$12.50 – $50.00
A sublimely clean and elegantly simple white born from abandoned 政和大白 Zhenghe Da Bai plants left to grow feral on the mountainside above rural 富板村 Fuban Village, this leafy Shou Mei white tea harvest was picked April 10th just below the mountain's summit at 950 meters.
Notes reminiscent of steam coming off mineral hot springs, dried and unripe fruits: cherry, green apricot, dried canefruit, figs, herbal liqueur, and almond cookies can be released just by jostling the dry leaf around the warmed gaiwan. As the first steep is poured off the initial fruit and nut tones now drip with a pheromonal herbaceous musk that accompany the smell of freshly ironed linens.
The steeps in the mid session introduces a sweetness that begins to cling to the palate and jowls, while boldening the texture to a juicy mineral-rich soup. Exalted exhales follow thirst-quenching sips with notes of mochi, dew, sweet corn, green apple. This one is like rolling around in a summer meadow sipping on a sun tea of foraged herbs and wildflowers.
The Ye family believes these estimated 40-50 year old gardens were abandoned by the villagers around the turn of the century out of preference for lower, more accessible gardens, and now contain multiple generations of tea plants including some larger specimens indicating tea propagation even prior to the primary remaining ecology.
In a vertical cupping this tea tends to outpace more conventional and lower elevation Shou Meis. Upfront, this tea admittedly isn't very flashy in its expression like its fertilized plantation counterparts (adding nitrogen inputs before harvest boosts fragrance), rather its strength lies in its elegant simplicity, its deeply nutritive expression, and its durability for a lengthy session.
Like most tea families in Zhenghe, the Ye clan hasn't adopted any of the new fake-aging techniques invented in Fuding. The minimal processing of tradition white tea production leaves the tea expression naked, with nothing to hide behind, and we find this high elevation material harvested from this unmanaged mountainside shines this way.
Just like in the world of pu’er where buyers go to great lengths to obtain the best material while it’s still available at an affordable rate when it’s young (never a bad call regardless of fresh or aged preference), this tea represents that type of investment acquisition. This one is great sipping now, and if aging is your thing this one is set to transform into something even more magical.
reclamation of this abandoned tea garden began in 2018
The tea cake inkwork for this release was penned by our friend Green, a tea friend we met in 2019 during our travels in northern Yunnan. Him and his girlfriend are artists that run a teashop in the small town of Shaxi. Each cake features a drawing of one of his favorite birds in China.
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Early infusions are marked by sugar cane, bamboo and unripe melon. The liquor is light and sharp. A few steeps in, almond and cherry notes abound. This tea feels like a crisp early autumn morning reflecting its wild origins.