2 More Light Meets Life Cakes!

The first cake is a 2012 Lincang Shou Puerh blended with Kun Lun snow chrysanthemums. It is very rare to find a shou Puerh that is clean and has some old-growth raw material, especially since the price of such old tree tea has gone up recently. Shou tea is almost always a blend of tea from various regions, making it hard to regulate. This tea was produced in 2012 and aged for a couple years before compression this summer. 

Snow chrysanthemums are a rare and highly sought-after high-altitude flower from Kunlun Mountain, Gansu Province, China. The flowers are picked and sun-dried once a year (late summer), then hand-sorted into various grades. This is the highest grade available, and it brews a lovely liquor with a strong sweet and spicy flavor. It is thought that properties within the chrysanthemum flower have a calming effect that aids sleep. In the Traditional Chinese Materia Medica, snow chrysanthemum is said to restore respiratory fitness, regulate the blood. And in Western medicine, they are said to help prevent cancer. They are an amazing elixir combined, and as many of you found out last year, a classic tea.

 

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The second cake is a “Dian Hong” or red tea from Yunnan. This tea is very similar to the Global Tea Hut tea of the month we sent you called “Golden Vajra”; it is actually from the same producer and garden, but different season (the tea we sent you in May was Autumn tea and this is Spring, so it is more vibrant and full-flavored). She comes from the wild forests of Lincang, in Feng Qing County. The trees are between fifty and one hundred years old. They are protected trees sometimes used for puerh production, and are pure Assamica. Many of the red teas from Yunnan are hybrids that were pressured to produce more buds, making them “tippy”, which makes the tea sweeter. This tea, however, is not “tippy”. There aren’t as many buds, which lends the tea a bit of the depth, Qi and astringency of a puerh. It also means that the tea would be an excellent candidate for aging. We are very excited to share this amazing tea, and see how it changes over the years. It is one of our favorite Yunnanese reds to date!