2015 Pasha Old Arbor Small Batch Raw Puerh

Private pressing from a Taiwanese producer, Shanghai stored. 

Only slightly over 20kgs of material was harvested from selected older trees in Pasha mountain region (although the wrapper says 88, a lucky number, there was only enough material for 70 cakes). A beautiful cake, this year's material was high quality (albeit expensive) as Mr. Liao secured first bid for this first flush selected picking very early in the season.

Like any authentic Pasha old arbor tea, this is a powerful and expressive tea with an edge that can offend if not handled respectfully.

TERROIR

Pasha mountain lies in Menghai county, sandwiched between Bulang and Nannuo mountains and known for its high quality and ancient tea gardens. In fact, the current, more famous, Banzhang area was cultivated by settlers who originally moved from Pasha and seeded new tea gardens from the original Pasha cultivars. Pasha mountain has an excellent ecosystem with plentiful rainfall and cool climate. This produces a "big" tea that is usually intense, slightly vegetal-tannic and grapefruit bitter but with powerful huigan.

TASTE PROFILE

This tea is exceptionally powerful in initial steeps, an old-style Menghai bittersweet backbone that has now aged into a rich root/leather core with lashings of walnuts and upfront wood tannin. Despite its brash entry, it is complex and textured on the palate, with quick and lasting huigan. Soup is thick, velvety textured. Later steeps retain the herbal and dark floral aromatics while upping the sweetness. It is exceptionally long-lived, with qi that is potent and persistent.

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