BrickMaster Zhou works with his students in the Qianjiazhai Dongsa Cooperative to start introducing shu pu’er fermentation and crafting techniques more widely across the mountain. This stunningly clean, rich and foresty example is crafted from pre-Qingming harvest maocha picked from one hundred to five hundred year trees, and wrapped in bamboo leaf cut fresh from the native bamboo growing across the mountainside. After only two years of aging, it displays the clean rich complexity normally only seen on shu pu’er a decade old or older.
- 2018 Qianjiazhai Tea Flower Gong Ting ShuFor a few extraordinary weeks at the beginning of autumn, every wild tea tree in Qianjiazhai puts out deeply aromatic golden blossoms. In recent years the Dongsa Cooperative, led by Master Zhou, has experimented with picking small amounts of the rich evocative tea flowers to blend with their wild-picked ancient-tree teas. 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 unlike any other shu pu'er out there. Master Zhou was so excited by this experiment he is sharing the technique across the cooperative and encourage more members to keep developing the craft. This is the first time Master Zhou has blended tea flowers with Gong Ting Shu, and the result is a beautiful visual contrast, along with a floral boost to the textural complexity and nuance of this budset shu pu’er. The clean natural fermentation preserves the herbaceousness of the tea, and the florals bring it out even further.
- Gong Ting Shu Dragon Pearls
The Cooperative's first-ever shu pu’er dragon pearl pressing, this tea is made with beautiful little 2014 buds, allowed to ferment slowly under natural moisture conditions for a sweet and clean flavor profile that shows off the herbaceous side of Qianjaizhai. The loosely pressed. dragon pearls are compact enough for long-term aging and small enough to allow for single brew sessions without having to break apart a bigger cake of tea. The loose hand-twisted compression allows for better and more even aging than anything a machine could achieve.
