We labelled this as 2021 since it was pressed this Spring, but in fact it contains no tea from 2021. It’s a blend we worked on earlier in the year, taking small quantities of high end tea that we’d been storing as maocha from the past few years. It’s all from ancient trees, from Yiwu Guoyoulin gardens, Guafengzhai, Bulang and some other single trees.
It’s already got a nice, slightly aged character. The tea is thick, rich and powerful, with a nice bitter edge creeping in from the Bulang trees. We don’t often release blends, but these teas were each very special on their own and we’ve been really pleasantly surprised how nicely they have worked together in this cake. It’s something that we wouldn’t be able to recreate, even if we tried!