Thirteen-years Cave-Aged Liubao

13年陈六堡

Harvest
April 2010

Origin
Liu Bao, Guangxi

This is a very refined example of Liu Bao tea, made entirely from the youngest first harvest leaves from Liu Bao, Wuzhou, Guangxi. The tea was crafted in the spring of 2010, and then aged in an underground cave for 10 years. We purchased it when it was released from the cave in 2020, and have been aging it ourselves for the last 3 years.

Brewing it now, we are quite astounded by the quality of this Liu Bao. Its luminous, ruby red liquor darkens throughout infusions, becoming increasingly dense with colour and weighty in the mouth, but no less clear in both taste and appearance.

As we would expect from a tea that spent so many years in a cave, we taste wet rocks and mineral pitch. It has a ferment quality similar to ripe pu’erh, but is less viscous and lighter in feel. In fact, the taste of this cave aged Liu Bao is almost a perfect opposite of sweetness: its uplifting mineral notes and wet-earth flavour leaves us feeling clarified, and with re-calibrated senses. 

*It occurs to us that, in 2023, this tea is red enough to perhaps offer cellular protection for those born in the year of the rabbit 

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Brewing guide