Cultivar: Wild puerh trees over 500 years old
Harvested by hand: Spring 2019
Origin: remote forest with rocky ground in Jiangcheng (Yunnan), China
Process: raw, sun dried, loose leaves.
These old, wild puerh trees have been discovered by a puerh maker from the Hanni tribe thanks to his local contacts in 2017. He searched for these trees, because of the high prices that puerh made of old trees (gu shu) fetch, and because famous mountains (ex: lao Banzhang) are over exploited and are progressively loosing their wild character. This is the third year I could order the tea from these remote, old puerh trees. The first 2 years, the location of these trees was secret, but this secret is now pierced and we now know that they come from Jiangcheng.
1. View
The dry leaves and buds are very large and hard. The brew (2 gr/6 minutes) is yellow/orange in hue because of its high concentration of flavors. It has an excellent transparency and shine. The open leaves are mostly whole and look very healthy. The buds are indeed very big.
2. Scents
The dry smell is very rich and pure. It feels so sick that the mouth seems to water instantly when smell the leaves. The brew has scents of wild flower honey. And guess what I wrote about the brew's smell 2 years ago: "this tea smells like a very pure and intense honey made from wild flowers." It's definitely puerh made from the same trees!
3. Taste
The taste is so sweet and powerful that it's a pure bliss! Perfection has striked again.
Conclusion: It's going to be interesting to compare this loose gushu from 2019 to its dragon ball version from 2018 and its cake version of 2017. In loose shape, it seems lighter and sweeter at the same point in time.