Fountain of the Forest Pu'erh Raw

林泉古树生普洱

Harvest
April 2023

Origin
Jinggu, Yunnan

For the past few years Tang Wang has been looking for abandoned pu’erh tea trees in the mountains and jungles by his tea farm. He has experimented with harvesting their leaves and making them into different pu’erh raws. Last year he released the first small batch this pu’erh, made entirely from leaves he collected on his foraging trips.

He has made teas from two different groves of trees he discovered – one is facing north, and the other one is on the southern side of the mountain. The roads leading to both of them are very rugged and only accessible on foot. 

The leaves for this tea are gathered in dense jungles 8 km up the mountain from Mr. Tang’s tea farm, at around 6300 ft elevation. The forest here is wild, teeming with life and towering trees. Even the tea trees here grow tall and straight, as they compete with the thick foliage for sunlight.

The age and varietal of these tea trees is varied, but all of them thrive in the wild, having grown unattended by humans in this remote forest for many years. The smaller tea trees are around 80 to 90 years old, and the bigger ones are between 200 and 300 years old.

The tea from their leaves is powerful, intense, and also delicate and nourishing. The liquor feels weighty and substantial, gushing with forest. It’s incredible density is lifted by a bright, active ferment flavour that leans towards sour. This tea smells funky, like mud and plant matter, and tastes sweet. It finishes with a soft, lingering, floral fragrance, characteristic of tea from Jinggu, Yunnan, as though signing its name in petals.

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Brewing guide