The style of Gan Lu holds the green tea crown in western China, and may be the only contender rival to some of the trendier styles on the east coast.  Gan Lu is grown on the legendary Meng Ding Mountain, the mythic birthplace of tea cultivation, and most iterations are grown at notably higher elevations than even the highest grades of Long Jing and Bi Luo Chun styles.

Since 2019, we have been working with one of the families that manages some of the area's most sought after and protected tea acreage, producing some of the most exquisite green tea in China.  Derived from rare, high-elevation 群体种 qunti zhong bushes referred to as 老川茶 Lao Chuan Cha, this exclusive acquisition of heirloom Gan Lu is just that.

We feel privileged to work with the Guo family, who owns 66 亩 mu (11 acres) of Lao Chuan Cha gardens in the core production preserve (1100-1200 meters) just below the summit of Meng Ding Mountain. While brother Guo Yu mostly sells the raw materials from these gardens to high end tea producers like Mr. Li, he does produce some tea himself.

Notable is the meticulous process that these early flush sprouts undergo.  Sprouts are carefully monitored and harvested just 5-6 days after initially emerging.  After the tiny sprouts are withered, the production features 著名的三炒三揉制茶工艺 (“the famous three-fired, three-kneaded tea making process”) a method that coaxes out flavor by frying the leaves in a high-temperature wok for short times before rolling/bruising them three separate times as a set, before being dried.  This process accentuates flavors and aromas, as well brings all of the tea oils to the surface, unlocking them ahead of time for an exquisite first brew.

Vanishing Breed 

Meng Ding Gan Lu currently isn’t defined by originating from a single cultivar. A 2023 study by Guo, Wang, and Li studied the 12 main cultivars used to produce Gan Lu and found that Lao Chuan Chá (Old Sichuan tea) and 福选 9 号 Fú xuǎn 9 hào (Fuxuan no.9) to be the most ideal cultivars. Likely due to the sheer diversity found in the plurality of distinct specimens, tea made from Lao Chuan Cha gardens scored exceptionally high in flavor compounds such as polyphenols, EGCG, and water-soluble extracts as well as overall preferred taste and aroma, exhibiting a rare balance in flavor expression despite a high phenol-to-amino acid ratio (usually presenting as bitter or astringent) without any bite. Whereas all other cultivars used to make Gan Lu comprise genetically identical tea gardens due to being asexually planted as cuttings for predictable yield and flavor expression, Lao Chuan Cha refers to seed-propagated tea plants in the diverse heirloom gene pool that has existed in the area for untold ages. In other words, in gardens of other cultivars, the tea is the same from bush to bush, whereas in Lao Chuan Cha gardens each tea bush is unique and contains heritage Sichuan genetics.

The problem with Lao Chuan Cha is that in a market that celebrates tea from the humid Sichuan basin as China’s earliest to market tea (with some iterations being sold by mid-February), this old heirloom flushes over a month later due to these antiquity genetics as well as its typically high elevation, colder environs. Due to genetic differences from bush to bush, harvest times are unpredictable and oftentimes a day’s pickings are not uniform. Yield is generally lower with each plant producing overall less buds than other cultivars, and often only flushing once during the spring. This frustrating lack of flexibility and efficiency in production scheduling, lower overall yield, and missing out of early-season markets has driven many tea producers to uproot their Lao Chuan Cha bushes and replace it with more predictable and profitable cultivars.

Tragically, Lao Chuan Cha is now considered a rare and precious boutique resource as it comprises only 2.5% of the Mengshan tea region.

after assessing the different qualities of no. 9 and heirloom Gan Lu teas this year, we decided to offer them both