Gushu - 2012

This cake is made from high quality gushu leaves sourced from Luo Shui Dong 落水洞 - a famous puer producing village in Yiwu. The farmers here are primarily Han ethnicity, known for their excellent hand-processing technique. This early spring tea produces is a clear bright yellow liquor, with a sweet, buttery mouthfeel. Because it is easy to drink when young, Luo Shui Dong is a good entry point for those new to sheng (raw) puer, or those who don’t like bitter or astringent flavors.

This high quality old tree tea cake come from a small shop in Yongde. Using early spring material from tea trees about 80-300 years old. Mangfei is one of Yongde high mountains. Using traditional processing techniques -“sha-qing”(kill-green) in wok and sundried and carefully pressed to this 400g cake. Smell of dry leaves is strong and great. Tea soup is yellow green, sparkish clean and fragrant. Full, thick, with fast huigan. Aftertaste is floral sweet. This tea have some fantastic cooling...

This tea came from Mangzhi mountain which is located in the west of Xiangming village Mengla county, and next to the Gedeng mountain. Mangzhi tea mountain once had a very glorious history, but suffered a setback in the local wars during the end of the Qing Dynasty. Early spring harvest from wild arbor tea trees. Traditional “sha-qing” (kill-green) processing in wok and sun-dried. Select maocha was pressed by stone to this small pretty cake. A pleasing depth of...

Our Yiwu gushu for this year comes from an old village in Mansa area - Zhang Jia Wan Lao Zhai （张家湾老寨）. Zhang Jia Wan Lao Zhai is a village more than 30km away from Yiwu town, and 13km from Zhang Jia Wan Xin Zhai（张家湾新寨）, bordering Laos in the south. There is big area of ancient tea trees garden. Many of them was chopped down or burned around 1981. The stance to "gu cha shu" was very different at that time. Maocha cost only a fraction of today's price and old high trees were a...

This tea is from Jingmai Da Zhai, grown on the Da Ping Zhang area, and is considered some of the finest Jingmai tea available. Another famous tea village is Mangjing. The Mangjing tea taste more simple and bitter, therefore be sold at a lower price. Jingmai mountain is famous for middle/little leaf tea (中小叶种茶) which is popular for its sweet taste and floral aroma. Jingmai Da Zhai is one of the most famous village and has the biggest ancient tea tree garden in Jingmai mountain,...

The raw materials of this cake came from villages in Myanmar, its north border on small Mengsong mountain. Tea trees are about three hundreds years old and remain unmanaged. The natives living in isolated areas where transportation is difficult, they carry the tea on the backs and walk to the border. The tea is not expensive but does not come by easily.