Jiutaipo Ancient Tree

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 of this pu'erh raw, made from leaves he collected on his foraging trips.

It is a privilege for us to present this special pu'erh raw from the ancient trees of Jiutaipo. "Jiutaipo" is the name of a very small, remote village in Jinggu, Yunnan. There are only 41 households here, and nearby them stand some of the oldest and most difficult to access tea gardens in Jinggu.

This tea comes from a beautiful alpine garden at 6000 ft elevation. The tea trees are of the indigenous Mengku "Big-Leaf" varietal, and are all between 150-200 years old. They were planted by people in the late Qing Dynasty, with the intention of producing tea for export to Myanmar, Hong Kong and Macau.

The tea garden sits on the west side of the mountain, receiving plenty of sunshine while surrounded by a healthy old growth forest. There are no built roads leading to the garden, making it very hard to find and reach. The tea trees are considered semi-wild, because while they were planted for cultivation centuries ago, they have survived untended, with minimal human intervention.

Traditional practice is to only harvest these trees once-per-year, in the spring. For this one special harvest only the first leaves are picked. The first harvest leaves are then crafted into a cake using a traditional sun-drying technique that best preserves their powerful energetics.

The 2026 harvest is less metallic and more mineralic, this harvest still conjures melted rock as it pushes warmth through the body. We feel the force and clarity of its energetics and a pleasing lemon note coming from the ferment on the finish. If you smell the wet leaves you will immediately detect how much energy they contain. This tea cake has so much to offer, it's very well suited for aging.