Verdant Tea

This special bundle includes four 25g offerings of white tea from across China for 100g total (about 20 sessions). China is going through a white tea renaissance of sorts - a pivotal moment in the history of an incredibly unique kind of tea thanks to surging popularity and innovators across the country bringing new techniques together with ancient tradition. On the one hand, old-school white tea craft is all about locking in the freshest most aromatic flavor possible from buddy da bai varietal leaf. On the other hand, modern white tea pioneers are taking that fresh flavor and aging it, pressing it into cakes, and even scenting it or blending it with other ingredients. This tasting kit is a chance to explore both traditional white tea and modern explorations from all across China. You’ll taste the delicate young spring buds of the Wu Family’s wild-arbor groves all the way to Yunnan white tea cakes and white tea jasmine.

This bundle includes four 25g offerings of white tea for 100g total (about 20 sessions). The Wu Family has been growing tea for generations, with bushes scattered across the mountainside between groves of bamboo and evergreens. With white tea’s recent surge in popularity, the family is rediscovering groves planted generations ago left for years untended, and picking them without introducing pruning or intervention. The Wu Family's white tea craft is all about non-intervention. There is no firing process, no heat applied at any stage. The fresh buds are rushed into a special drying room with continuous circulation to lock in the fresh vegetal floral complexity you'd get tasting a fresh leaf picked in the field. Mr. Wu combines this commitment to non-intervention with a meticulous background in engineering, crafting special fans to control air circulation and get the freshest most aromatic tea without heat or sun exposure.

This new project from the Wu Family incorporates local mandarin orange citrus peel, grown wild on the hillsides around the village of Wuyangcun, with the family’s sweet, flavorful and spice-forward Shou Mei white tea before pressing both together into convenient 5g Dragon Pearls. The 2018 Shou Mei leaf material already displays depth and sweetness from aging made even more apparent blended with the mandarin peel.

This bundle includes four 25g offerings of white tea for 100g total (about 20 sessions). The Wu Family has been growing tea for generations, with bushes scattered across the mountainside between groves of bamboo and evergreens. With white tea’s recent surge in popularity, the family is rediscovering groves planted generations ago left for years untended, and picking them without introducing pruning or intervention. The Wu Family's white tea craft is all about non-intervention. There is no firing process, no heat applied at any stage. The fresh buds are rushed into a special drying room with continuous circulation to lock in the fresh vegetal floral complexity you'd get tasting a fresh leaf picked in the field. Mr. Wu combines this commitment to non-intervention with a meticulous background in engineering, crafting special fans to control air circulation and get the freshest most aromatic tea without heat or sun exposure.

This is the Wu Family's masterpiece offering, the pride of Wuyang Village. The oldest most established wild plants, growing among rich biodiversity on a mountainside fully devoted to organic practices are carefully selected and the first budding of the year is hand-picked and meticulously finished to lock in the sweet complexity of the terroir, the early harvest nutrients, and the natural quality of the established deep-rooted bushes.

Shou Mei is the biggest, boldest, most flavorful expression of White Tea, picked from late season larger leaves that are packed with the flavor and complexity that a wild, biodiverse landscape brings to the Wu Family’s old-growth Da Bai varietal bushes. The Shou Mei grows even deeper, sweeter and darker with age like pu’er, and this year, the Wu Family pressed their Shou Mei in mini wafer cakes to protect them for transit and long term aging.

Bai Mudan, or White Peony tea from the Wu Family represents their most balanced expression of the wild mountain terroir, with both flavorful leaves and tender downy buds for a tea that shows off whiet tea’s iconic sweet smooth texture and a deep wild forest quality. The Wu Family finishes these leaves under a special shaded air circulation process developed by Mr. Wu to lock in the freshest most aromatic flavors possible. This year they pressed a Dragon Pearl individual steeping size Bai Mudan to protect the leaves even better in transit.

Bai Hao Yin Zhen is picked entirely from early spring buds, with almost no leaf at all. The result is extremely sweet and thick, with a light flavor but a lingering deep aftertaste and aroma. The biodiversity of the Wu Family’s multi-generational tea garden, left untended for decades yields tea with big rich flavor, the plant's response to competition from other plants and insects. The result is a silver needle with unparalleled refinement but a dynamic structure and energy. This year’s harvest is remarkably creamy while still maintaining a cooling, tingling aftertaste and deep herbaceous undertones.