'Menghai, Yunnan, China'

老同志 [典藏 48] 喬木青餅

Arbor tea tree first flush shengcha

As mentioned in Old Comrade 7548, the idea of Master Zou Bing Liang’s range of numerically named series of Pu’er cha bings is to make quality more accessible by collecting leaves from lesser known “mountains” rather than from those highly sought origins*. This Classic Reserve 48 carries that same mission. This tea has been made unique by restricting the material to only spring harvested leaves from arbor type tea trees — those with a single big central trunk kind of trees. While scientists have yet to agree on the different taxonomy of the large number of visibly different type of tea trees there in the vast tea forests spread across the deep mountains in Yunnan, it is a known fact that leaves from these tea trees hold much higher contents of caffeine, carotenoids, flavonoids and other volatile compounds. And you can tell. The first thing that may shock you when you unfold the old and worn wrapping paper to see those tiny white specks on the surface of the cha bing — crystals of caffeine. Partly due to the much higher contents of the compounds and partly because Hai Wan (the name of Master Zou's tea factory) typically uses a hydraulic press set at 2 tons pressure to compress the cha bing. While it is much less obvious in other bings, the abundant caffeine surfaced through evaporation during the years of airtight storage, facilitate also by the high contents of other flavour materials. You can taste the difference. This is the most wonderfully matured Pu’er we have to offer with an unparalleled richness. Following the same philosophy of the old master, we have priced it very accessibly*. Enjoy. Net weight per discus: 400 g (14.1 oz)