We bring you our exclusive Ripple, a sheng (raw) pu’er that we share with great joy. It is always exciting to bring you a tea comprised of mao cha from wild growing trees, completely spray-free, far away from the big city, pure as the driven snow. This leaf is from Lincang and grown on Xi Ban mountain, where we last visited in 2012. This is one of our favorite pu’er growing areas.

This tea is from 60 to to 80 year-old trees and was very skillfully picked in spring of 2020 and processed into mao cha. The leaves were meticulously stored at the farmers shop until we purchased the leaves in February of 2021. We then blended the leaves and pressed them into these 100 gram beauties on 3/1/2021 using traditional stone-pressing method.

A lovely and mellow sheng pu’er, we love how the minerals cause the delicate and vegetal flavors to linger on the tongue, creating a sweet and cooling sensation as we swallow, soothing the throat. For such a young tea, it’s surprising to taste so very little bitterness and the balanced flavor belies its immaturity.

Vegetal with floral and fruity notes in both aroma and flavor, we get hints of honey, especially in later steeps. There is spice (anise, fennel?), slight black pepper, dew-dampened hay and woodsy, cedar and sandalwood notes.

We would be remiss to leave out how this tea makes the us feel. In a word: Fantastic. We mentioned earlier that the tea cools the mouth and throat, but in our bodies, there is a warming that occurs. Rather than the jittery caffeine buzz present in so many young sheng pu’ers, it is gentle in its release of energy, leaving us with a soft glow in body and mind. We love the vibe of this one quite a lot and we think you will, too.